- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Friday, 05 July 2019
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Current Status:
Answered by Kevin Stewart on 18 July 2019
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the Shelter Scotland report, Evictions by social landlords in Scotland 2016-2018, which stated that there has been a 44% increase in evictions in the last five years, what action it is taking to reduce eviction rates.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that eviction for rent arrears is a last resort and we have robust measures in place to help tenants in arrears sustain their tenancy wherever possible. The number of evictions in Scotland accounted for only 0.4% of social sector tenancies in 2017-18. L andlords need to have legal remedies to deal with the small minority of tenants who won’t engage with them to resolve their arrears.
Tenancy sustainment forms part of the Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans that each local authority has provided to the Scottish Government. We are identifying ways to work with social housing providers to use all opportunities to support housing sustainment, and we will specify expectations resulting from this work in the Homelessness Code of Guidance.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Friday, 05 July 2019
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Current Status:
Answered by Kevin Stewart on 18 July 2019
To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take to consider and implement the recommendations in the Shelter Scotland report, Evictions by social landlords in Scotland 2016-2018, and by what date.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that eviction for rent arrears is a last resort and we have robust measures in place to help tenants in arrears sustain their tenancy wherever possible. The number of evictions in Scotland accounted for only 0.4% of social sector tenancies in 2017-18.
The Scottish Government notes the publication of the Shelter Scotland report, Evictions by social landlord in Scotland 2016-2018 with interest. We will be discussing the recommendations in the report with Shelter and consider what action, if any, needs to be taken.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 08 July 2019
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Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 18 July 2019
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the recent publication by Barnardos, Closing the poverty related attainment gap, how it plans to work more closely with the third sector, and affiliated organisations, to help close the income attainment gap in schools.
Answer
The Scottish Government supports a number of third sector organisations through the £750 million Attainment Scotland Fund. Local Authorities and schools are empowered to decide how they use this funding to support young people living in poverty with many Local Authorities and schools choosing to invest some of this funding in services offered by the Third Sector, including Barnardo’s Scotland.
We recognise the varied and valuable contributions third sector organisations such as Barnardo’s Scotland make to tackling the poverty related attainment gap. Through a National Third Sector Engagement working group, the Scottish Government works collaboratively with Education Scotland and the third sector to develop opportunities for their further engagement in the Scottish Attainment Challenge. Schools guidance has been developed which provides advice on engaging with the third sector to help improve outcomes for young people. This is available from: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/
sac79-sac-and-third-sector-partnerships.pdf .
Recent Scottish Government evaluation of the Scottish Attainment Challenge highlighted that collaboration continues to feature strongly and that collaborations with the third sector continue to be valued by Challenge Authorities. Local Authorities also reported their encouragement and support for schools to collaborate with third sector and other partners in planning and implementing Pupil Equity Funding. The Challenge will continue to enable young people to benefit from the important interventions the third sector can offer. The evaluation report is available here:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/
evaluation-attainment-scotland-fund-interim-report-year-3/ .
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 01 July 2019
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Current Status:
Answered by Clare Haughey on 18 July 2019
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will consider contacting the Professional Standards Authority to learn how to best make use of the thousands of counsellors and psychotherapists available via the accredited registers programme.
Answer
The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport met the Chair and Chief Executive of the Professional Standards Authority on Tuesday 6 November 2018 and discussed the programme at that time.
The Authority’s acknowledged expertise lies in the field of regulatory and governance standards. It has no statutory role relating to operational issues such as recruitment and deployment of specific professions.
Counselling and Psychotherapy in Scotland (COSCA) are a professional body for counselling and psychotherapy in Scotland and they maintain a voluntary register of practitioners and organisations in Scotland.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 01 July 2019
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 18 July 2019
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the Chronic Pain Specialty Group's Design Workshop Report June 2019, how it can provide better support for people living with chronic pain so that they can inform themselves of, take ownership of, and self-manage their condition.
Answer
The National Advisory Committee for Chronic Pain endorsed the Report in its entirety at their meeting on 26th June 2019. At the same meeting, it was agreed to establish a Chronic Pain Patient Reference Group to help ensure that a wide representation of the lived experience of chronic pain is taken in to consideration and informs service improvements. It is envisaged that this group, along with other patient involvement, will provide a patient perspective to help coproduce information about chronic pain self-management guided by the Scottish Government Health Literacy Action Plan 2015 – 2025 and other stakeholders, including NHS Inform, to help ensure that it is appropriate and widely accessible.
Developing strong links between primary and secondary care, as well as acute and chronic pain services, in order to create a clear model of care, is one of the seven areas identified in the Chronic Pain Specialty Group's Design Workshop Report, as most likely to make a difference to people presenting with Chronic Pain. As such, it will also receive particular focus as part of the next steps and implementation plan associated with the report, currently being drafted. Part of this will be to identify how people living with chronic pain can inform themselves, take ownership of and be supported to self-manage their condition, including involvement in decisions about their medication, guided by the Chronic Pain Prescribing Strategy (2018) along with raising awareness of what self-management is and what options are available to them.
