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We welcome the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) Open Budget Survey report as a contribution to understanding how the Scottish Budget process might be improved.

We are strongly committed to the principles of open government and accordingly we participate actively in the Open Government Partnership.

The current Open Government Partnership Scottish Action Plan includes Commitment 1 on Fiscal Transparency which is designed to begin to address the issues that have been raised in the SHRC report. The Action Plan is available at https://www.gov.scot/policies/improving-public-services/open-government-partnership/ . Because of the impact of COVID-19 the delivery of the Scottish Action Plan has been delayed until December 2020, but significant progress has been made.

Information is not gathered centrally about infections and deaths from COVID-19 in different layouts of hospital wards. Information is gathered by ward speciality.

Publically available data on total cases by NHS Board and deaths is published daily by The Scottish Government here .

Health Protection Scotland (HPS) has detailed infection prevention and control guidance for COVID-19 for a wide range of healthcare settings. Guidance for hospital dormitory wards can be found within the Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) Guidance for primary care and secondary care documents:

https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/web-resources-container/covid-19-guidance-for-primary-care/

https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/web-resources-container/covid-19-guidance-for-secondary-care/

Additionally, all health and social care workers should follow infection prevention and control measures set out in the National Infection Prevention and Control Manual:

http://www.nipcm.scot.nhs.uk/

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-29250 on 5 June 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

Women’s position in the labour market is an issue which this Government takes very seriously, as our ambitious Gender Pay Gap Action Plan shows. We strongly encourage all employers to apply Fair Work principles to dealing with the impacts of Covid-19 on workers and workplaces. Fair Work principles, which include the commitment to tackle the Gender Pay gap, underpin our work with unions, businesses and other stakeholders, to develop guidance for the safe restart of the economy.

We will continue to give full consideration of the gendered impact and implications of COVID-19 in our wider response to the economic impacts of the current crisis. It is essential that our response to this pandemic is grounded in evidence, including gender sensitive, sex-disaggregated data. The Scottish Government continues to assess the impact of COVID-19 across the Scottish population. To this end, we recently published analysis which examined the expected labour market impacts of COVID-19 on different groups, including women.

As part of its remit, we have asked the Advisory Group on Economic Recovery to make recommendations on how we can harness the changes arising from Coronavirus to create a fairer and more inclusive economy for Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-29250 on 5 June 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-29250 on 5 June 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

Scottish mental health legislation is based on rights and principles as laid out within the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003. These include that any function should be carried out for the maximum benefit, with minimum necessary restriction and having regard to the views of the patient. The 2003 Act clearly sets out the duty to keep a patient’s detention status under review and like all other patient safeguards remain in place

Health Protection Scotland (HPS) has detailed infection prevention and control guidance for COVID-19 for a wide range of healthcare settings. Guidance for hospital dormitory wards can be found within the Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) Guidance for primary care and secondary care documents:

https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/web-resources-container/covid-19-guidance-for-primary-care/

https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/web-resources-container/covid-19-guidance-for-secondary-care/

Additionally, all health and social care workers should follow infection prevention and control measures set out in the National Infection Prevention and Control Manual http://www.nipcm.scot.nhs.uk/

National Clinical Guidance for Nursing and AHP Community Health Staff during COVID-19 Pandemic has also been issued and applies to dormitory wards here

In addition, Scottish Ministers recently wrote to NHS boards, IJBs, local authorities and local mental health services leads, setting out principles for mental health services during the pandemic. This guidance is designed to support active local decision making and promote consistency to provide safe, person-centred and effective service responses for people using NHS and local authority social care services during Covid-19 mobilisation https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-principles-for-mental-health-services---letter-from-minister-for-mental-health/ .

Self-catering accommodation and caravans are considered eligible for grant funding if receipts represent a primary source (for example, one third or more) of earnings for the ratepayer and the property has been let out for 140 days or more in financial year 2019-20.

This proportion of income was determined as a proxy for “primary” source of earnings in order to ensure that the Business Support Grant Fund is only available to genuine self-catering businesses.

The Barclay Review of Non-Domestic Rates identified that an avoidance tactic used by some property owners to avoid payment of council tax on second homes is to claim that the property has moved from domestic use (liable for council tax) to non-domestic use as a self-catering property (and liable for non-domestic rates). An application is made for the Small Business Bonus Scheme and no rates are payable so the contribution to local services becomes zero.