The Government recognises the value of building relationships in work to tackle the poverty related attainment gap and is investing £750m in the Scottish Attainment Challenge over the course of this Parliament. Funding for the programmes delivered by this funding is committed until the end of the current parliament, allowing local authorities and schools to plan across multiple years. The Government is committed to closing the poverty related attainment gap and has no plans to stop further investment in the Attainment Scotland Fund in future years.

Further, the Scottish Government and Education Scotland provide a variety of comprehensive guidance to Local Authorities and schools on the use of this funding. Each Local Authority also has a dedicated Attainment Advisor from Education Scotland. Attainment Advisors play a significant role in helping schools to plan and develop sustainable strategies and approaches to closing the poverty-related attainment gap, and supporting them to use data to plan, monitor and evaluate their impact.

The Scottish Government jointly launched the Local Governance Review with COSLA to consider how powers are shared across national and local government, and with communities. The Review reflects our shared commitment to Scotland’s different places and diverse communities having a direct say over decisions which affect them.

The Scottish Government is committed to stimulating investment and creating vibrant and inclusive regional economies. City and Regional Growth Deals represent significant investments in our regional economies, with local authorities leading the development of proposals that reflect their region’s economic strengths, and comprise of a programme of interventions to support transformative change.

Deals represent a partnership of investment between the Scottish Government, the UK Government and local government partners. The Scottish Government has committed over £1.7 billion over the next 10 to 20 years to Deals and associated regional investments. We have made clear that we want to ensure that all of Scotland is covered by a growth deal, and have challenged the UK government to match this.

We are also working with partners to facilitate the development of new Regional Economic Partnerships. These are collaborations between local authorities, the private sector, education and skills providers, our economic agencies and the third sector. By bringing together regional interests, aligning resources, sharing knowledge, and developing joined-up plans, these partnerships, supported by the Scottish Government and our agencies, seek to drive inclusive economic growth at a regional scale.

The Scottish Government jointly launched the Local Governance Review with COSLA to consider how powers are shared across national and local government, and with communities. Engagement extended beyond local government to consider all public services. Summary reports of the initial findings can be found at https://www.gov.scot/democracymatters . We didn't specifically ask about the number of councils, council boundaries, or who should govern each council. Instead, we asked a short set of broad questions about the future of local democracy in Scotland. From over 350 responses from individuals, communities and public institutions, the number, size, or shape of councils, or who should govern them, didn’t appear in the analysis. A key theme which did emerge was the need to consider the right level of place for the delivery of different services – local, regional or national. On 16 May 2019, the Scottish Government and COSLA announced the initial findings and set out next steps. A further round of widespread engagement will take place later in 2019 in order to help create a new system of community-led decision-making that can become integrated into Scottish society.

The Local Governance Review reflects a shared commitment from the Scottish Government and COSLA to Scotland’s different places and diverse communities having a direct say over decisions which affect them. Ministers want to strengthen local decision-making and democratic governance in ways that improve outcomes for people, grow Scotland’s economy for everyone’s benefit, support communities to focus on their priorities, and help new ideas to flourish. The Review will help deliver the National Performance Framework outcomes, “We tackle poverty by sharing opportunities, wealth and power more equally”, and “We live in communities that are inclusive, empowered, resilient and safe”.

The Scottish Government jointly launched the Local Governance Review with COSLA to consider how powers are shared across national and local government, and with communities. The Review reflects our shared commitment to Scotland’s different places and diverse communities having a direct say over decisions which affect them. We are taking a whole system approach which looks across Scotland’s public services and ensures that measures to empower people and places in different spheres of governance are cohesive and mutually supportive.

Local Authorities have a statutory responsibility to provide education to all children of school age. The Scottish Government estimates how much local government needs to fund local services and then applies a needs-based formula to allocate the total available funding, which is agreed by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on behalf of all 32 councils.

This Government is committed to closing the poverty related attainment gap and that is why we are investing £750 million in the Attainment Scotland Fund over the course of this parliament. We know that empowered teachers, given the right resources and appropriate support, are making a massive difference in our classrooms and are transforming lives.

Pupil Equity Funding was introduced in 2017 as a new way of working to close the attainment gap by providing money directly to head teachers, who know their young people best. Giving head teachers and schools the power to choose where to target support and interventions and decide what will make a real difference to their pupils and communities means the life chances of our young people can be significantly improved.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that eviction for rent arrears is a last resort and we have robust measures in place to help tenants in arrears sustain their tenancy wherever possible. The number of evictions in Scotland accounted for only 0.4% of social sector tenancies in 2017-18.

The Scottish Government notes the publication of the Shelter Scotland report, Evictions by social landlord in Scotland 2016-2018 with interest. We will be discussing the recommendations in the report with Shelter and consider what action, if any, needs to be taken.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that eviction for rent arrears is a last resort and we have robust measures in place to help tenants in arrears sustain their tenancy wherever possible. The number of evictions in Scotland accounted for only 0.4% of social sector tenancies in 2017-18. L andlords need to have legal remedies to deal with the small minority of tenants who won’t engage with them to resolve their arrears.

Tenancy sustainment forms part of the Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans that each local authority has provided to the Scottish Government. We are identifying ways to work with social housing providers to use all opportunities to support housing sustainment, and we will specify expectations resulting from this work in the Homelessness Code of Guidance.

12 out of 18 (67%) social landlords report that they have met the minimum site standards for Gypsy/Traveller sites. The following table provides a breakdown by local authority/Registered Social Landlord. The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) continues to monitor, assess and report on landlords’ achievement of and ongoing compliance with the minimum site standards. SHR is engaging with landlords to ensure that progress is being made on sites that do not currently meet the standards.

Our Stroke Improvement Plan (2014) sets out a comprehensive programme for further reducing the number of deaths from stroke and improving stroke treatment and care across the whole patient pathway including rehabilitation.

The Scottish Stroke Care Audit (SSCA) monitors the quality of care provided by the hospitals in all Health Boards by collating data collected by the stroke Managed Clinical Networks (MCNs).

To improve services effectively the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme recognises the needs to set clear aims which have been established through the Scottish Stroke Care Standards (2016) and the priority actions from the Stroke Improvement Plan. The Stroke Improvement Programme Lead and Scottish SSCA National Clinical Coordinator work closely with NHS Boards to ensure key priorities from the Stroke Improvement Plan are implemented and monitored.

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport met the Chair and Chief Executive of the Professional Standards Authority on Tuesday 6 November 2018 and discussed the programme at that time.

The Authority’s acknowledged expertise lies in the field of regulatory and governance standards. It has no statutory role relating to operational issues such as recruitment and deployment of specific professions.

Counselling and Psychotherapy in Scotland (COSCA) are a professional body for counselling and psychotherapy in Scotland and they maintain a voluntary register of practitioners and organisations in Scotland.