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As announced in March 2023, of the £30 million allocated for the Fuel Insecurity Fund this financial year, £9 million was made available to Advice Direct Scotland to administer the Home Heating Support Fund.

To date, Advice Direct Scotland (ADS) have claimed £5 million for the Home Heating Support Fund, from a total of £9 million allocated for this financial year, with the bulk of funding expected to be distributed across the winter months.

ADS' internal controls are in place to appropriately manage the allocation of funding up to end March 2024.

a) Since the start of the current financial year (2023-24) up to and including 3 December 2023, 10,798 applications were received for the Home Heating Support Fund. Of these:

Approved - 5,255

Ongoing* – 2,741

*Ongoing applications are those that are being progressed, awaiting a decision or additional evidence, or are households who require debt advice before being accepted.

b) Rejected – 2,802

As per the answer to S6W-23335 on 11 December 2023, Advice Direct Scotland works with rejected applicants to ensure they have what they need to reapply. When either a referral partner or individual re-applies, the original application is used and cross-referenced with the new evidence provided.

Rejected applications are provided with a clear, bespoke explanation detailing what is required to re-apply, and both individual households and referral partners have access to follow-up support through email and telephone. Referral partners are also given training on supporting customers, particularly those who are vulnerable.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

As part of the £30 million investment in the Fuel Insecurity Fund for 2023/24, the Scottish Government has allocated £9 million for the Home Heating Support Fund (HHSF), administered by Advice Direct Scotland (ADS), to support households with increased energy costs.

The most common reasons for HHSF applications being rejected are that evidence requirements are not met; or the customer has not already received debt advice, which is a requirement for support. As part of the appropriate verification and compliance process, relevant supporting evidence is required.

ADS adopt an holistic support approach, meaning that households presenting with debts exceeding £1,700 are internally passed to their FCA-accredited debt advice team for more comprehensive support and debt solutions. In all cases, ADS works with the applicant to ensure they have what they need to reapply to the HHSF.

The SPCB takes very seriously its responsibility for the wellbeing of its staff.  That’s why it approved a Positive About Mental Health and Wellbeing Policy which applies to MSPs, their staff and SPCB staff.  In support of this policy the SPCB has put in place a number of measures including our Employee Assistance Programme and online resources, self-assessment tools and intranet links to external resources.  Our People and Culture team support MSPs, their staff and SPCB staff to access the help that they need, when they need it.

Nobody in our society should ever be subjected to Islamophobia, and we recognise we need to do more to tackle it in Scotland.

We previously consulted with communities affected by Islamophobia on whether adoption of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) or some other definition of Islamophobia would be helpful. Although communities were broadly supportive of a definition, there was no consensus on the APPG definition.

Our Hate Crime Strategy sets out our strategic priorities for tackling hate crime in Scotland, including Islamophobia. It was informed by communities with lived experience of hate crime, including Muslim communities.

Our Hate Crime Strategy Delivery Plan, published this week, commits to a range of meaningful, ongoing and participatory engagement. We will continue to engage with Muslim communities in Scotland to understand the issues of importance to them as we move into strategy delivery.

A total of 9 active working groups sit under the remit of the Social Justice portfolio. This includes the following:

• Building Standards Futures Board Working Group
• Disability Equality Immediate Priorities Plan Short Life Working Group
• Housing Affordability Working Group
• Human Rights Bill Implementation Working Group
• Managing Cost Pressures Working Group
• Ministerial Working Group on Building and Fire Safety
• Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) Cross Sector Working Group
• Section 3.3 Flooding and Groundwater Working Group
• Social Security Independent Advocacy Short Life Working Group

Tackling poverty and protecting people from harm is one of three critical and interdependent missions for the government – alongside our focus on the economy and strengthening public services. We recognise that families with a child under the age of one are more likely to live in poverty and, as set out in Best Start, Bright Futures, our second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, are taking forward a range of action to help.

We have already significantly strengthened support through devolved social security. The Scottish Child Payment is worth £25 per eligible child per week with 316,000 children benefiting as of 30 June 2023. Programme for Government 2023-24 commits to further increasing the value of the Scottish Child Payment in line with inflation next year and to introducing regulations that remove income thresholds from Best Start Foods from February 2024, supporting an additional 20,000 people.

In addition we have delivered over a quarter of a million Baby Boxes to expectant parents – providing them with more than £400 worth of essential items for their newborn – and are committed to investing £500 million in Whole Family Wellbeing to improve holistic family support so that families get the right support, in the right way and at the right time.

Over 11,000 families have benefited from the Family Nurse Partnership since it began in 2010 and we have committed to further expansion over the next two years to reach more young mothers and fathers.

We have also implemented the Universal Health Visitor Pathway across Scotland, to ensure that all families get a minimum of 11 home visits – eight in the first year of life and three child health reviews up to age 5 – and we are supporting health visitors to have more meaningful conversations around financial inclusion through piloting dedicated training to increase their skills and confidence in discussing money worries and provide related guidance.

Between 2019 and 2023, we have invested £26 million in the development of perinatal and infant mental health services across Scotland.

Additionally, we have led work in Scotland to raise awareness of the unique nutritional needs of infants, and engaged a wide range of stakeholders to take action to develop Emergency pathways on Infant Food Insecurity, integrated into wider, locally directed and holistic income maximisation and food insecurity supports.

As set out in our Programme for Government, we will continue to invest in primary prevention from pre-birth through the earliest years and have set out ambitious plans to expand access to funded childcare for 13,000 more children and families by the end of this Parliament

It is estimated that 90,000 fewer children will live in relative and absolute poverty this year as a result of this Government’s policies, with poverty levels 9% points lower that they would have otherwise been. This includes lifting an estimated 50,000 children out of relative poverty through our Scottish Child Payment.

The Scottish Government will continue to do everything within the scope of our powers and budget in order to tackle and reduce child poverty, including for families with a child under the age of one.