Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of enhancing mental health awareness and provision within the public sector and wider workplace.

Our Clear Your Head campaign has been in place since April 2020 to help people look after their mental health during the pandemic. Given the particular pressures on Health & Social Care over this period, we have provided a range of additional wellbeing support to the Health and Social Care workforce including the National Wellbeing Hub, the National Wellbeing Helpline, Coaching for Wellbeing, the Workforce Specialist Service and additional funding for psychological interventions and therapies to support the mental health of Health and Social Care staff.

More generally, we continue to support See Me, Scotland’s national campaign to end mental health stigma and discrimination, improving the culture, policies and practices for workplaces. Our ambition is for a trauma informed workforce across Scotland, supported by our National Trauma Training Programme. We also have a short life working group in place to take forward key actions relating to employment and mental health from our ‘Covid 19 Mental Health Transition and Recovery’ plan.

The Self-directed Support (Direct Payments) (Scotland) Regulations 2014 set out that people in receipt of a direct payment, Option 1 of Self-directed Support, may employ family members where this is deemed appropriate in certain prescribed circumstances. However, if the family member is acting as Power of Attorney or Guardian and managing a direct payment, it is prohibited under the Section 9 of the Direct Payment regulations for family members to be employed as personal assistants.

Local authorities should consider requests to employ family members on a case by case basis, taking into account the family member’s health, their capacity to provide the required care, and other welfare and wellbeing factors.

Skills Development Scotland publish Modern Apprenticeship statistics quarterly under official statistics protocols, by financial year rather than calendar year.

Apprenticeships have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic as employers have reviewed, delayed and paused recruitment plans. Official statistics published by Skills Development Scotland (SDS) on 25 May 2021 reported 18,655 Modern Apprenticeship starts by the end of Quarter 4 2020-21. Prior to Covid-19 we consistently exceeded annual Apprenticeship targets and we were on track to meet our target of 30,000 Modern Apprenticeships starts by 2020-21. As part of the recovery, we will build back up to 30,000 starts.

For 2021-22, official statistics published by Skills Development Scotland on 10 August 2021 report 3,402 Modern Apprenticeship starts by the end of Quarter 1. This is 3.7 times the number of MA starts at the same time last year in Quarter 1 2020-21 (910 starts). In line with official statistics protocols Skills Development Scotland will publish further Modern Apprenticeship statistics at the end of each quarter.

The most recent statistics indicate that there has been an increase in the use of cocaine and crack cocaine over recent years and we are seeing this reflected in the drug-related death statistics. It is believed this increased use may be related to decreases in price and increases in purity. We also know that availability of cocaine across Europe has been at record levels in recent years.

This increase is part of a growing pattern of poly drug use. Of the 458 deaths where cocaine was implicated, there were 16 where cocaine was the only substance involved. Poly drug use continues to present new and complex challenges for treatment services and we continue our efforts in surveillance to understand and respond to emerging drug trends.

We continue to work closely with Police Scotland, drug treatment services and key stakeholders to closely monitor the situation and ensure the appropriate services are in place for those most at risk.

People should be provided with high quality person centred treatment regardless of the type of drugs they are using. Alcohol and Drug Partnerships use both national and local data and intelligence to commission appropriate services that respond to the immediate and changing needs of their population.

It is also vital that we continue to closely monitor drug trends, as well as the harms associated with drug use. One of the key pieces of work being taken forward by the Drug Deaths Task Force is work to improve our public health surveillance of drugs.

The Drug Deaths Taskforce are in regular contact with colleagues at Public Health Scotland around receiving data relating to drugs and receive this quarterly, which is then fed back to the Taskforce.

There are also a range of projects funded by the Taskforce, which have identified key issues around drug trends and harms in a wide range of areas across Scotland, and this information is being collated and will be shared and used to help make important decisions around highlighting trends and harms along with tackling these efficiently and quickly.

Throughout the development of our new social security system our overriding commitment is to the safe and secure transfer of disability assistance from the Department for Work and Pensions to Social Security Scotland. It is essential that clients continue to receive the payments they rely on. However, our decision-making processes will be significantly improved in order to better meet the needs of clients. This includes an expedited application process for clients who are terminally ill. We are also significantly improving the definition of terminal illness by removing arbitrary time constraints and ensuring decisions are better informed by clinical judgement.

To ensure that a policy, project or scheme does not unlawfully discriminate against any protected characteristic, the Scottish Government develops an Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) at the onset of each policy. The 2021 STEM bursary EQIA can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.scot/publications/stem-bursary-equality-impact-assessment-2021/

Extenuating circumstances will be considered at the STEM bursary advisory group in advance of a 2022 STEM bursary scheme.

The Scottish Government will undertake a comprehensive awareness raising campaign which will run across a range of channels including TV, Radio and digital to ensure people are aware of the new legislation and encourage compliance. This will include material to support third sector stakeholders and messaging on the importance of using reputable tradespeople including signposting to local government Trading Standards.

