Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that the views of the private, voluntary and childminding sector are heard and reflected in national policy. For example, the Scottish Government consulted on different funding models before the Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) expansion to 1140 hours.

I hosted a meeting with sector representatives on Tuesday 18 April to hear about challenges and opportunities for the sector, and I will be undertaking a programme of engagement over the next few months.

Senior Scottish Government officials also engage regularly with the sector, including through the Childcare Sector Working Group and the National Childcare Providers Forum.

The Scottish Government and COSLA have engaged with providers as part of the work on the joint review of the process for setting Sustainable Rates in 2022-23. I will consider the findings of this review carefully when it reports this summer.

Support for care experienced young people when they become parents is threaded through a number of Scottish Government policies.

These include the Family Nurse Partnership where first time parents aged under 20 are supported by family nurses from early pregnancy until their child’s second birthday. This intensive, relational based support helps address social and economic factors, such as housing stability, welfare, education, employment and money advice. Over the next few years the Scottish Government has committed to extending this programme to young parents aged 21 and under, and to target parents aged 25 and under who have experience of care..

Through Early Learning and Childcare, parents with experience of care can access up to 1140 hours a year of funded childcare for their child from their second birthday. There is evidence of the particular benefits of high quality ELC for children from disadvantaged circumstances, which includes children with experience of care or whose parents have experience of care. We are continuing to work with local authorities to maximise uptake of the existing offer of funded ELC for eligible two-year-olds.

Support is also available through the five family payments: the Scottish Child Payment, Best Start Foods and the three Best Start Grants. These payments could be worth around £10,000 by the time an eligible child turns six years old.

As part of our commitment to Keeping the Promise, we will continue to develop and invest in policies to support care experienced parents.

Fundamentally, access to education is an issue of fairness. Scotland has a truly world-class higher education system, perhaps the most powerful weapon there is to combat socioeconomic inequality. It is our firm belief that Scotland has a moral, social and economic duty to tackle this inequality. We remain committed to the principle that access to education should be based on the ability to learn and not the ability to pay.

With regards to the cost of living crisis, we are committed to providing a student support system that is agile and supportive and prioritises support for those who need it most. We have taken positive steps to reform the student support landscape and made significant progress to deliver a student support package equivalent to the living wage. The most vulnerable students, including estranged and care experienced students, can now access up to £9,000 per year through bursaries and loans. Scottish Government have also reaffirmed their position that, unlike elsewhere in the UK, tuition fees for Scottish students studying in Scotland are free.

We understand that this is a challenging time for many students. We have provided £16.8m in hardship funding to higher education students studying in colleges and universities for the current academic year to support students experiencing financial hardship. We have also provided £135m in student support for FE students attending college in the current academic year. Colleges can use these funds flexibly to meet demand across FE student bursaries, childcare and hardship funding.

Universal Credit is reserved to Westminster and the UK Government has deliberately introduced age discrimination within it. We agree with campaigners that it should be paid at the same amount to everyone.

Universal Credit should be supporting families and children, not punishing them and we continue to call on the UK Government to urgently review Universal Credit, as it is fundamentally not fit for purpose.

We already take action to protect people against the impact of UK Government policies including the bedroom tax and benefit cap but we cannot mitigate every action from our fixed budget.

The Scottish Child Payment was doubled in April 2022 to £20 per eligible child and increased again to £25 when we extended it to under 16s in November, an increase of 150% in less than eight months.

The Register is a significant transparency measure that will shed light on who makes decisions about Scotland’s land. It has been live since 1 April 2022 and there is no charge to make a submission to the Register. For some, there may be a resource cost for the time taken to gather the information they require as part of their preparation prior to making a submission. The greater the number of properties owned, the greater the effort required is likely to be.

The Church of Scotland are one of the largest owners by volume of property titles held. This makes it important for the integrity of the Register that they comply with the RCI.

On 16 March 2023 the Scottish Parliament unanimously supported a 12-month extension to the transitional period to 1 April 2024 before offence provisions take effect. This is easing the burden by allowing those in scope to spread it over the coming year.

In letters of 16 February 2023 and 27 March 2023, the Scottish Government offered the Church of Scotland the option of another meeting with Registers of Scotland and Scottish Government officials to discuss how they can work together to help achieve compliance. The Scottish Government has not yet received a response to that offer, however officials will be in touch with the Church of Scotland to follow up on this.

The Scottish Government and Registers of Scotland are working together to deliver an additional engagement plan to help support stakeholders through the registration process. This will include additional awareness raising and a review of the existing guidance. It will not include further legislative intervention or legal advice.

Housing Benefit has been replaced by Universal Credit in all but a small number of specific circumstances. Recipients of Universal Credit need to notify their Work Coach of any additional income in a given monthly assessment period. A person’s income could increase, for instance, if they did additional hours or overtime in that period. Most recently, NHS Scotland staff received a one-off additional payment in their April salaries as part of the 2023-24 Agenda for Change pay settlement.

Additional income reduces or stops Universal Credit but it is important to stress that everyone should be better off overall as the taper rate is 55%, so for every pound in extra payments, the person keeps 45 pence. Universal Credit will then increase or begin again if someone’s income reduces in the next assessment period unless, for instance, the higher income represented by the substantive part of the NHS Scotland pay settlement places them above the qualifying criteria for Universal Credit.

Spreading the one-off payment over multiple months was considered at the time the 2023-24 Agenda for Change pay settlement was negotiated. However, it was not clear this would provide any advantage to the lower paid and indeed it may be more helpful to get the payment within one assessment period and return to a steady state following that.

The National Planning Improvement Champion will support improvement within the Scottish planning system. Recruitment for this new post, which will be based within the Improvement Service, is underway. Applications were invited by 31 March 2023 and are currently being assessed. We hope to have a successful candidate in post very soon.