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The proposals contained in the National Care Service consultation paper are based on the findings of the Independent Review of Adult Social Care (IRASC), which engaged extensively with people and organisations who have lived experience of using social care, including unpaid carers as well as trade unions, providers in the third sector and charitable organisations, and staff from local authorities. The IRASC met with over 1,000 people in total.

Prior to the election, Scottish Government and COSLA published a Joint Statement of Intent outlining how we would work together to deliver a number of areas in the IRASC. This covered topics including fair work, non-residential charging, overhaul of eligibility criteria and support for unpaid carers. There has been ongoing engagement with COSLA to take forward the Joint Statement.

We regularly meet and engage with stakeholders and partners, including trade unions, carers organisations, third sector organisations and professional bodies as part of our work to improve social care. A programme of formal engagement with relevant stakeholders is taking place during the consultation period, and engagement will continue after the consultation has closed.

The Scottish Government received a total of £9.7 billion in Barnett consequentials from the UK Government for 2020-21, with £8.6 billion allocated throughout 2020-21 and £1.1 billion deferred into 2021-22. The Scottish Government set out details of the allocation of the £8.6 billion in the Summer, Autumn and Spring Budget Revisions for that year.

A total of £4.7 billion of Covid-19 consequentials are available for 2021-22, including the £1.1 billion deferred from 2020-21. The allocation of £3.7 billion of this is set out in the Budget Act for 2021-22, as amended and approved by Parliament. Details of the allocation of the remaining £1 billion of further Barnett consequentials, allocated to the Scottish Government at the UK Main Estimates in May, will be included in the Autumn Budget Revision in September, in line with the information on allocations provided by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Economy in her letter to the Finance and Public Administration Committee in June.

I provided details of the provisional outturn position for 2020-21 to the Parliament on 17 June. Final outturn on all Scottish Government spending for 2020-21 is still being finalised and will be set out in the Scottish Government Accounts, to be published in December.

Tracking of actual spending during the year is managed in different ways depending on the nature of the funding. For areas such as Business Support, where grant funding is clearly identified as Covid-19, expenditure to date has been tracked and details are regularly published externally;

See Scottish Government statistics publication site: Coronavirus (COVID-19): business support funding statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

For other areas were funding has been provided to a sector, the additional payments relating to Covid allocations are included in the standard monthly payments out to individual bodies. For example payments to Health Boards are often paid as one monthly amount with subsequent reporting from Boards on how that funding has been allocated across different priorities. In some instances its is not always possible to distinguish the application of Covid funding from the wider day to day activities of the organisation as they work through the recovery.

The Scottish Government Covid-19 Advisory Group met on
‎ 5 August 2021 and is due to meet again on 9 September. Papers and minutes are published following meetings, providing time for appropriate permissions to be sought.

The Scottish Government remains committed to reforming crofting law and we will set out how we intend to do that in due course. A consultation was held in the last Parliament on what changes were required to the current legislative framework and the outcome of that consultation will form the starting point for this work.

The Crofting Consultation 2017 received 122 responses, and provided the Scottish Government with detailed and varied feedback on the options for a new crofting Bill, current legislative issues and how they might be addressed and other aspects of crofting. The consultation analysis and responses are available at: Crofting Consultation 2017 - Scottish Government - Citizen Space .

I am grateful to my colleague, Mr Cameron MSP, for raising this matter relating to the £500 thank you payment for social care staff. The bonus payment recognises the particular debt we all owe to health and care staff, who have been – and continue to be – on the very front line of this crisis, helping to save lives and to protect us all.

Policy colleagues worked extensively with sector representatives in establishing eligibility criteria and guidance for social care provider staff. These representative organisations included Scottish Care and the Coalition for Care and Support Providers (CCPS) in Scotland; trade unions including Unison, Unite and GMB; and colleagues in CoSLA representing local authorities. The former Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, Jeane Freeman, previously wrote to CCPS on 29 March 2021 regarding the eligibility of third sector staff who are not registered with the Care Inspectorate.

In this letter, she confirmed the Scottish Government's position that the £500 payment relates to staff directly covered by NHS payment and remuneration arrangements or staff in organisations delivering adult social care or children’s residential care registered with the Care Inspectorate. In Scotland certain care services by law must register with the Care Inspectorate, and it is only these services that are eligible. Unfortunately, if an organisation is not already registered to provide these services their staff will not be eligible for the £500 payment. For other staff, it would be for their employers to determine their remuneration and any additions to existing pay which may be appropriate.

Scottish Government collaborates with a range of partners to ensure that schools have the information, advice and support to engage with both COP26 specifically, and climate change issues and climate change education more broadly.

Education Scotland, as the national inspection and improvement agency for education, is taking steps to help schools to engage with the themes of the COP26 summit, and to consider how and in what ways they could further improve their approach to climate education and Learning for Sustainability (LfS) at school level.

