Chamber and committees

Whilst the Scottish Government pivoted our work in respond to the pandemic, some work was forced to pause. This affected the setting up of a funding arrangement for the 2 year, £1 million fund that was committed to the Connected Scotland Strategy.

We have been in frequent and regular contact with the National Implementation Group that is overseeing the Strategy so that we can hear firsthand, issues that are arising and are working with the group to reassess our next steps in an altered landscape.

During our response to the pandemic, we set up a £350 million Supporting Communities Fund to ensure communities were directly supported with emergency funding, delivered at both national and local levels. Much of this supported wellbeing, access to food and helplines, all of which tackle isolation and loneliness. From that single fund, 442 organisations received funding including eight organisations in the Scottish Borders which received over £460,000.

Additionally, £43 million is being invested into communities through the Connecting Scotland digital scheme to provide people with access to digital devices and get them online. This will allow more people greater access to vital digital services as well as allow them opportunities to connect with friends and family.

We recognise the importance of tackling loneliness and we will continue to respond to the demands of the pandemic and the needs of communities across Scotland and those responses include making funding interventions where it is appropriate.

Police Scotland has been at the front and centre of the response to COVID-19 in Scotland, and continues to work closely with partners including local authorities and the NHS to support the response. We continue to be grateful to both police officers and staff who put themselves in harm’s way to protect the public.

This year the Scottish Government has increased funding for policing by £60 million to more than £1.2 billion. This 5.1% rise, compared to 2019-20, is ensuring that Police Scotland can maintain officer numbers, enhance its community policing capability and maintain and modernise its estate. Police Scotland has a higher number of police officers than at any time during the previous administration. At 30 September 2020, there were 17,249 officers, which is significantly above the level inherited in 2007.

Police Scotland has played an integral role in helping people do the right thing throughout the pandemic and have taken a sensible and proportionate response to enforcement whereby they Engage, Explain, Encourage and, only where necessary, Enforce, with this constituting a very small part of policing activity in relation to the COVID-19 response. The Chief Constable has provided assurance that the vast majority of interactions are focused on engaging, explaining, and encouraging, which supports our tradition of policing by consent.

The Scottish Government will continue to work closely with the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland to monitor and manage the financial impacts of COVID-19 on the policing budget.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-32782 on 9 November 2020. 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 .

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-32782 on 9 November 2020. 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 .

Following the changes to the tolerable standards, announced in March 2018, there was significant media coverage. The changes were further reported as they passed through Parliament, and regularly updated online information has been available since March 2018.

We have worked closely with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) who have continued to publicise the changes via themed social media campaigns, all linking to what the requirements mean for home owners.

Further information, literature and advice are also provided during SFRS’ Home Fire Safety Visits.

Interest free loan funding has been made available to support social landlords to make the changes. In addition, over 2018-20 we have provided the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) with £1m funding to install these alarms in the homes of people assessed to be at high risk from fire.

We will continue to explore all aspects of ensuring successful implementation of the changes, which we are now seeking to introduce from February 2022. This will include steps to ensure high levels of public awareness and appropriate support for homeowners.

Scotland joined the COVID-19 Infection Survey, led by the Office for
National Statistics, in September, with letters inviting households to
participate in the survey reaching the first households on Friday the
18 th of September. Fieldwork commenced in Scotland on Monday
the 21 st of September and has been ongoing since then. Approximately
5,000 households were invited to participate in the survey in Scotland
in the first week. As of the 29th of October, over 64,000 households
have been invited to participate in the survey.

The COVID-19 Infection Survey is being conducted by the Office for
National Statistics (ONS) and the University of Oxford, on behalf of the
UK and Scottish Government. The Scottish Government is not actively
involved in the training of swab technician and blood tester roles.

The first results for Scotland were published on Friday the 23 rd of October
and are published on the Scottish Government website, and on the ONS website : https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthand
socialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infection
surveypilot/previousReleases alongside results for England, Wales and
Northern Ireland.

While we have made a clear commitment to engage with Local Authorities on the setting of the individual levels, it is ultimately for Scottish Ministers to make decisions regarding their allocation, in line with their statutory powers to protect public health.

As indicated in our Coronavirus (COVID-19): Scotland’s Strategic Framework (https://www.gov.scot/publications/covid-19-scotlands-strategic-framework/ ) the measures are most likely to be applied at the level of local authorities, which is the basis of our initial allocation of levels. There is however discretion for Ministers to apply levels in future to whichever geography is most likely to be effective in suppressing the virus.

The estimate of R for Scotland on 28 October 2020 was that it was between 1.0 and 1.3. The Scottish Government calculates R at a national level but does not calculate it for the Scottish Borders, because the ranges around the estimates would be very large and would not help understanding of the differences between areas of Scotland. Instead of doing that, we use other ways to monitor the level of COVID-19 in regions; we use data such as positivity, case rate and hospitalisations to track the epidemic. For example, we use modelling based on Covid cases and deaths, conducted by Imperial College London, to give us an indication of whether a local authority is experiencing high levels of Covid. The model projects the epidemic two weeks into the future and computes probabilities of areas being hotspots at certain thresholds, where an area is defined as a hotspot if the cases (positive tests) per 100K population exceed a threshold, e.g. 500 weekly cases. For more information, please see Figure 11 and Table 1 in issue 24 of a series of Scottish Government Covid-19 modelling reports . An extract from Table 1 indicates the following probabilities for the Borders having more than 50, 100, 300 or 500 cases per 100,000 people in the week 8 - 14 Nov 2020:

Case rates per 100,000 are determined from the total number of positive
cases over 7 days. Between 23 October and 29 October 2020, the Borders
had a case rate of 39.8 per 100,000.

The 7 day number of cases for neighbourhoods in the Scottish Borders is
available from Public Health Scotland’s interactive dashboard which now
provides a map showing the number of cases in local areas, as well as trends
for local authorities and NHS boards https://public.tableau.com/profile/phs.covid
.19#!/vizhome/COVID-19DailyDashboard_15960160643010/Overview .
Of note, 5 Scottish Borders neighbourhoods had a 7 day positive case rate
per 100,000 over 100: Berwickshire East, Cheviot West, Jedburgh, Kelso
South and Tweeddale East Area.

This is a matter for the Office for National Statistics. The information requested is not held centrally.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-32817 on 9 November 2020. 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 .