Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government published Guidance for Completing a Disabled Access and Facilities Statement to support applicants in completing, and local authorities in assessing, the required statement. The Guidance advises that it is important to consider that not all disabilities are obvious and provides a list of disabilities, which may be hidden.

The Guidance can be viewed at http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2018/03/2767 .

The Scottish Government has published Guidance for Completing a Disabled Access and Facilities Statement to support applicants in completing, and local authorities in assessing, the required statement. The Scottish Government encouraged local authorities to provide a link to the Guidance alongside their alcohol premises/provisional premises licence application form.

The Guidance can be viewed at http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2018/03/2767 .

Legislation on equalities is largely reserved to the UK Government at Westminster.

However since 30 March 2018, individuals applying to their local Licensing Board for a new liquor premises licence have been required to provide a disability access and facilities statement along with their application. The statement is to contain information about disabled access to the premises and the facilities and any other provision available to aid the use of the premises by disabled people.

Scottish Ministers expect to lay regulations in September to amend the Licensing Register (Scotland) Regulations 2007. The amendment will require the statement accompanying an application for a premises or provisional premises licence to be contained in the public licensing register kept by every Licensing Board. This will provide access to some information held by local authorities.

This provision does not interfere with the existing duty under equality law to make reasonable adjustments to make sure that a person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard that is usually offered to non-disabled people.

There are no current plans for further legislation or work in this area.

The number of joiners and leavers across an entire year is not captured centrally. However, the equivalent information available centrally, showing the number of net joiners and net leavers for qualified nursing and midwifery staff in NHS Borders each year between 2008 and 2017 is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Qualified nursing and midwifery staff in NHS Borders - Net joiners and leavers, in each year ending 30 Sep, from 2008 to 2017 (Whole Time Equivalent).

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-17952 on ‎20 August 2018. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

The Scottish Government does not hold information on how many places have been offered at undergraduate level for music, drama or dance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in each year since 2007.

Information on the number of applicants to Conservatoires is collected by UCAS. Provider-level data is only available for applications for these institutions and breakdowns are limited to domicile, sex and age.

Information on the number of applicants and applications to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is collected by UCAS.

UCAS do not publish information on the number of applicants to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. However they do publish the number of applications to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland by sex since 2010. UCAS only provide a breakdown by institution and sex since 2010.

Applications to RCS by sex

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of applicants to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland by SIMD quintile between 2007 and 2018.

Information on the number of applicants to Conservatoires is collected by UCAS. Provider-level data is only available for applications for these institutions and breakdowns are limited to domicile, sex and age.

The Scottish Government acknowledges the important contribution of small and medium-sized enterprises to the Scottish economy and is committed to creating conditions which support businesses to start up and grow.

Supporting public, private, and third sector partners to deliver high-quality business support services is a core element of this commitment. This includes support provided through Business Gateway, delivered by local authorities, and by our enterprise agencies.

We are committed to the continual improvement of these services. We are working with partners to create a system of enterprise support which is designed around and focussed on the user, and responsive to the needs of Scotland’s ever-changing business base.

While improving start-up rates is a national objective, we also recognise the particular challenges facing the south of Scotland. We are establishing a new enterprise agency for the south of Scotland to respond to the needs of the area and to drive forward sustainable inclusive growth.

The Detect Cancer Early (DCE) Programme demonstrates the Scottish Government’s committed to increasing the proportion of breast, colorectal and lung cancers diagnosed at the earliest stage, when the chance of survival is higher. A number of initiatives are underway to help improve early detection rates of Scotland’s most common cancers.

(a) A new bowel screening test - FIT - was introduced to the Scottish Bowel Screening Programme in November 2017 which those eligible for screening in NHS Borders will now be receiving and benefiting from. The easier single-sample test is believed to be helping boost participation in bowel screening, which remains the most effective way to find bowel cancer early.

(b) Public awareness of early signs and symptoms is key to driving early stage diagnoses and ultimately improving cancer outcomes for people in NHS Borders. That’s why Detect Cancer Early’s lung cancer campaign – fronted by Sir Alex Ferguson – will be rolled out later in 2018, to raise awareness of a three week cough as an early sign of lung cancer. This will see activity running in the NHS Borders area specifically.

(c) Uptake of breast screening in NHS Borders (76.1%) exceeds the national standard (70%) however the Board is continuing to build on this with local targeted initiatives, including a workplace screening promotion campaign, to further increase uptake with support from the Scottish Government’s Health Inequalities Fund.

Meanwhile, a new Detect Cancer Early campaign will launch later in 2018 to reduce fear around cancer and empower people to act early. A refresh of the Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer is also currently under peer review with revised Guidelines expected to be published later this year, to support GPs.