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We cannot provide figures for individual public bodies as this information is sensitive personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998 as, due to the small numbers of people on each public body, it may be possible to identify individuals.

For those ministerial appointments regulated by the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland 2% of current board members are from a minority ethnic background, rising to 2.2% when you remove those who chose not to record this diversity strand.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the diversity of Scotland’s public boards. For those ministerial appointments regulated by the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland in 2012-13, 4.1% of applicants came from a minority ethnic background, with 2.9% being appointed.

Source:

Baseline diversity exercise of all regulated boards carried out by Scottish Government Public Appointments Centre of Expertise in April 2013.

Public Appointments in Scotland 2012-13 – Regulated Ministerial Appointments

As the Vale of Leven Hospital is an independent inquiry, it is for the chairman to decide on the procedure and conduct of the inquiry. The chairman has indicated that he will publish full costs at the end of the inquiry. However, the information held on costs to date by the Scottish Government is currently being collated with a view to publishing them in the near future. I will write to the member as soon as the information is available and a copy will be placed in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib number 55691.).

(a) It has been estimated that 3,000 women and girls are at risk in Scotland. This figure for Scotland is a pro rata projection based on research by FORWARD in England and Wales in 2007.

According to the 2001 Census data, there were 2,946 women between the ages of 0 -49 living in Scotland and born in one of the 29 countries in which female genital mutilation (FGM) is reported to be a traditional practice.

We will consider data from the 2011 Census which is scheduled for release in the first part of 2014, and that will allow a more-up to date prevalence estimate of FGM to be calculated. However initial data from the census shows that the number of people resident in Scotland who were born in Africa has more than doubled since the 2001 Census (from 22,049 to 46,742), and so the number of women and girls estimated to have undergone FGM is also likely to have increased.

That does not mean that all those women who were born in a country where FGM is prevalent have been abused in this way, only that they may be at risk.

(b) FGM is defined by the World Health Organisation as ‘all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons’. The Scottish Government does not hold any information on severity of such ‘procedures carried out.

<>As announced in the Budget (Scotland) (No 3) Bill Stage 3 debate in the Parliament on 5 February 2014, the Scottish Government has provided additional provision to mitigate the impact of the ‘bedroom tax’. This means that our planned spending on welfare reform mitigation will increase from £244 million to at least £258 million over the period 2013-14 to 2015-16. Further details are set out in the answer to S4W-19428 on 26 February 2014. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.All of the £258 million funding is devolved and reflects Scottish Ministers’ decisions about allocating resources from within the total Scottish Budget to welfare, following the transfer of a number of relevant functions from the UK Government to the Scottish Government and responding to the adverse effects of the UK Government’s welfare reform on vulnerable people across Scotland.

Our current and planned spending will invest at least £258 million over the period 2013-14 to 2015-16 to limit the damage of the UK Government’s welfare policies on Scotland.

Details are as follows:

Welfare Reform Mitigation activity	2013-14 £million	2014-15 £million	2015-16 £million	2013-2016 £million
Scottish Welfare Fund (£33 million plus admin)	38	38	38	114
Other Welfare Reform Mitigation	7	7	7	21
Council Tax Reduction scheme	23	23	23	69
“Bedroom tax” mitigation*	20	34.85		54.85
Total	88	102.85	68	258.85

*Funding for bedroom tax mitigation for 2015-16 will be determined once Department for Work and Pensions funding for Discretionary Housing Payments is known (estimated to be late 2014 or early 2015).

All fourteen Territorial NHS boards report that they do not have dedicated female genital mutilation (FGM) clinics. If women and children are identified as being victims of FGM, the NHS in Scotland will offer all available assistance to ensure positive health outcomes for the women and children affected.

A number of methods are used to raise awareness and encourage the reporting of female genital mutilation (FGM) including engaging with individuals and minority ethnic women’s organisations such as Dignity Alert Research Forum (DARF), Saheliya and Shakti Women’s Aid, all of who provide services to women who come from communities affected by FGM.

The Government also works in partnership with health professionals, voluntary organisations, social services, education departments and the police to support victims, engage with communities for the prevention of FGM, and to share good practice and promote awareness across Scotland for the prevention of FGM.

Scottish Government is providing funding to the Scottish Refugee Council and the Women’s Support Project, to carry out a project to produce a baseline of information which will inform work to tackle female genital mutilation. We will be looking closely at all findings and recommendations from that report (due for publication September 2014) to ensure that what we are doing and what we are developing meets our shared objective of tackling FGM.

FGM is addressed within the violence against women policy area and will be included in the Violence Against Women Strategy that is currently being developed and scheduled for publication summer 2014.

Twelve of the fourteen Territorial NHS boards report that they do not offer dedicated specialist services for women who have experienced female genital mutilation (FGM). Of the boards that offer specialist services, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have two clinical staff within Plastic Surgery based at Glasgow Royal Infirmary who provide defibulation (reconstruction/reversal) services for women who have undergone FGM. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde also has a link midwife who specialises in supporting asylum seekers and refugees. This role helps ensure that the clinical and emotional needs of women who have undergone FGM are addressed during and following pregnancy, including supporting them to access defibulation services and educating and advising midwifery staff on best practice on FGM.

NHS Lanarkshire have a specialist gender-based violence trauma service that works with women who have experienced FGM and other forms of violence against women. This includes specialist advocacy and therapeutic services.

The Scottish Government expects the 2014-20 structural funds programmes to launch in summer 2014.

The Scottish Government has extended a number of projects into 2014, in particular employability projects where the third sector has a significant delivery role, in order to minimise any funding gap.

If any underspends emerge, the Scottish Government will consider additional extensions where these are required.

There is no delay in allocating EU funding for 2014-20.

The regulations governing how these funds can be allocated and spent were laid in December 2013, and the Scottish Government expects to start structural funds programmes in early summer of 2014, with the rural development programme following in early 2015. This is in line with the other EU and UK nations, and the expectations of the commission.