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The work of these programmes to support people to engage in employment, education or training is an important part of our Covid-19 response, particularly given the forecasted and unprecedented rise in youth unemployment. The programmes have all adapted the way they deliver support, to ensure that they continue to help those further from the labour market towards and into work during Covid-19.

Community Jobs Scotland has a focus on those most disadvantaged in the labour market – those who are care experienced or are carers themselves, early Armed Forces service leavers, those with criminal convictions and those who have disabilities or other health issues – and has already created jobs for 9,000 young people across the country. At the end of June, there were 527 young people being supported through Community Jobs Scotland across Phases 8, 9 and 10. There were 12 Phase 10 jobs advertised for recruitment with a further 28 jobs being progressed through final checks prior to advertising.

With a strong focus on work experience, the Employability Fund lets us respond to the different needs of each individual, while also adapting to employer demands on a local basis. Evidence of individual achievement and progression is important for everyone involved. The Fund can be used to support people to develop the employability and vocational skills they need to make the transition into a Modern Apprenticeship or job. There were 575 Employability Fund Starts in quarter 1 (Apr – Jun) 2020/21, and a 72% Achievement Rate for this quarter’s cohort of leavers.

Discovering Your Potential (DYP) aims to promote a systemic change to the way employability support is delivered, supporting young care experienced people to achieve positive destinations such as further education, training and employment. The programme is delivered by the Young People’s Consortium which includes Barnardo’s, Action for Children and the Prince’s Trust, and aims to build strong trusting relationships with young people throughout their employability journey. This involves continuing personalised and holistic support during these challenging times, in addition to employability support.

Our Future Now (OFN) aims to ensure that an entire generation of young people have the opportunity and aspiration to thrive in life - economically, socially, and culturally – regardless of the complexity and depth of the challenges that they may face. The programme is delivered by Inspiring Scotland and aims to support young people aged 16-25 to engage in employment, education or training.

During 2019-2020, the fund exceeded the target set for year one and engaged more than 4,791 young people, with 3422 young people progressing onto work, further or higher education .

In 2020-21, Scottish Government has allocated:

• £5 million to Community Jobs Scotland;
• £1.9 million to Our Future Now; and
• £1 million to Discovering Your Potential.

With regard to Employability fund, Skills Development Scotland was allocated Grant in Aid of £224.8m for 2020-21, which is used to meet its commitments as will be set out in their ministerial guidance letter. Included in these commitments are Foundation, Graduate and Modern Apprenticeships, Careers Information, Advice and Guidance (CIAG), Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE), and Employability Fund.

In December 2018 we published ‘ A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: Employment Action Plan’ . In this, we outlined the actions that we will take forward with partners to achieve our ambitious commitment to half the disability employment gap in Scotland by 2038 . Success will be demonstrated by reducing the gap to 18.7p.p. (percentage points) by 2038, and in doing so increasing the employment rate of disabled people to 50% by 2023 and 60% by 2030.

The tables below show progress against these measures from our 2016 baseline until 2019 (the most recent year that data is available for).

In December 2018 we published A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: Employment Action Plan . In this, we outlined the actions that we will take forward with partners to achieve our ambitious commitment to half the disability employment gap in Scotland by 2038 .

Within this we also committed to: 1) increasing the employment rate by 1 percentage point every year, thereby, increasing the employment rate of disabled people to at least 50% by 2023 and 60% by 2030.

We review our progress in a regular yearly update, which is published on our website:

The £100 million of funding for employment and skills support will be allocated as follows:

• Youth Guarantee: £60 million;
• National Transitional Training Fund: £25 million;
• Apprenticeships: £10 million;
• Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE): £5 million.

The delivery of these schemes builds on the strong infrastructure we have already put in place with key partners, such as Skills Development Scotland, Local Authorities, Colleges and others, to support those impacted by the crisis. We will continue to work closely with our partners to ensure support is targeted at those who need it most during Scotland’s economic recovery.

The Scottish Government has outlined a breakdown of an initial investment in the early actions attached to the Youth Guarantee to be allocated in 2020-21.

