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The Scottish Government does not hold or collect information about the format of meetings local authorities have with people who make homeless applications.

Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland provides census data on numbers of registrations for funded early learning and childcare (ELC) at the local authority level as of September 2022. These figures are shown in the following table. The census does not currently record the number of hours being accessed by each child.

On 9 December 2022 the Scottish Government jointly published our Anti-Racist Employment Strategy and refreshed Fair Work Action Plan. The Anti-Racist Employment Strategy offers clear and practical guidance for employers from all sectors to improve the recruitment and representation of racialised minority staff and build fair, diverse and inclusive workplaces. The Strategy was developed in collaboration with stakeholders from a wide-range of backgrounds. This included representatives of the private sector. The Strategy is underpinned by a series of actions working in continued partnership with these stakeholders to address issues affecting racialised minorities.

The Fair Work Action Plan explains how the Scottish Government will work collaboratively to support private and public sector employers to utilise the resources and support available to embed Fair Work in their organisations and build capability among employers, employability providers and partners. By the end of 2023 we will have worked with partners to further join up provision of advice and support for employers in all sectors by establishing a central Fair Work resource. We will also develop a communications strategy to highlight and promote to all employers the benefits of Fair Work and diverse workplaces including recruiting, employing and supporting workers from racialised minorities. By the end of 2023 we will have also further updated the Fair Work First criteria that must be taken into consideration by employers seeking public sector support to better reflect priority action required to address labour market inequalities faced by people from racialised minorities and other groups to help ensure more people can enter, remain and progress in work.

The Scottish Government has accepted that this statistic relating to Scotland’s offshore wind potential needs revising. In response to the issues raised in the UK Statistics Authority’s letter, dated 7 December 2022, the Scottish Government has engaged directly with the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) setting out the steps that have been taken to ensure the statistic is not used further, and provided an update on the analytical work that is underway to produce a replacement statistic, which will be published in due course.

This information is not held centrally. It is the responsibility of Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) to plan and commission adult palliative and end of life care services for their areas using the integrated budgets under their control.

A final response to S6W-15344 was issued by the Parliament deadline on Friday 10 March 2023.

We intend to publish a consultation on the third phase of our review of permitted development rights (PDR) in the Spring. Phase 3 will consider PDR for renewable energy equipment, which will include the proposal to remove the 50kW restriction on domestic and non-domestic solar PV sites.

The Scottish Government has invested a total of £14,751,739 since 2018 to support the delivery of specific Welfare Advice Services in Scotland. The amount for each year is as follows:

I met with Councillor Maureen Chalmers, the COSLA Spokesperson for Community Wellbeing on 22 March. We had a productive meeting and discussed how good practice in providing rapid help for people living with MND can be shared across local authorities. I will also follow up directly with MND Scotland with a meeting currently being arranged. Additionally, I can confirm that MND Scotland is a member of our recently formed Accessible Housing and Independent Living Stakeholder group. The group had their first meeting at the end of 2022, giving constructive feedback to our Housing for Varying Needs review. My officials are arranging further meetings of this group to seek views and opinions on housing and independent living issues including the adaptations review and the new Scottish Accessible Homes Standard.

The data required to make Winter Heating Payments was supplied by the Department for Work and Pensions on 31 January 2023. Following this, Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland carried out internal assurance processes on the around 400,000 records received. To ensure the safety and security of the payments, payments began in small batches.

As of 28 February 2023, 34,261 people had received the Winter Heating Payment and a further 365,303 eligible clients were to be paid. We expect to distribute £20 million in this round of Winter Heating Payments, more than double the £8.3 million provided on average by the Department for Work and Pensions in each of the last seven years of Cold Weather Payment.

A first release of Official Statistics on Winter Heating Payment will be published on 6 June 2023. These will be available at our statistics publication page at:

https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/about/statistics/social-security-scotland-statistics-publications.