Chamber and committees

In December 2023, given the extremely challenging capital funding position, NHS Boards were instructed to stop any project development spend and instead direct capital budgets towards maintenance of the existing estate and essential equipment and digital replacement. Boards were notified that the Scottish Government does not anticipate starting construction of any new project over the next two years at least.

We are working with all health boards to develop a whole-system infrastructure plan which reflects on the needs for the whole of Scotland and will support continued safe operation of existing facilities and well as determination of longer-term investment priorities.

As a result of significant increases in construction costs due to inflation, and a lower than expected capital grant from the UK Government, a capital review is currently underway.

Alongside this, we are working with all health boards to develop a whole-system infrastructure plan which reflects on the needs for the whole of Scotland and will support continued safe operation of existing facilities and well as determination of longer-term investment priorities.

Over the past four years, the Scottish Government provided a total of £12.13 million of additional funding to address Mental Health Officer (MHO) shortfall across Scotland. Under the Training Grant Scheme alone, we provided £1.93 million for local authorities to train 83 additional MHOs. This funding exceeded our original commitment to invest £1.5 million over three years to train MHOs. Under the Capacity Increase scheme, the Scottish Government provided another £10.2 million for local authorities to increase MHO capacity. These schemes were intended to run for a limited number of years to alleviate system pressures raised specifically from the pandemic and to allow local government to undertake statutory duties.

Since 2022-23, the Scottish Government has been providing local authorities with an additional £22 million per annum to increase social work capacity in adult services. Given the close links between social workers’ and MHOs’ duties, this additional £44 million in funding is thought to have also benefited MHO capacity.

We monitor the state of the MHO workforce through the annual MHO Report published by the Scottish Social Services Council. The most recent report, published in August 2024, showed an increase of 27 individuals (headcount) working as MHOs, compared to the previous year. This figure represents the net headcount after considering the MHOs who have left the sector. The actual number of MHOs who have joined the workforce over the previous year, therefore, is higher.

In addition to providing funding, the Scottish Government is working closely with partners to improve MHO capacity, for instance, we have set up a Joint Social Services Taskforce with the aim of exploring opportunities to deliver improvements for the adult and children’s social care and social work workforce. This group is exploring options for a pilot exercise to increase capacity for the MHO workforce by reducing administrative burdens.

The Scottish Government sought advice from the Investor Panel on how we can attract investment to Scotland that supports our transition to net zero, and bring investor intelligence to policy and regulatory development early in the process. One of the recommendations in their report, 'Mobilising international capital to finance the transition to Net Zero', was to use existing devolved powers to issue debt, i.e. bonds. Further information can be found in the Scottish Government response to the report: Investor Panel recommendations: Scottish Government response - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The Scottish Government remains committed to taking forward a Bond issuance subject to ongoing due diligence.

This will be done in line with our Capital Borrowing strategy and the objectives we published in December 2023 in the Memorandum available at Scottish Government capital borrowing and bonds: memorandum - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

I will say more about our future borrowing plans in the upcoming Scottish Budget.

The Scottish Government is proud to have played a leading role in the Under2 Coalition for the past four years. The Coalition is made up of 260 governments representing over 1.75 billion people and 50% of the global economy and has been named one of the international partnerships with the highest potential for emissions reduction - 3.3-3.9GtCO2e/year in 2030 – more than the current annual emissions of the EU.

Over the last four years as co-chair, we have increased member governments’ ambition via a new MoU committing them to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 or earlier.

We have increased the influence of non-party governments in the global climate debate, including in UNFCCC processes and in COPs. Finally, we have increased the sharing of best practice between sub-nationals via our co-chairing of the Net Zero Futures Policy Forum and establishing and funding the Just Transition Taskforce.

Going forward, the Scottish Government will continue to play a key role in the strategic direction of the coalition. We will look to increase devolved, state and regional government’s role and influence within international climate policy and processes and to develop the capacity building and knowledge exchange offer for the coalition, via the Net Zero Futures Policy Forum.

The Scottish Government have engaged with LGBT Youth Scotland to determine the facts around the recent media reports. We have determined no further action is needed at this stage.

The Scottish Government are continuing to fund all organisations who have received funding through the Equality and Human Rights Fund for the 2024-2025 financial year.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-28974 on 19 September 2024. 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.

A] The Scottish Government believes that the community social work model remains an important approach and undoubtedly, in the right circumstances, offers a targeted early response to tackle a wide range of issues which may in some circumstances lead to crisis.

B] The Scottish government recognises that, as part of range of approaches, the community based social work model holds an important place in responding to the needs of deprived communities with the main strength being the proactive and accessible nature of the approach.

By its nature, it is difficult to estimate the volume of crime in Scotland which doesn’t come to the attention of the police. The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) asks victims of crime whether they reported the incident to the police (or any other authority). As a survey of adults living in private residences within Scotland, the SCJS findings do not include any crimes against children (those aged under 16), those living in communal establishments or businesses.

The SCJS results are typically reported for financial years ending in March with figures for 2023-24 due to be published in 2025. The latest figures available, for 2021-22, estimated that 29% of property and violent crimes combined were reported to the police (based on interviews over October 2021 to December 2022), this splits into 27% and 34% for property and violent crimes respectively.

From the 2023-24 survey sweep, the SCJS questionnaire was expanded to include measures of fraud and computer misuse victimisation, including estimates of those cases reported to the police. The first results from this new module will be published alongside the main report next year.

Finally, the survey also asks about experiences of sexual victimisation and partner abuse. The latest figures for 2018-20 estimated that the police came to know about the most recent (or only) incident for 22% and 16% of respondents who experienced serious sexual assault or partner abuse respectively since the age of 16.

We encourage victims to report all crimes to Police Scotland, who are committed to protecting our communities.