£30 million through local authorities to support local partnerships to deliver employability support

£10 million directly to colleges

£10 million additional funding for Developing the Young Workforce, the Scottish Government’s Youth Employment Strategy

£10 million to support pre-apprenticeship activity

We are working closely with partners to agree the detail of how this investment will support the ambitions of the Youth Guarantee. This will build on existing activities already underway in schools, colleges and universities, through Local Authorities, Skills Development Scotland, the third sector and Developing the Young Workforce, all aimed at supporting young people through the current economic climate.

Work on the employer-led implementation of the Youth Guarantee continues to be led by Sandy Begbie and across a range of partner organisations. Further details on the implementation of the Youth Guarantee will be announced in the coming weeks.

The Scottish Government assumed Executive Competence for the devolved benefits on 1 April 2020. To date the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland have delivered eight social security benefits, including four brand new forms of assistance. The most recent of these was Job Start Payment, launched on 17 August to help young people with the costs of starting a new job. We will open applications for the Scottish Child Payment in November this year, and are also on track to deliver Child Winter Heating Assistance by the end of the year, subject to getting the data we require from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

As I set out in my statement to Parliament on 1 April, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the Scottish Government, Social Security Scotland and DWP, whose support we need to transfer social security powers. As a result, we are having to rework our timetable for delivery of the remaining devolved benefits, which is a complex exercise. We need to take into account the impact of the pandemic not only on our own services, but also on the availability of health and social care professionals to bring their expertise to the co-design of disability and carer benefits at a time when many are still needed on the frontline, and on DWP’s capacity to support the transfer of social security powers. I will update Parliament later this year.

We have gone beyond our original £70 million Food Fund commitment and have now committed over £120 million to tackle food insecurity caused by the pandemic.

£57.6 million of funding was provided to local authorities to provide coordinated cross-sectoral help with food and other essentials for at risk groups from April-Sept inclusive; We have provided guidance to local authorities, who were given flexibility in how to use these funds, and shared good practice around community support.

£4.9 million has been invested to support 50 third-sector partners through direct grants. These strategic investments, focused on delivering critical national or community-based responses and include £2.1 million for FareShare to purchase and distribute food to groups and hubs (as referenced in response to S5W-31701 on 24 September 2020. A further £7.8 million has been invested in projects focused on tackling food insecurity through our Wellbeing and Supporting Communities funds

These investments are in addition to us increasing the Scottish Welfare Fund, which is placing money directly into the pockets of those who need it and continue to provide support for a range of needs including for those experiencing financial or physical barriers to food.

The Tackling Food Insecurity Team are providing regular email updates to community groups, sharing information on funding and providing guidance to organisations on any specific issues they raise.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at .

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-31702 on 25 September 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at .

The £6m of funding that the Scottish Government has committed to promoting positive mental wellbeing over the course of the pandemic is as follows:

£3.8m (Announced on 27 March), which consists of:

• £2.1 million to expand the NHS 24 Mental Health Hub so that it will be available to the public 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
• £0.5 million to expand the Breathing Space telephone helpline and web support service
• £1.2 million to provide extra capacity for Computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CCBT).

£1m to roll out the Distress Brief Intervention programme on a national basis

£1m for children, young people and families (Announced on 1 May), which consists of:

• £768,000 for a relationships helpline to be delivered by The Spark counselling service
• £105,000 to support Young Scot to develop enhanced digital content and resources on mental health
• £205,000 to support 47,000 autistic people across Scotland. This consists of funding to increase capacity at the Scottish Autism Helpline, and help for the National Autistic Society to keep people in touch online during lockdown.

£200k for free access to Solihull Online (Announced on 19 May)

Social Security Scotland routinely publish information on payments issued as part of the quarterly Official Statistics release ‘Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods’. This includes information on value of payments at Local Authority level.

Information on Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods was last published on 28 July 2020 and provided information up to 31 May 2020. This publication is available from:

The value of payments issued, from the launch of each benefit to 31 May 2020, for both the Scottish Borders and Scotland are shown in the following table. Best Start Grant consists of three separate payments: Pregnancy and Baby Payment, Early Learning Payment and School Age Payment.