Chamber and committees

We do not hold the requested information centrally.

The health and wellbeing of individuals, communities and the economy are amongst our top priorities. Employers should follow Scottish guidance and have policies and practices in place that promote good health, safety and wellbeing in the workplace. We are raising awareness of support through investment in Healthy Working Lives , which provides information and advice on a range of wellbeing matters.

The Scottish Government also funds Working Health Services Scotland to support individuals working for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to return to work from sickness absence, ensuring they are aware of their employer’s statutory duty to ensure their health and safety is protected. This includes supporting employees to follow health protection advice and undertaking risk assessments of work activity to agree appropriate mitigating measures.

Work to review the Minimum Unit Price (MUP) level was paused in order to respond to the urgent demands of handling the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This has restarted in order to review the level of the MUP in the course of this year. The price level will be considered in line with the latest evidence on the affordability of alcohol. Should the Scottish Government consider that an amendment is required to the MUP level, any proposals would of course be brought to Parliament for full consideration.

The Scottish Government regularly publishes statistics and management information relating to its Covid-19 business grants on its website. The latest publication that includes details of the Strategic Framework Business Fund was published on 10 March 2021.

In the 2021-22 Budget, we announced an additional £125 million of funding to help people impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic access employment opportunities.

This includes:

• £70 million for the Young Person’s Guarantee – continuing to provide work, education or training for every 16 to 24-year-old across Scotland
• £35 million for skills and retraining, including for the National Transition Training Fund, which supports people who are unemployed or at risk of redundancy due to COVID-19
• £20 million for No One Left Behind – helping people who are long-term unemployed move towards and into work

This additional £125 million in our latest budget is just one strand of the Scottish Government’s proposed investment of over £1 billion for jobs and skills, including further funding for Skills Development Scotland and Fair Start Scotland. It will allow us to extend the reach of these key initiatives and help meet demand, building on our substantial existing investment in education, employability and skills and supporting a strong economic recovery for Scotland.

We are also focussed on delivering the maximum support for the businesses and the economy as possible and the Find Business Support website contains information on the range of business support available. £460 million was allocated to the Economy, Fair Work & Culture portfolio for strategic framework business support in Stage 2 of the 2021-22 Budget (Scotland) Bill.

The Scottish Government welcomed Alzheimer Scotland’s Fair Dementia Care Report and began consideration of the report’s call for a definition of advanced dementia care, free at the point of delivery, prior to the onset of the pandemic.

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport announced in Parliament on 16 February that the Scottish Government supports the recommendations of the Independent Review of Adult Social Care and, subject to the outcome of the election, would support the creation of a National Care Service which will ensure there is national accountability for the delivery of social care. As an initial response to the Independent Review recommendations there is an increase in rates of allowances for free personal and nursing care by 7.5% from 1 April. This was welcomed by Alzheimer Scotland as a first step in meeting the aims Fair Dementia Care.

In addition, learning from the pandemic, we are taking forward new work on clinical models of care in care homes and the report’s recommendations on improving the quality of care for people with advanced care needs will also be considered as part of that work.

We also continue to fund national dementia workforce development and service improvement programmes to support the delivery of high quality dementia care. We will also take forward work with Health Boards and others to explore how we might expand the focus on the Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Nurse Consultants – part funded by the Scottish Government, Health Boards and Alzheimer Scotland – to include additional strategic work with the care home sector.

The Scottish Government’s Dementia and COVID-19 Action Plan was published in December, to build on, continue and expand national action on supporting people with dementia, their families and carers in response to the pandemic.

I met with the UK Government’s Minister for Crime Reduction and Policing on 11 February 2021, and the Minister for Prevention, Public Health and Primary Care on 24 February 2021.

During the meetings I highlighted the specific challenges we face in tackling the public health emergency we are experiencing in relation to drug deaths, and outlined the range of work we are already taking forward to tackle this complex issue.

I also raised specific issues where UK Government action is required to support the approaches we wish to take, including the introduction of overdose prevention facilities; the introduction of drug checking facilities; regulation of the sale of pill press machines that are used to mass produce street benzodiazepines; and amending existing naloxone regulations that will help further increase the availability of this life saving drug.

The Scottish Government regularly publishes statistics and management information relating to its Covid-19 business grants on its website. The latest publication that includes details of the Strategic Framework Business Fund was published on 10 March 2021.

We are focused on delivering the maximum support for the economic recovery of our town centres.

Grants of up to £7,500 for retailers and up to £19,500 for hospitality and leisure businesses will be paid in April to help businesses, including town centre businesses, re-open progressively. These one-off re-start grants will replace ongoing Strategic Framework Business Fund payments and will provide more money up front to help with the costs of re-opening.

We have extended 100% Non-Domestic Rates relief for all retail, leisure and hospitality premises for all of 2021-22 – this is more generous than the equivalent rates reliefs available in other UK nations.

To support sustained longer-term renewal for our towns, cities and villages, we are establishing a Place Based Investment Programme backed by £325 million capital investment over 5 years from 2021-22. The Programme aims to link and align all place based funding initiatives and progress our ambitions for community-led regeneration, town centres and 20 minute neighbourhoods. It will build on the additional £34 million economic stimulus for regeneration and towns and other funding provided specifically for town centres, smaller settlements and Business Improvement Districts in the current financial year.

Building on over £1.85 million direct funding to BIDs since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we will provide more than £600,000 funding to Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in 2021-22 to support economic recovery. This will support BIDs to manage continued risks caused by the effect of the pandemic, in particular those due to re-ballot during or after March 2021.

Scotland’s Towns Partnership (STP),the Scottish Government’s BIDs support partner, is working closely with Hamilton Our Town BID to ensure the BID is aware of and benefitting from all available support. The BID has received over £46,000 in direct funding from the Scottish Government during the pandemic. STP will continue to work with the BID and South Lanarkshire Council through recovery to ensure the BID can actively support progress across its levy members and wider community.

The update on the funding for Autism Network Scotland is that I met with Richard Ibbotson on 18 March 2021, to set out the reasons for the withdrawal of funding and to allow him an opportunity to convey his views directly to me. I explained the decision and that I had considered this carefully but concluded that my decision remained.

The Scottish Government remains committed to improving the lives of autistic people in Scotland.