Questions and answers

Question reference: S6O-01969

Asked by: Jenni Minto, MSP for Argyll and Bute, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 March 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how its Covid Recovery Strategy is supporting third sector organisations in rural and island communities, such as Argyll and Bute, to improve health support, including for people with long COVID.

Question reference: S6O-01981

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 March 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it engages with local communities to ensure that their transport needs are met.

Question reference: S6W-15282

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 1 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many cabins were occupied on the MS Ambition on (a) 1, (b) 8 and (c) 21 February 2023.

The Scottish Government routinely publishes the latest data and information on the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland, including the number of people temporarily housed on the MS Ambition. As published on 23 February, there were around 995 guests onboard the MS Ambition as at 14 February 2023, occupying 475 cabins. The next update is expected to be published in late March.

The data are provisional management information from live operational systems and are subject to change. The number of displaced people from Ukraine in welcome accommodation on M/S Ambition is reported directly by operational teams.

The published tables and accompanying methodology notes for the February publication can be found here: Supporting documents - Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland: statistics - February 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Question reference: S6W-14758

Asked by: Ariane Burgess, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 1 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers that the available data on the numbers of gamebirds released, and number and locations of release sites, is adequate for the purposes of (a) effectively (i) assessing and (ii) controlling the spread of diseases from gamebirds to wildlife, and (b) monitoring any other environmental impacts of gamebird releases.

Question reference: S6W-15259

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 1 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the current status is of the (a) Principles Agreement between Scottish Government and Business and (b) Joint Taskforce on Business Regulation, and what (i) actions, (ii) outcomes and (iii) regulatory changes have been agreed by each initiative.

The Business Principles Agreement, jointly developed with business, was published in December 2021 to cover the current five year Parliamentary term. The Agreement applies across all Scottish Government policy areas and provides a framework to enable more effective joint working between the Scottish Government and business though greater co-development, collaborative delivery and collective assessment of policies impacting business.

During 2022 Ministers had almost 1,250 engagements with business, an average monthly increase of 5% on the COP26 boosted average from May to December 2021. In addition business experience informed development of our National Strategy for Economic Transformation Delivery Plans, while a number of Industry Leadership Groups (ILGs) were set-up or refreshed during 2022 to deepen our sectoral connections, and I established an ILG Chairs group to foster cross-sectoral collaboration and sharing of experience.

The establishment of the Joint Taskforce on Business Regulation provides a further best practice application of the Principles approach with the majority of Agreement signatories being Taskforce members. The Joint Taskforce is co-chaired by myself and CoSLA Spokesperson for Environment and Economy Cllr Gail Macgregor and has so far met in December 2022 and February 2023.

Business organisations and regulatory stakeholders have set out what they would like the group to look at and this will be reflected in the Terms of Reference, with members acknowledging that there is ongoing work in many areas to address the concerns they have raised around specific regulations. The Joint Taskforce will look to identify the existing mechanisms for discussing these regulations before considering and suggesting what interventions might be most appropriate. We will publish minutes and papers on the Scottish Government Website.

The Taskforce has also agreed to look at ways of identifying and demonstrating the cumulative burden of regulation on businesses and members have been asked to consider and provide feedback on the Business Regulatory Impact Assessment approach to help improve the process for developing new regulations in future.

Question reference: S6W-15192

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 1 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the employment rate was for people with learning disabilities in each of the last four financial years.

Estimates for the employment rate for people 16-64 years who reported a severe or specific learning difficulty (lasting 12 months or more) are shown in the following table for each of the last 4 financial years.

	Employment rate for people aged 16 to 64 with severe or specific learning difficulties
April 2018 to March 2019	25.6%
April 2019 to March 2020	[b]
April 2020 to March 2021	17.4%
April 2021 to March 2022	28.2%

Source: Annual Population Survey, April to March data, ONS

Notes:

1. [b] Data are not provided for April 2019 to March 2020. This is due to a change to the response options for the question on health problems outlined below which occurred from January to March 2020 onward.

2. Please note estimates for April 2018 to March 2019 are not directly comparable with estimates for April 2020 to March 2021 onwards. This is due to a change to the question on health problems asked in the APS which occurred from January to March 2020 onward, where ‘Autism (including autism spectrum condition, Asperger syndrome)’ was added as a new category to the response options for this question. This could impact on estimates for the ‘severe and specific learning difficulties’ option.

3. People with a severe or specific learning difficulty are defined as having a health condition/illness lasting 12 months or more and included “severe or specific learning difficulty” as a response when asked what health problems they had. Specific learning difficulties includes conditions such as dyslexia or dyscalculia; severe learning difficulties covers mental impairments.

4. Data is subject to sampling variation and is not seasonally adjusted.

5. Estimates are for those aged 16 to 64.

6. Rates are rounded to one decimal place and are based on unrounded estimates.

7. Employment rates use the total 16 to 64 year old population as the denominator.

Question reference: S6W-15195

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 1 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what assessments it has conducted regarding the impact on people with learning disabilities of each action point contained in its publication, A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: Employment Action Plan, which was published 2018.

The Scottish Government has considered the impact of the actions of the Employment Action Plan on all disabled people, including people with learning disabilities, and noted these in the 2020 and 2021 annual Progress Reports which are published on the Scottish Government website.

