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Local authorities have statutory responsibility for improving houses in their area and broad discretionary powers to provide advice and support to owners. It is for a local authority to determine whether this is best provided through a local care and repair service or directly by the local authority.

In connection with the new standard for fire and smoke alarms, Care and Repair Scotland have undertaken to liaise with local services that are adjacent to areas that do not have a service, and, if it is possible, to provide support across the boundaries, but this will depend on the practicalities of delivering support and the agreement of the local authority concerned.

In the case of South Ayrshire support for the purpose of assistance with fire alarms is being provided by the service at Shire Housing Association, which provides the Care and Repair service for East Ayrshire. Contact details are available on their website at https://shirehousing.co.uk/our-services/care-repair/ .

It is for individual local authorities to determine the amount of grant that they require to apply for in order for a project to be financially viable. We are therefore unable to say how much the Scottish Government will contribute to local authorities – on average – in the current financial year for each council house that is built, and what the range of funding support will be per house based on their size and type.

However, Annual Out-turn Reports relating to the Affordable Housing Supply Programme are published around the end of each calendar year and, as well as providing background information on the planning, delivery and scope of the Affordable Housing Supply Programme, these include various out-turn tables in respect of spend, along with the number of approvals, site starts and completions, broken down by local authority, in the preceding financial year. The Out-turn Reports also include a table showing the average total cost per home and the average grant per home. These are the actual costs relating to the delivery of the projects within the Affordable Housing Supply Programme, calculated at tender approval stage.

The information to be included within the AHSP Out-turn Report for 2020-21 is currently being collated, but the Out-turn Report in respect of 2019-20 is available on the Scottish Government website.

he Scottish Government Council House Build Programme was introduced in April 2009, the aim being to incentivise local authorities to build new homes. This was the first such central government support to councils in a generation.

The following table shows the funding provided to North Ayrshire Council through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) for council house building since 2011-2012 to 2021-22.

The Scottish Government does not have information of the rate of manufacture of interlinked fire alarms. We are aware that, following our successful public awareness campaign, there is significant public interest in carrying out work to comply with the new standard for fire alarms in all Scottish homes. It is, therefore, possible, that some retailers will have short term supply issues. We are also aware that some manufacturers are dependent on import of components, and that has been affected by Brexit, and this may also have affected their production. However, we have been assured by manufacturers that there is a sufficient supply of alarms available to meet the expected demand by 1 February 2022, when the new standard comes into force.

In relation to the funding provided to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service from Scottish Government, all of the funding was spent in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 financial year.

Tackling child poverty is a national mission for this government and we are making considerable investment to increase family incomes and reduce household costs. In 2020-21 we spent £2.5 billion in targeted support for low-income households, including nearly £1 billion to support low income families with children.

This year, through our Scottish Child Payment and Bridging Payments, we will put around £130 million directly in the pockets of low income families across Scotland. By the end of June over £351,000 was awarded to families in South Ayrshire through the Scottish Child Payment, and over £645,000 was awarded through Bridging Payments by the end of August. We will further increase the support available to families by doubling the Scottish Child Payment to £20 per week as early as possible and will set out how we will do this as part of the budget bill process.

We also made a £130 Low Income Pandemic Support Payment by the end of October for every household who received Council Tax Reduction in the month of April – an investment of up to £65 million, expected to benefit over 500,000 households across Scotland, including an estimated 10,600 in South Ayrshire.

To help raise educational attainment, to date, we have made more than £15 million available to South Ayrshire Council through the Attainment Scotland Fund, of which £3.5 million is available this year. And to help parents with the cost of the school day we have further increased the value of school clothing grants, and also started expansion of universal Free School Meals and school holiday provision, for which South Ayrshire Council will receive around £1 million.

In 2021-22, South Ayrshire Council will receive a total funding package of £232.7 million to support local services, which includes an extra £6.3 million to support vital day to day services, equivalent to an increase of 2.9 per cent compared to 2020-21.

To date, the council have been allocated an additional £30 million to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, through the local government settlement - over and above their regular grant payments.

However, the Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

We will continue to work closely with local authorities to deliver the action required on child poverty and will publish our next Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan in March 2022 which will set us on a critical path to achieve our shared child poverty targets.

By contrast, the UK Government’s decision to cut Universal Credit from the start of October could remove over £460 million in social security spending from Scotland by 2023-24. Based on the latest data available (May 2021), the Scottish Government estimate that around 4,800 children in South Ayrshire will be affected by the cut from the start of October.

The Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland (PHS) continue to work with health boards to support their planning and the safe delivery of immunisation services during the pandemic.

The latest HPV immunisation statistics published by Public Health Scotland (PHS) for academic year 2019/20 show that uptake for the HPV vaccine remains high. Further information is available online on the PHS website: HPV Immunisation Statistics Scotland 22 December 2020 - Data & intelligence from PHS (isdscotland.org).

Public Health Scotland collate data on the HPV vaccination programme for the previous school year every autumn. Data for school year 2020-21 will be collated in autumn 2021 and published in December 2021. Therefore, we cannot provide information on the most recent school year.

This EIR was reviewed and the outcome of that review will be published on the Scottish Government website.

The Help to Buy (Scotland) Smaller Developers scheme continues to be available to help people purchase a new build home throughout 2021/22. The scheme will close on 31 March 2022.

The Low-cost Initiative for First Time Buyers, which includes the Open Market Shared Equity and New Supply Shared Equity schemes will continue to be available. These schemes are aimed at first time buyers and priority access groups and count towards the Affordable Housing Supply Programme commitment to deliver a further 110,000 affordable homes by 2032.

It is not possible to determine exactly how many properties have alarms of the prescribed type installed as this information is not currently collected as part of the Scottish House Condition Survey.