Highlights and resources include the following:

'Countdown to COP' will be an online initiative aimed at early years and primary to support engagement with COP26 and its five themes (nature, energy transition, finance, clean transport, adaptation and resilience). Countdown to COP will begin on 13 September and run to 29 October, although resources are not time-sensitive and can therefore be used beyond these dates. Countdown to COP will be promoted through Education Scotland's communications channels and its Local Authorities Network.

Scotland's Assembly , delivered by Education Scotland in partnership with the e-Sgoil initiative and available via the Glow system, will be focusing on COP and hearing from people working in the thematic areas across Scotland.

Education Scotland is working closely with Sustainability Partnerships (a teacher group based in Edinburgh and the Lothians) to develop a template resource pack that can be used by schools, education authorities and others to run their own COP26-style summits both locally and regionally.

The Learning for Sustainability Awards 2021 are being held in partnership with The Daily Record and will help to gather good practice examples of Learning for Sustainability across Scotland. Award categories are: Youth; Practitioner; Leadership; Learning Community; Educational Supporter; and Community Learning and Development.

Local authorities, funded by Scottish Government, also provide a key role in providing their own information resources to schools. A COP26/Learning for Sustainability Local Authority Forum is being run by Education Scotland and enables all 32 local authorities to share and plan activity around COP26 and Learning for Sustainability. Members of this forum are also planning a professional learning programme for post-COP26. One example of information and education resources and activities provided via local authorities is Glasgow City Council's 'Our Dear Green Place' initiative, launched on 12 May 2021. The local authority has put in place a range of resources to ensure access and engagement with both COP26 and Our Dear Green Place resources and professional learning. The resources will be continually updated as practitioner and partner engagement progresses.

An Education Scotland COP26 Partner Forum (jointly chaired with YouthLink Scotland) is providing a means for more than 50 Third Sector partners to co-ordinate their various offers for young people leading up to, during and post-COP26. Partner resources and offers are being shared with schools through a 'Wakelet'.

In addition to the above, Scottish Government funds Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB) to provide the Eco-Schools and Climate Ready Classrooms programmes. As part of the lead up to COP26 KSB will be offering three new interactive teaching and training sessions: a week of workshops for upper primary classes; a Continuing Professional Development session for primary and secondary educators; and a climate action workshop for high school pupils and Eco-Committees.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of antisocial behaviour cases reported since 1999.

Since its formation as a national force in 2013/14, Police Scotland publish information on the number of publicly reported antisocial behaviour incidents. This is provided in the table below though should be interpreted with some caution as it is drawn from a live operational database, and not produced as Official Statistics. As the Highlands & Islands division was not added to Police Scotland’s National Command and Control system until 2018/19, data for this year onwards is not comparable with preceding years. Furthermore Police Scotland have noted that the reported increase in 2020-21 is mainly due to the exceptional circumstances of the pandemic, with a rise in complaints and neighbour disputes relating to potential breaches of Covid-19 restrictions.

As not all antisocial behaviour is reported to the police, measuring change over time is best done using population-based statistics. The Scottish Crime & Justice Survey shows the proportion of adults who feel people behave in an antisocial manner in their area has fallen from 46% in 2008-09 to 33% in 2019-20 (with no change identified between 2018-19 and 2019-20).

Trading Standards Officers are employed by Scotland’s local authorities. Local authorities are independent corporate bodies, responsible for the management of their workforce. The outcome and response to the findings of the SCOTSS survey is therefore a matter for councils and their national body, COSLA. However, in recognition of the sustainability challenges facing the service, we understand that SCOTSS and COSLA continue to engage on developing a workforce strategy for the future.

The Scottish Government has not and does not plan to hold any discussions with the Scottish Funding Council on this matter unless approached or asked for support by our partners in local government. Scottish Ministers routinely engage with COSLA which provides an opportunity for areas of concern for local government to be raised.

Trading Standards Officers are employed by Scotland’s local authorities and it is therefore a matter for them, as independent corporate bodies with responsibility for the management of their workforce, to ensure that there is sufficient capacity to meet their future needs and requirements.

I last met with Water Safety Scotland representatives on 11 August 2021 during a meeting that I chaired with a range of key stakeholders on water safety. My officials are regularly in discussion with Water Safety Scotland representatives and their partners as part of our Building Safer Communities work.

The Scottish Government takes the issue of water safety very seriously. We work closely with Water Safety Scotland (WSS) and other partners, including local councils, police and SFRS to implement and support initiatives that can help raise awareness of the hazards around water and reduce deaths from accidental drowning.

The Scottish Government also provides annual grant funding to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to deliver its annual home and water safety programme, which includes providing a secretariat to Water Safety Scotland.