Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group, attended by the Minister for Local Government and Housing, agrees an annual workplan.

Its current priorities include addressing the future role of temporary accommodation for homeless households and establishing joint working between health and housing services to improve outcomes for those with more complex needs.

In the past year, it has made policy recommendations on how best to address these priorities and other areas, such as the continued development of housing options approaches to prevent homelessness.

The proportion of everyday journeys made by bike has risen since 2011 but there is still a long way to go in achieving our vision. The vision is important as it focusses minds and that is why we have reaffirmed it in our 3rd Cycling Action Plan for Scotland, published in January.

That's also why our Programme for Government commits us to maintain recent, record levels of funding for active travel for the rest of this Parliamentary term. This funding commitment is unique; and we look forward to working with local authorities and third sector organisations both to secure continued match-funding and to make further progress towards our vision.

It is intended that the conclusions of the consultation on building warrant fees will be published in early Spring 2017.

I refer the Member to the answers to questions S5W-05274 and S5W-05275 on 13 December 2016. In assessing the appointment of verifiers from May 2017 I intend to use the criteria set out in the Operational Framework and underpinned by the revised Performance Framework.

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 is aware of one local authority applying the power stemming from the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 to reduce non-domestic rates in its area.

The Scottish Government’s business rates policies reflect the full range of its strategic priorities, including the importance of support for town centres.

The Scottish Government has treated local government very fairly despite the cuts to the Scottish Budget from the UK Government.

I will set out details of the 2017-18 local government finance settlement tomorrow as part of my announcement on the Scottish Government's 2017-18 Draft Budget.

The Building (Scotland) Act 2003 allows Scottish Ministers to appoint verifiers on such terms or limitations as they feel appropriate. They must have regard to qualifications; competency; accountability to the public; and impartiality before making an appointment.

I am currently reviewing the appointment process of verifiers from May 2017 onwards and propose to introduce an operating framework for verifiers. This will set out the key verification functions and cover integrity and operational resilience; building warrant and completion certificate processing; and maintaining records.

I welcomed the publication of the report in March 2016 and have noted its findings. The conclusions drawn from the report are presently being considered in relation to the next appointment of verifiers from May 2017 onwards.

Local authorities are committed to the verification performance framework that was introduced in 2012 and are subject to regular monitoring by Scottish Government.

Scottish Government commissioned Pye Tait Consulting to undertake an ‘Evaluation of the performance of local authorities in their role as verifiers’ and their report was published in March 2016. The independent research concluded that:

“In summary, whilst there has been substantial progress and investment in delivering a high quality and customer-focused building standards service since the last re-appointment of local authorities in 2011, there is still work to do to create the conditions for strong performance across all 32 Councils.”