Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government requires providers to collect equality information as part of the delivery of our employment services, Fair Start Scotland (from April 2018), Work First Scotland and, managed by SDS, Work Able Scotland. Part of the rationale for collecting this information is to help ensure that equalities groups are benefitting from the services, but we will also be undertaking evaluation activity to better understand if and how participants’ needs are being met.

We will consider the report and its findings carefully as we take forward our commitment to a new Planning Bill, taking account of the views of communities, professionals and other stakeholders across Scotland.

In the event of a referendum on independence, the Scottish Government will set out how Scotland’s relationship with Europe will be secured.

The Race Equality Framework committed the Scottish Government to fill the gaps in current knowledge on how and to what extent minority ethnic people are accessing the benefits they are entitled to. The Framework covers the period 2016-2030, and we have already taken some action on this front.

During the social security consultation, we spoke directly to minority ethnic groups and listened closely to what they told us in terms of the issues they faced of access and culture with a view to ensuring that the delivery of our social security system understands and can support action to overcome these barriers.

The benefit take up campaign launched in March 2017 was the first phase of our work in this area. This work will be developed over the course of the parliamentary term. We will continue to listen to and take views from a range of equality organisations on how best to increase take up amongst groups that are currently under represented as part of this process. We remain absolutely committed to working with our partners to ensure that all groups and communities access what they are entitled to.

More widely social security Experience Panels will ensure that those in receipt of benefits are involved in designing the social security system in a meaningful way. By sampling from DWP lists of current recipients, and by having separate panels for each benefit (or group of benefits) each panel will be representative of people in Scotland currently receiving the devolved benefits. The sample has been drawn using the National Record of Statistics postcode list for Scotland so will cover all areas of Scotland. We will also work closely with key organisations to ensure that minority ethnic communities are fully represented on the panels.

An initial equality impact assessment was published as part of the social security consultation with a request for respondents to help develop this further for publication alongside the Social Security Bill.

The Scottish Government puts employee engagement and workforce development at the heart of its organisational transformation programme (SG2020) and underpinning People Strategy. We are committed to giving all our people the opportunity to shine, to nurturing talent at all levels and to having a diverse workforce reflective of the communities we serve.

Diversity and equality by its very nature is not a ‘one size fits all’ policy or initiative. A fairer, more inclusive society, community or workforce is one where everyone feels confident to play their part. We approach increasing diversity and inclusion in the organisation in the round. We agree that of itself, unconscious bias training is not a solution. We make use of unconscious bias training within an overall approach to become a more open, capable and responsive organisation.

All of our Director Generals are diversity “allies”, engaging directly with staff and supporting our many diversity networks. Our diversity networks are supported by senior civil service volunteer “champions”, raising awareness and creating dialogue about diversity and inclusion in our organisation. We gather data from our staff and support and challenge teams to enable everyone to be themselves at work. We do also offer access to online Civil Service Learning equality and diversity training, which is created and evaluated by UK Civil Service Learning. Our Diversity and Equality team regularly engages with staff across the Scottish Government. They raise awareness of the Scottish Government Diversity and Equality ambitions and plans and encourage engagement with the wider equalities agenda within teams, both as members of staff and as policy makers to the people of Scotland. The Removing Barriers report recommends that the ‘Scottish Government works with public bodies to undertake their own review of equality and diversity training which is offered to employees and to use the specific duty of assessing and reviewing practice in the Equality Act 2010 to drive this work forward.’ We are in the process of reviewing and improving the equality and diversity training and development that is offered to SG employees as part of our work to increasing diversity and inclusion in the organisation.

We take positive action to improve our diversity. When we recruit into the organisation, we are deliberately focussing on increasing applicants from underrepresented groups. We are currently recruiting our second Graduate Development Programme cohort. This has included close liaison with our internal Race and Equality Network and with external BME groups. As a consequence of this targeted marketing, the number of BME applicants rose from 10% (148 of 1474) in 2015 to 12.4% (347 of 2790) in 2017. The selection process has also been updated to reduce barriers and features positive action for BME applicants.

Tax revenues from oil and gas production depend on a range of different factors including production, prices and profitability.

Scotland’s economic fundamentals are strong. Even without oil, GDP per head in Scotland is higher than the UK average excluding London.

The North Sea has a bright future, with potential for up to 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent remaining in the UK Continental Shelf. The Scottish Government will focus our efforts on supporting the sector to protect employment, provide valuable primary energy supplies, develop its skills as part of the transition to a low carbon economy, and develop a greater international supply chain that is innovative and generate export led growth.

This information is not held centrally.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) publishes statistics on accidental dwelling fires, broken down by local authority, however this data is not broken down into specific causes.

These statistics are available on SFRS’s website, and can be found at this link http://www.firescotland.gov.uk/about-us/fire-and-rescue-statistics.aspx

The SFRS has a statutory duty to promote fire safety across Scotland. In the Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland 2016, Scottish Ministers require SFRS to contribute fully to improving the safety and well-being of Scotland’s communities and to ensure that there is a clear process for working with partners to identify the risks faced by communities and individuals so that activity can be targeted using a risk-based approach.

The SFRS considers how best to reduce dwelling fires, including those caused by electricity, what the focus of its preventative action will be, and with which partner organisations it will work to achieve this.

In addition to a programme of fire safety awareness campaigns and community safety engagement events, the SFRS carried out 71,743 Home Fire Safety Visits in 2015-16. The SFRS website also carries safety information for householders on a range of issues, including home appliances and electrical safety.

This information for Scotland is not held centrally. A methodology for estimating costs for England was developed by the UK Department for Communities and Local Government. This was last updated in 2008 using data available at that time, and published in its Fire Research Report 3/2011. The report is available online here; http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121108165934/http:/www.communities.gov.uk/documents/corporate/pdf/1838338.pdf

This information for Scotland is not held centrally. A methodology for estimating costs for England was developed by the UK Department for Communities and Local Government. This was last updated in 2008 using data available at that time, and published in its Fire Research Report 3/2011. The report is available online here; http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121108165934/http:/www.communities.gov.uk/documents/corporate/pdf/1838338.pdf

SFRS works with partners in communities to identify risks and to target fire prevention activities at those most vulnerable and it is SFRS, in collaboration with those partners, who is best placed to develop and inform fire prevention strategies on a local and national basis.