On 22 February 2023 the Scottish Government published a statistical summary of the devolved employment services, which includes employability figures for learning disabilities within Fair Start Scotland. There is currently no data published for employment for learning disabilities within No One Left Behind.

We have undertaken a review of Individual Placement and Support (IPS) and of Supported Employment to identify areas of improvement and make recommendations on future delivery of these two forms of specialist employability support in Scotland. Findings of the Supported Employment review and Scottish Government’s response were published in September 2022. The Individual Placement and Support review report was published January 2023, alongside the Scottish Government’s response statement.

Recognising that there is still work to do to improve outcomes for disabled people, in December 2022 the Scottish Government published the refreshed Fair Work Action Plan: becoming a leading Fair Work nation by 2025 , setting out actions to promote fair and inclusive workplaces across Scotland. The plan takes forward the current work on the disability employment gap, to support more disabled people, including those with Learning Disabilities, into employment and to sustain fair work.

The Action Plan will be supported by an evidence plan to be published late 2023, along with an accompanying measurement framework. It will monitor the fair work context and progress we are making over time to ensure our actions respond to change and measure the impact of our current actions, including drawing lessons from actions we will deliver as part of this plan.

Question reference: S6W-15191

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 1 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has carried out regarding any impact of the reported increase in people with mental health conditions, including those who may already be in work, on the disability employment gap.

The Scottish Government has published analysis relating to the overall Disability Employment Gap in Scotland in Fairer Scotland for disabled people - employment action plan: progress report - year 2 . The most recent data on the Disability Employment Gap for Scotland were published in Scotland's Labour Market: People, Places and Regions – Protected Characteristics . In 2021, the disability employment gap was 31.2 percentages points, down from 37.4 percentage points in 2016.

In 2021, the Scottish Government published key statistics relating to the economic status of disabled people in the labour market in Scotland . This publication contains information from the Annual Population Survey (APS) January to December 2019 on employment rates for disabled people by main condition including those whose main condition was a mental health condition (Table 16).

A similar analysis will be updated and published by the Scottish Government in 2023 showing employment rate gaps by health problem or disability for January to December 2022.

Scottish Government’s recently published Fair Work Action Plan takes forward the next phase of actions to drive forward Fair Work. The plan includes actions aimed at reducing the Disability Employment Gap.

The Fair Work Action Plan will be supported by an evidence plan to be published in late 2023, along with an accompanying measurement framework. It will monitor the fair work context and progress we are making over time to ensure our actions respond to change and measure the impact of our current actions, including drawing lessons from actions we will deliver as part of this plan.

Question reference: S6W-15186

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 17 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 1 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will encourage local authorities to extend the opening hours of licensed premises to mark the Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III, in light of similar measures having been proposed by the UK Government for England and Wales.

The main piece of legislation that controls the sale of alcohol in Scotland is the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005. The administration of the alcohol licensing regime is devolved to independent local Licensing Boards – in effect the 32 Scottish Local Authorities.

Licensing Boards can grant general extensions of licensed hours if they consider it appropriate to do so in connection with a special event of local or national significance.

The Scottish Ministers do not have a power to grant a general extension of licensed hours, unlike the Home Secretary under the England and Wales alcohol licensing regime.

Question reference: S6W-15111

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 1 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have (a) received legal aid and (b) had an application for legal aid declined in each year since 1999.

Financial Year	Number of applications to SLAB	Grants of applications to SLAB	Total not granted*	Number of other** grants of legal aid
1999-2000	88,000	74,000	14,000	361,000
2000-2001	90,000	76,000	14,000	370,000
2001-2002	97,000	82,000	15,000	371,000
2002-2003	99,000	87,000	12,000	362,000
2003-2004	101,000	88,000	13,000	353,000
2004-2005	103,000	90,000	13,000	339,000
2005-2006	103,000	90,000	13,000	322,000
2006-2007	106,000	93,000	13,000	316,000
2007-2008	99,000	86,000	13,000	275,000
2008-2009	82,000	71,000	11,000	242,000
2009-2010	83,000	71,000	12,000	221,000
2010-2011	80,000	64,000	17,000	208,000
2011-2012	91,000	79,000	12,000	183,000
2012-2013	85,000	71,000	14,000	175,000
2013-2014	92,000	78,000	14,000	168,000
2014-2015	90,000	74,000	16,000	156,000
2015-2016	89,000	72,000	17,000	150,000
2016-2017	83,000	71,000	11,000	147,000
2017-2018	77,000	67,000	11,000	147,000
2018-2019	73,000	64,000	9,000	138,000
2019-2020	75,000	67,000	8,000	135,000
2020-2021	65,000	59,000	6,000	104,000
2021-2022	72,000	63,000	9,000	103,000

Notes

Figures provided by Scottish Legal Aid Board. SLAB is unable to say how many individuals have been granted legal aid as it is possible for a person to have more than one grant of legal aid.

All figures are rounded to the nearest 1000 cases.

Due to rounding, some totals may not correspond with the subtraction of the separate figures.

*Not granted figures include cases refused and those where the application process was not completed.

**Other grants includes grants of legal assistance by solicitors and by the courts.

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