The Strategic Framework within Scotland’s Scams Prevention, Awareness and Enforcement Strategy, published in 19 March 2021, focusses on prevention, disruption, awareness, education and enforcement. This is intended to help all consumers with practical steps they can take to recognise common scam tactics and avoid the risk posed by this criminal activity.

Further advice can be obtained from consumeradvice.scot which is a free consumer helpline funded by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government received a total of £9.7 billion in Barnett consequentials from the UK Government for 2020-21, with £8.6 billion allocated throughout 2020-21 and £1.1 billion deferred into 2021-22. The Scottish Government set out details of the allocation of the £8.6 billion in the Summer, Autumn and Spring Budget Revisions for that year.

A total of £4.7 billion of Covid-19 consequentials are available for 2021-22, including the £1.1 billion deferred from 2020-21. The allocation of £3.7 billion of this is set out in the Budget Act for 2021-22, as amended and approved by Parliament. Details of the allocation of the remaining £1 billion of further Barnett consequentials, allocated to the Scottish Government at the UK Main Estimates in May, will be included in the Autumn Budget Revision in September, in line with the information on allocations provided by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Economy in her letter to the Finance and Public Administration Committee in June.

I provided details of the provisional outturn position for 2020-21 to the Parliament on 17 June. Final outturn on all Scottish Government spending for 2020-21 is still being finalised and will be set out in the Scottish Government Accounts, to be published in December.

Tracking of actual spending during the year is managed in different ways depending on the nature of the funding. For areas such as Business Support, where grant funding is clearly identified as Covid-19, expenditure to date has been tracked and details are regularly published externally;

See Scottish Government statistics publication site: Coronavirus (COVID-19): business support funding statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

For other areas were funding has been provided to a sector, the additional payments relating to Covid allocations are included in the standard monthly payments out to individual bodies. For example payments to Health Boards are often paid as one monthly amount with subsequent reporting from Boards on how that funding has been allocated across different priorities. In some instances its is not always possible to distinguish the application of Covid funding from the wider day to day activities of the organisation as they work through the recovery.

The following table contains details of instances over the last five financial years where the Scottish Government has waived the Right to Recover Housing Association Grant on previously grant funded projects and where the grant was not recycled within the Affordable Housing Supply Programme.

Scottish Government collaborates with a range of partners to ensure that schools have the information, advice and support to engage with both COP26 specifically, and climate change issues and climate change education more broadly.

Education Scotland, as the national inspection and improvement agency for education, is taking steps to help schools to engage with the themes of the COP26 summit, and to consider how and in what ways they could further improve their approach to climate education and Learning for Sustainability (LfS) at school level.

Highlights and resources include the following:

'Countdown to COP' will be an online initiative aimed at early years and primary to support engagement with COP26 and its five themes (nature, energy transition, finance, clean transport, adaptation and resilience). Countdown to COP will begin on 13 September and run to 29 October, although resources are not time-sensitive and can therefore be used beyond these dates. Countdown to COP will be promoted through Education Scotland's communications channels and its Local Authorities Network.

Scotland's Assembly , delivered by Education Scotland in partnership with the e-Sgoil initiative and available via the Glow system, will be focusing on COP and hearing from people working in the thematic areas across Scotland.

Education Scotland is working closely with Sustainability Partnerships (a teacher group based in Edinburgh and the Lothians) to develop a template resource pack that can be used by schools, education authorities and others to run their own COP26-style summits both locally and regionally.

The Learning for Sustainability Awards 2021 are being held in partnership with The Daily Record and will help to gather good practice examples of Learning for Sustainability across Scotland. Award categories are: Youth; Practitioner; Leadership; Learning Community; Educational Supporter; and Community Learning and Development.

Local authorities, funded by Scottish Government, also provide a key role in providing their own information resources to schools. A COP26/Learning for Sustainability Local Authority Forum is being run by Education Scotland and enables all 32 local authorities to share and plan activity around COP26 and Learning for Sustainability. Members of this forum are also planning a professional learning programme for post-COP26. One example of information and education resources and activities provided via local authorities is Glasgow City Council's 'Our Dear Green Place' initiative, launched on 12 May 2021. The local authority has put in place a range of resources to ensure access and engagement with both COP26 and Our Dear Green Place resources and professional learning. The resources will be continually updated as practitioner and partner engagement progresses.

An Education Scotland COP26 Partner Forum (jointly chaired with YouthLink Scotland) is providing a means for more than 50 Third Sector partners to co-ordinate their various offers for young people leading up to, during and post-COP26. Partner resources and offers are being shared with schools through a 'Wakelet'.

In addition to the above, Scottish Government funds Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB) to provide the Eco-Schools and Climate Ready Classrooms programmes. As part of the lead up to COP26 KSB will be offering three new interactive teaching and training sessions: a week of workshops for upper primary classes; a Continuing Professional Development session for primary and secondary educators; and a climate action workshop for high school pupils and Eco-Committees.