Making information about Chronic Pain self-management widely accessible as well as widely used is another of the seven areas identified in the Chronic Pain Specialty Group's Design Workshop Report, as most likely to make a difference to people presenting with Chronic Pain. As such, it will receive particular focus as part of the next steps and implementation plan associated with the report, currently being drafted, along with helping to make people aware of what self-management is and what options are available to them. This plan will be devised in consultation with stakeholders.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 01 July 2019
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 18 July 2019
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the Chronic Pain Specialty Group's Design Workshop Report June 2019, how it will focus on the future of changing chronic pain services to forecast staffing, service provision, and consequent outcomes.
Answer
Provision of good quality data and measurement of Chronic Pain services and outcomes for those who use the services is recognised as being essential to understand, forecast and plan future staffing, service provision and improve outcomes for patients.
A Healthcare Needs Assessment of Adult Chronic Pain Services in Scotland, undertaken by the Scottish Public Health Network, was published in September 2018. In addition, Dundee University recently undertook a Data and Measurement Project for Chronic Pain Services to inform national service improvement and to help develop and test a Core Minimum Dataset (CMD) and Quality Performance Indicators (QPIs) for Chronic Pain.
Both these pieces of work, combined with NHS Chronic Pain data collated on an ongoing basis by Information Services Division (ISD) and the findings of a short life working group on the Chronic Pain workforce convened by the National Advisory Committee for Chronic Pain, will inform next steps and future service improvement, as part of the Scottish Pain Specialty Group’s Design Workshop Report Implementation Plan currently being drafted.
Additionally, the National Advisory Committee for Chronic Pain has been working with the Faculty of Pain Medicine and other stakeholders to understand the pressures around workforce capacity and training needs/opportunities for healthcare professionals working within specialist pain multi-disciplinary teams within hospital clinics and in the community. This has informed the context of the Chronic Pain workshops.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 July 2019
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 18 July 2019
To ask the Scottish Government how it measures the quality of stroke rehabilitation services offered by each NHS board, and what action it is taking to ensure that there is consistency in the level of service provided.
Answer
Our Stroke Improvement Plan (2014) sets out a comprehensive programme for further reducing the number of deaths from stroke and improving stroke treatment and care across the whole patient pathway including rehabilitation.
The Scottish Stroke Care Audit (SSCA) monitors the quality of care provided by the hospitals in all Health Boards by collating data collected by the stroke Managed Clinical Networks (MCNs).
To improve services effectively the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme recognises the needs to set clear aims which have been established through the Scottish Stroke Care Standards (2016) and the priority actions from the Stroke Improvement Plan. The Stroke Improvement Programme Lead and Scottish SSCA National Clinical Coordinator work closely with NHS Boards to ensure key priorities from the Stroke Improvement Plan are implemented and monitored.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 24 June 2019
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Current Status:
Answered by Christina McKelvie on 17 July 2019
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to each of the findings of the report by the British Red Cross and the Co-op Rise Network, Barriers to Belonging: An exploration of loneliness among people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, and what action it is taking to implement each of the recommendations.
Answer
The Scottish Government welcomes the valuable work that Red Cross and COOP are undertaking in tackling these issues. We note the recommendations within the report and will consider these further as we take forward the implementation of ‘A Connected Scotland’ our strategy to tackle social isolation and loneliness and build social connections.
In December 2017 we published the Race Equality Action Plan outlining more than 120 actions we will take over the course of this Parliament to secure better outcomes for ethnic minorities in Scotland. The plan seeks to address some of the factors that may lead to social isolation and loneliness for minority ethnic communities, including poverty, housing, and community cohesion.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 July 2019
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Current Status:
Answered by Christina McKelvie on 17 July 2019
To ask the Scottish Government what the £100,000 allocated to Gypsy/Traveller children in 2019-20, as outlined in its "Every child, every chance: tackling child poverty delivery plan 2018-2022", has been used for, and what the outcomes have been.
Answer
When we published ‘Every Child, Every Chance: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2018-2022’ we made a commitment to invest £0.5m in flexible family learning with Gypsy/Traveller families over the lifetime of the Plan (2018-2020). This will build on additional funding of £275,000 (2018-20) to STEP to strengthen the delivery of education to children and young people in the Gypsy/Traveller community. This work is underway and – alongside engagement with Gypsy/Traveller communities – will inform how the Child Poverty Delivery Fund money will be spent over the next three years .
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 July 2019
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Current Status:
Answered by Christina McKelvie on 17 July 2019
To ask the Scottish Government how much funding PATH Scotland has received in each of the last three years, and how this funding supports the increasing number of minority ethnic people in Scotland.
Answer
PATH Scotland has received funding of £35k for each of the years 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 through the Promoting Equality and Cohesion Fund. This funding supports the Developing Management and Leadership Skills (DMLS) in Public Life, Education and Employment Programme, which has been developed as a positive action measure to address the absence of minority ethnic men and women in leadership roles at all levels of public life, education and employment.