- Asked by: Pam Gosal, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Siobhian Brown on 28 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to promote the health and safety of retail employees who may be subject to retail crime.
Answer
Those working in our retail sector should be lauded for the important work they are continuing to do during such challenging economic circumstances. They, like anybody, should be able to work without fear of abuse.
Retail workers (as well as all other workers) are protected by a wide range of criminal laws (i.e. the statutory offence of threatening or abusive behaviour; the common law offence of assault; and the common law offence of breach of the peace).
In addition, the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-Restricted Products) (Scotland) Act 2021(“the 2021 Act”) came into force in August 2021 and created a statutory offence of threatening, abusing, or assaulting a retail worker, adding to the offences that can already be used to prosecute those who abuse retail workers.
Scottish Government partners, like the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) and Scottish Grocers’ Federation (SGF), share best guidance and resources, such as the free GroceryAid helpline, and Victim Support, for victims of violence and abuse in a retail setting.
- Asked by: Pam Gosal, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 19 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to incorporate the role of GPs and other primary healthcare providers who have contact with children into new approaches to homelessness prevention, and what strategies are being developed to ensure their involvement.
Answer
The Scottish Government recognises the important role health services can play in helping to prevent homelessness, including for households with children. We will introduce new ask and act duties on named relevant bodies so that a wider range of services do more to prevent homelessness.
The relevant bodies include health boards, special health boards and integrated health boards. While GPs are not on the named bodies list, we anticipate that the duties on other health professionals, such as community link workers in GP practices, will ensure GPs and other practice staff are kept informed and involved in homelessness prevention.
We will work closely with stakeholders in health to ensure the regulations, guidance and training for the implementation of the new duties are fit for purpose and take into account the specific needs of particular households, including those with children. We will be funding a series of pilot projects in 2025-26 that will help inform the best approach to take.
We also know that there is good practice in preventing homelessness across Scotland and we would encourage health and other services to work together and in co-operation with other partners to prevent homelessness now rather than to wait for new homelessness prevention duties.
- Asked by: Pam Gosal, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 19 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken to support at-risk families through trained support workers, and how it will ensure that such families are directed to relevant and effective services to resolve crises that may lead to homelessness.
Answer
The Scottish Government’s new homelessness prevention measures will mean families at risk of homelessness get help earlier, and other relevant bodies do more to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place.
The Scottish Government provided funding to support the development of the Housing Options Training Toolkit, a learning and development, training and resource platform that supports local authorities to provide housing advice in Scotland.
We know some bodies will already be carrying out effective work to prevent homelessness and others will have mixed levels of knowledge about homelessness. We are making £4 million available for homelessness prevention pilots in 2025-26. This funding will enable relevant bodies and local partners to pilot and share learning on the steps, resources and services needed to resolve crises and effectively prevent homelessness.
- Asked by: Pam Gosal, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 19 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what measures are being taken to increase the supply of permanent family-sized social homes, and how this will (a) help households with children to move out of the homelessness system and (b) improve the quality of temporary accommodation.
Answer
The Scottish Government has increased the Affordable Housing Supply Budget by £211.8 million for 2025-26 when compared to 2024-25. This will bring the investment in housing in 2025-26 to £768 million, which will enable delivery of more than 8,000 homes in Scotland. In 2024-25, we targeted £42 million of funding to the local authorities with the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures. To date, this has supported local authorities to bring 1,000 homes back into use through acquisitions and reduced the number of empty social homes. We have also worked with utility providers on energy supply issues to social rented homes to reduce the turnaround time for void properties.
1.Acquiring larger properties suitable for families will help to reduce the number of households, including families with children, in temporary accommodation. The targeted funding of £42 million will help to increase the supply of social housing of the right type and size where it is needed most. Our most recent statistics show that 20 councils have reduced the number of children in temporary accommodation as at 30 September 2024.
2.All local authorities should ensure that the temporary accommodation they provide to fulfil their duty to accommodate homeless households meets the temporary accommodation standards framework, published by the Scottish Government in 2023. The Scottish Government will provide record funding of more than £15 billion to councils in 2025-26 to support the delivery of a range of services, including homelessness services – an increase of £1,008 million on 2024-25. The Scottish Government allows local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently, and local authorities are best placed to identify and respond to local needs and priorities.
- Asked by: Pam Gosal, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 19 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken to increase the availability of good quality temporary accommodation for households with children.
Answer
We have taken action to increase supply of social homes, with a focus on larger family homes, through increasing funding to local authorities for voids and acquisitions as set out in the answer to S6W-35453 on 19 March 2025.
We continue to support local authorities to transition to rapid rehousing, which is the best way to reduce the use of temporary accommodation in the longer term. Where temporary accommodation is required, it should meet the needs of the household.
Local authorities need to ensure that all temporary accommodation is of a high quality and meets the needs of the people that are living there. The Temporary Accommodation Standards Framework, published in 2023, sets out the physical, location, service and management standards to ensure consistency in standards across all local authority areas. All local authorities are expected to work towards meeting these standards to ensure that temporary accommodation is of good quality and is safe, warm and affordable.
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
- Asked by: Pam Gosal, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 19 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how it will ensure that all temporary accommodation, including any supplied by private sector leasing schemes, is maintained to the same standard as permanent social housing stock.
Answer
Local authorities need to ensure that all temporary accommodation is of a high quality and meets the needs of the people that are living there. The Temporary Accommodation Standards Framework was published in 2023 and all local authorities are expected to work towards meeting these standards.
The ‘tolerable standard’, which applies to all dwellings in Scotland, is a basic level of repair that applies to all property to make it habitable. In addition, the Scottish Housing Quality Standard, also applies to social rented sector properties, was introduced in 2004 to ensure properties are energy efficient, safe and secure; are not seriously damaged; and have kitchens and bathrooms that are in good condition.
- Asked by: Pam Gosal, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 28 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much funding was provided in 2022-23 to deliver work in schools as part of the Equally Safe at School programme, and to which organisations any such funding was allocated.
Answer
Answer expected on 28 March 2025
- Asked by: Pam Gosal, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 28 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any impact of increases in council tax and water and sewerage bills on household disposable incomes and consumer spending.
Answer
Answer expected on 28 March 2025
- Asked by: Pam Gosal, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 28 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what the average cost per member of staff was in 2022-23 to support multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) in each relevant public body, including Police Scotland, the Scottish Prison Service, NHS boards and local authorities.
Answer
Answer expected on 28 March 2025
- Asked by: Pam Gosal, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 28 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many offenders participated in the Caledonian System rehabilitation programme in 2022-23, and how many local authorities currently deliver the Caledonian System.
Answer
Answer expected on 28 March 2025
