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The Scottish Government does not hold official data on the unregistered workforce. However we do know that there were at least 4,869 Personal Assistants (PA’s) providing social care support to adults who were in receipt of either Self-directed support option 1 or from Independent Living Fund Scotland in 2021.

This data was captured from those Personal Assistants who applied for the Scottish Government Covid-19 thankyou payment which can be found here PA Programme Board Resources - Self Directed Support Scotland | Self Directed Support Scotland (sdsscotland.org.uk) .

A PA Programme Board was established in 2021 with a membership from the public, third sector and organisation’s representing disabilities. A co-produced Work Plan was developed which includes objectives to understand, grow and support the PA workforce including developing better research of this little known workforce.

The Personal Assistant workforce are employed by the person with social care needs or their family. The employer may also use funding from a variety of public sources as well as self-funding, as such there is no locus for SG to mandate the collection of this data. However, there will be an option to count all those non family member PAs from 2024 onwards as this workforce must be PVG checked from that date.

There has been a successful application for a PHD funded by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science. This position will start in October and will research PA assistance for disabled people, changing labour markets and social care reform. The PA Programme Board will be a collaborative partner with Glasgow University.

In 2022-23 the Scottish Government spent £2,761,815 on health and social care staff wellbeing. In addition to this, the Scottish Government intend to spend a further £1,397,475 on health and social care staff wellbeing in the remainder of this financial year.

We do not hold a detailed breakdown of spending at the level requested.

Improving the accessibility of elections is a key element of the Scottish Government’s electoral reform agenda. It is our ambition to remove or reduce barriers that some voters face and to improve the accessibility of elections.

We have been working with RNIB Scotland and the Forth Valley Sensory Centre over several months to consider potential solutions and technology to assist people with sight loss to cast their votes, including testing audio devices. RNIB Scotland will also shortly undertake testing of a tactile ballot paper solution at the Centre. We will then consider feedback from these initial trials of the tactile ballots papers and, working in collaboration with our partners in Local Government, electoral administrators and the Electoral Commission, produce proposals for next steps. I anticipate we should be in a position to report progress and set out future proposals and plans to Parliament in the summer.

In addition, as part of the Government’s current consultation on electoral reform we are asking for views on how the accessibility of elections could be improved and what changes might be made in law. The consultation closes on 15 March - available at https://consult.gov.scot/constitution-and-cabinet/electoral-reform/ . I look forward to reading the responses which will help inform our work going forward.

The Scottish Government does not hold the full level of information requested.

We regularly monitor the support provided by our delivery partners, together with scheduled engagements across the year. We always seek to avoid excessive demands for data gathering in order to ensure the FIF can be distributed with a level of partner discretion to target direct support to those most in need at the time.

In 2021-22 - SFHA awarded funding to 35 projects, comprising single organisation, partnership and consortium bids. In total, 41 organisations were direct recipients, with a further 24 accessing vouchers for their tenants through one of the main grantees. Successful applications were received from housing associations from across Scotland, supporting rural, island and urban communities. While overall success rate reported by ADS for their applications from the fund in 2021 stood at 96%, with a total of 1,208 successful. ADS grant payments were administered to a total of 58 different energy suppliers in Scotland.

On receipt of FIF delivery partners 2022-23 evaluation reports, officials will consider appropriate publication of such details for access on the SG website.

Independent analysis carried out for Scottish Government showed that, with the right investment, the number of low carbon jobs in energy production is estimated to rise from 19,000 in 2019 to 77,000 by 2050. This would mean there are more jobs in energy production in 2050 than there are now. The draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan, on page 89, shows estimates of direct and indirect low carbon production jobs by sector and the table below notes these projected job numbers. The “other” jobs listed in the table include: solar PV, wave and tidal, carbon transport and storage, bioenergy and waste and nuclear. The analysis did not provide an estimate of the average salary of low carbon jobs as a whole or by sector because currently available official statistics (Office of National Statistics Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy – LCREE data) do not include average salary estimates for low carbon energy sector jobs (e.g. hydrogen).

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13803 on 25 January 2023. 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/questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government wants to encourage more women into crofting, ensuring they are empowered to develop skills and access opportunities, creating equality of opportunity and prosperity, as well as supporting business innovation. That is why we are increasing the support provided to women in agriculture to £600,000 per year, during this Parliament, to deliver practical solutions to improve the lives of women living or working in Scottish agriculture.

The recent Economic Condition of Crofting Report states that the number of female crofters has more than doubled from 13% in 2014 to 30% in 2022 and since 2020, just under half of the new entrants recorded by the Crofting Commission were female.

The Scottish Government’s Directorate for International Trade and Investment directly manages the Trade and Investment Envoy Network.

We also work closely with the GlobalScot Network managed by the Scottish Enterprise to advance our trade and investment ambitions. Through GlobalScots, we engage with individual Scottish University alumni overseas to maintain good relations with Scotland and also offer a route for appropriate alumni to join the network, thereby adding to its diversity and reach.

The Directorate of International Trade and Investment has also worked with Scottish Government colleagues to develop the Scottish Government connections strategy, which is focused on developing stronger links with diaspora groups.

The Connecting Scotland programme aims to ensure that people in Scotland have access to digital services by providing them with opportunities to access and utilise devices, connectivity, skills, and support effectively. To date, the Scottish Government has committed over £48m to Connecting Scotland, through the Programme for Government and Winter Package for Social Support.

Responsibility for the management of the police estate sits with the Scottish Police Authority and the Chief Constable.

Police Scotland has advised that while they have no plans to build any new police stations in 2023, a new police station will be opened in spring 2023 at Newton House in Ayr, which is owned by South Ayrshire Council. This will provide a new, modern replacement for the existing Ayr police station.