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We do not require our Fuel Insecurity Fund delivery partners to collect the requested data from households. Payments are provided on the basis of an holistic assessment of their circumstances, which may include damp and mould issues.

Households of all tenures are eligible to seek assistance from the Fuel Insecurity Fund (FIF) if they are at risk of self-rationing their energy use or self-disconnecting entirely. Our trusted third sector delivery partners, namely Advice Direct Scotland (ADS), the Fuel Bank Foundation and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA), are not required to monitor the housing tenure type of the individuals they support. In the case of the SFHA, though, all of the support they provide, £6.6m this financial year, is directed towards social housing tenants of member RSLs.

We regularly monitor the support provided by our delivery partners; however we 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.

The previous HOSF casework management system was built between 2008-2010 using legacy software that could no longer be supported.

The impact on existing and new applications to HOSF has been minimal as this was a stand-alone system that was not integrated into the application process.

In the interim period prior to the rollout of a new digital system, all cases have been moved to an alternative temporary solution. There is some additional work involved with the drafting of offer letters using the contingency process, however this is balanced with the improvements we have been able to make in other areas, such as better visibility of workflow and performance reporting. The new digital system is being designed to build on the process improvements already made.

Work on the new system is ongoing and the cost will depend on the final solution which will be chosen after the testing of prototypes.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13225 on 13 January 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. The Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Order 2022 requires local authorities to establish and run licensing schemes for short-term lets in their areas. Information on staffing levels dedicated to short-term let licensing within each local authority will be held by individual local authorities, and vary based on a number of factors, including volume of activity and approach to physical property inspections.

Our 2021 consultation included draft guidance explaining the rationale for licence application determination times. Licensing authorities only have 12 months to determine applications made by existing hosts (those operational before 1 October 2022) during the transitional period. This is to support licensing authorities to manage the initial volume of applications they receive. During this transitional period, existing hosts are able to continue operating whilst their application is being determined.

For new hosts (those commencing operation on or after 1 October 2022), the usual 9 month determination time set out in the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 applies. We understand many local authorities are prioritising these applications to provide new hosts with a timely outcome. We have no plans to alter either timescale, however, as we have already indicated, we will conduct a review of the scheme in early 2024.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-12707 on 12 December 2022. 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/written-questions-and-answers

As of the end of day 29th August 2022 there were a total of 499,822 National Entitlement Cards issued for the Young Persons’ Free Bus Travel Scheme. This is the closest data available for 1 September 2022.

As of the end of day 2 January 2023 there were a total of 639,795 National Entitlement Cards issued for the Young Persons’ Free Bus Travel Scheme. This is the closest available data for 1 January 2022.

The figures above include cards issued as a result of first time applications, replacement cards and cards which may no longer be active.

This data is supplied by the National Entitlement Card Programme Office (NECPO). NECPO support the 32 local authorities by assisting with the integration of various national and local public services on the National Entitlement Card (NEC) and are the joint controller with local authorities of this data.

Transport Scotland does not hold application information as the Improvement Service are in charge of applications made through getyournec.scot and all other applications are managed by local authorities.

The heavy impact of the pandemic and subsequent court closures on reconvictions data must be balanced against user needs for information with the provision of meaningful and informative statistics that carry minimal risk of misinterpretation. We are currently investigating what information we could helpfully provide users in respect of reconvictions statistics. We will communicate the outcome of this investigation to users as soon as possible.

Whilst the Scottish Government continue to reconcile COVID-19 funding allocations in order to ensure transparency in the use of public funds and compliance with the audit framework, the Scottish Government has not recovered and has no plans to recover any COVID-19 related funding from local authorities.