4. To ask the Scottish Government how the proposals in its draft strategy to tackle loneliness and social isolation could help to promote the third sector. (S5O-01697)

In our draft strategy, we are clear that third sector organisations have an important role in reducing social isolation and loneliness. To support that, we have protected the core third sector budget at 2016-17 levels.

Volunteers are central to this effective work, and in 2016-17 our investment in the volunteer support fund resulted in 3,505 new volunteers being recruited from disadvantaged backgrounds. Engaging people with that experience, and those who are older, remains a challenge, so our commitment of £3.8 million to that fund from 2017-18 onwards is important.

We want to do more—we have made clear our commitment to do more with that investment—so our draft strategy focuses on community-led work, what more needs to be done and what we as a Government can do to enable community-led initiatives to flourish.

The minister will agree that there are already many examples of great things being done by the third sector to tackle loneliness and social isolation. My constituents in Stevenston have benefited from working with Centrestage Communities’ raise your voice Ardeer project, which brings people together with musical memories and family nights under its theme of fun, food and folk. What is the Scottish Government doing to encourage such organisations to respond to the consultation to ensure that existing best practice is learned from and taken into account as the strategy develops?

As an MSP in a neighbouring constituency, I am well aware of much of the work that Centrestage undertakes in my area. In Cumnock, along with the Robertson Trust it has developed work with women on that theme, and now has the very successful heart and soul initiative and a community cafe. The key characteristics of that organisation—and the other organisations that members spoke about in last week’s debate—are that it is rooted in and led by the community in which it works. Those aspects are central to our strategy.

We have encouraged third sector interfaces in each local authority area to circulate information through their networks about how to respond and to encourage responses to us. Over the coming weeks and months, we will host a number of engagement events across Scotland in order to encourage responses to our consultation, and for my officials and I to hear directly about work that is being done, but also what more work needs to be done. I look forward to hearing from Centrestage, the Robertson Trust, Age Scotland and a myriad of other organisations and people in their communities about how our strategy can be improved. We will do all that we can to encourage their participation.

As I alluded to in my speech last week on loneliness and social isolation, I am pleased that social prescribing will form part of the strategy. How does the Scottish Government intend to monitor and select pilot projects in communities that can be recommended as models to be used elsewhere?

I welcome Annie Wells’s support for that element of our strategy and, indeed, her support last week for the strategy as a whole. Our consultation includes organisations giving us their views on those matters. We will return to Parliament with our final strategy and provide detail on our proposition on how to progress some of those issues.

The minister will be aware that the Government’s budget proposes cuts that will affect the third sector’s ability to help communities to be more sustainable and tackle loneliness. Surely a real-terms cut of £400,000 to central third sector funding, the £4.4 million cuts to regeneration programmes and more cuts to local government undermine the good intention of the loneliness strategy, which we all support.

I always find it sad when colleagues in the chamber refuse to hear what ministers say or to read documents that are there for them to read. I repeat: we have protected the third sector budget and the equalities budget is up.

As I said in last week’s debate, it ill behoves my colleagues across the chamber to misrepresent not only what the Government has in the draft budget but what our colleagues in the Scottish Parliament information centre have confirmed is in it.

I am sure that if Labour members have their proposals for the budget ready, my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Constitution will be more than happy to discuss any constructive proposals they may have.