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The Scottish Fiscal Commission published updated forecasts alongside the 2022-23 Scottish Budget on 9 December 2021.

In line with their forecasts, the Scottish Government is committing £3,949 million to social security assistance in 2022-23, and is investing an additional £2.7 million to uprate eight Scottish benefits by 6% from 1 April, subject to parliamentary approval.

The UK Government Spring Statement was made on 23 March and provided an updated set of Social Security Block Grant Adjustments for 2022-23 which total £3,601 million.

Therefore, the Scottish Government is making an additional investment of over £346 million in the social security benefits in 2022-23.

Social security spending is demand-led which means it is variable and harder to control than other areas of spending. We will manage any variance between actual and forecast expenditure or Block Grant Adjustment, in a competent, responsible and balanced way.

Vaccination policy in Scotland, is based on recommendations from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

Following the Committee’s recommendation, from August 2019 the HPV immunisation programme in Scotland was extended to adolescent boys entering their first year of secondary school (S1).

The JCVI has not recommended a catch up for older boys as evidence suggests they are already benefitting from the indirect protection built up in the population over 10 years of the girls’ HPV vaccination programme.

From 2016 HPV vaccine has been available to men who have sex with men (MSM) up to and including 45 years of age who attend sexual health or HIV clinics. The HPV MSM programme is opportunistic and offers direct protection.

The JCVI keeps its recommendations under review and if the advice on HPV vaccination was to change we would of course give this due consideration.

The legislative framework relating to the reporting duties of the Scottish Tribunals in general, and on the Housing and Property Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland in particular, are outlined in the previous answer to question S6W-06407.

The Scottish Government is content with the legislative framework and relevant reporting duties on the Scottish Tribunals and has no plans to review these at present.

Social Security Scotland conducts an eligibility check with the submission of part 1 of the application, which checks if the child is already in receipt of a Disability Living Allowance for children award. At present, this information is not stored in a way that can be quantified.

This information is not held centrally. It is not possible to identify activity in specific hospital units/wards based on centrally available data.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living in Scotland with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and person-centred.

While the NHS Recovery Plan is not condition specific, the aim is to effect whole system recovery and support prioritisation and planning. In that respect we would expect this to directly affect neurology services and the experience and outcomes for people with neurological condition, including MS.

There is a commitment to update on the progress of the plan on an annual basis and to review the strategic plan. Work on the first annual review will commence shortly and is expected to be published in the summer of 2022.

In 2019, we published a Neurological Care and Support – National Framework for Action . The aims include improving the provision of co-ordinated health and social care services, developing sustainable workforce models and ensuring high standards of person-centred care for people with neurological conditions.

Through implementation of the framework, we have awarded £1.4m since October 2020 to fund innovative projects working to achieve better outcomes for people living with neurological conditions. Over £300,000 of this has been committed to projects which improve the health and wellbeing of people with MS in Scotland.

The Scottish Government continue to engage with our stakeholders to improve animal welfare and this is an issue we would be open to considering.

The Scottish Government would be content with this suggested change if the UK Government were minded to amend the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill [1] , which is currently at Report Stage in the UK Parliament. The Scottish Government also agreed with the Legislative Consent Motion in relation to the Bill. However, it should be noted that the Bill, should it come into effect, will reduce the number of animals to five per vehicle , as opposed to five per traveller, which will be a significant improvement on the present situation.

Scotland does not have any Pet Travel Scheme (PETS) routes [2] for vehicles entering Scotland directly, but the Scottish Government would wish to retain a consistent GB-wide approach where possible.

[1] Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill - Parliamentary Bills - UK Parliament

[2] Pet travel: sea and rail routes and companies you can use - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 provides local authorities with a discretionary power to set up workplace parking licensing (WPL) schemes. Section 71 of the 2019 Act defines what constitutes a workplace parking place. Customer parking at retail outlets (except parking for business customers) is not included in the definition of workplace parking and therefore those places could not be included in any local authorities’ WPL scheme.

It will be for local authorities to decide whether they wish to implement WPL locally and to shape proposals to suit local circumstances. Parking places provided for employees and business customers are included in the definition of workplace parking set out in the 2019 Act. Accordingly, employers will be liable for workplace parking for staff within the context of proposals set out by local authorities.

The economic modelling in the amended Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme does not account for any VAT being levied on deposits. That is in line with best practice as set out in HM Treasury’s Green Book ( https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/938046/The_Green_Book_2020.pdf ) because VAT is considered to be a transfer payment that does not affect the output or consumption of resources.

The information presented in the version of the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) published in July 2019 has been superseded.

Please refer to the amended Final BRIA published in December 2021 which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/deposit-return-scheme-scotland-final-business-regulatory-impact-assessment/ .