Chamber and committees

The UK Government Apprenticeship Levy is a reserved tax on employers which was implemented by the UK Government. Scotland receives a proportionate share of tax revenues via the block grant as per the Fiscal Framework agreement with UK Treasury.

On 14 November 2016, the UK Government announced the Scottish Government’s settlement from the UK Apprenticeship Levy based on a population share of projected revenue for the first three years only.

Since 2020-21 the Scottish Government has not received a direct allocation of apprenticeship levy revenue. Scotland receives a share of funding calculated through the Barnett Formula as part of the block grant and has no direct control or responsibility for the operation of the apprenticeship levy, this means the Scottish Government has no direct control over levy funds or their distribution.

Prior to 2020-21, the notional funding for the levy was spent on a range of apprenticeships, workforce development and pre-employment support, meaning businesses had access to a range of both direct and indirect support. We do not hold information on the number of businesses who accessed funding from the Apprenticeship Levy.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) uses the national waiting times datamart to collect electronic patient records covering the waits that patients experience waiting for treatment as an inpatient or day case under the Treatment Time Guarantee. This data source can be used routinely to identify the specialty of treatment. However, these records are unable to accurately capture procedural level data.

More detailed information on the procedure(s) that is planned or undertaken for a patient will be held locally by NHS Boards.

The Scottish Government wants patients to get the help they need, when they need it, and we understand how important a timely ADHD diagnosis is for individuals.

While local Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) have responsibility for putting in place services to meet local needs, including the needs of adults with ADHD, we fund the National Autism Implementation Team (NAIT) to support HSCPs to consider best practice and improve services in the redesigning of neurodevelopmental diagnostic services.

NAIT provides HSCPs with resources to help them support these adults, and works with them to ensure that Adult Neurodevelopmental Pathways, which provide diagnostic services and support tailored to the needs of each neurodivergent individual, are implemented.

We also provide funding to NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to deliver training resources to meet the needs of staff working in ADHD services across health and social care. These include webinars on Assessing ADHD and Understanding ADHD in Girls and Women, which are available to all NHS and Social Care staff via an online knowledge hub.

Our intention is that these steps will help streamline diagnostic and support processes, thereby reducing existing backlogs.

The Scottish Government remains focused on increasing the number of places at medical schools to meet the future demands of NHS Scotland while also ensuring there are sufficient educational and training places of appropriate quality in NHS Scotland for our undergraduates and trainee doctors. In line with this between Academic year (AY) 2015-16 and AY 2024-25 the Scottish Government has increased the annual intake of medical places in Scottish universities from 848 to 1,417, representing an increase of 67%. These increases include funding Scotland’s first Graduate Entry Medical programme (ScotGEM), introducing the innovative HCP MED course and GP track courses. The Scottish Government also remain committed to promoting Widening Access (WA) to medicine raising the total number of available places from 60 places in available in AY 2020-2021 to 115 in AY 2024-25.

The Scottish Government does not collect information on how many children and young people have been placed in informal kinship care arrangements in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority. We do, however, hold figures for the number of children who are looked after in kinship care and these are included in the Children’s Social Work Statistics for Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to increasing access to diabetes technologies. We have provided significant investment to all NHS boards and this year alone will support over 2000 people to receive hybrid closed loop systems. This funding from the Scottish Government means that any child or young person that wishes to utilise a CLS is now able to do so.

We recognise that patients in NHS Lothian and some other areas are still facing long waits to access hybrid closed loop systems. We are working closely with all NHS boards to determine the most efficient and effective ways of increasing access to this life changing technology. We have also invested in a National Onboarding Service to increase the number of people who can be ‘onboarded’ to a hybrid closed loop system. I am aware that NHS Lothian has already made a number of referrals to this service and I anticipate that this will begin to reduce waiting times.

The draft Islands Connectivity Plan (ICP) Strategic Approach paper said that we would take forward detailed consideration of a number of fares proposals.

The consultation and engagement report and our initial responses were published on 3 September and are available at Islands Connectivity Plan | Transport Scotland.

These outputs will support the finalisation of the ICP which will set out our plans for taking forward ferry fares policy. Further updates will be provided in due course.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-31366 on 5 December 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.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-31366 on 5 December 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.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-31605 on 4 December 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