Chamber and committees

The entire NHS Highland Health Board area, including Kintyre, qualifies for the Recruitment and Retention Allowance.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-16442 on 3 May 2023 and question S6W-19380 on 11 July 2023 . 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 .

Scottish Government do not provide direct funding to STV as they are an advertiser funded broadcaster.

We do however provide funding to Screen Scotland who have themselves provided funding to STV Studios. STV Studios is separate to the broadcasting element of STV and is the television production arm of the STV Group plc. They work with a range of broadcasters and streamers, not only STV. All funding decisions of Screen Scotland are made independently of Scottish Government.

In addition, all Scottish Government media buying and planning is undertaken via agencies appointed through the Media Planning, Buying and Associated Services 2019 to 2023 framework. Therefore, this is not conducted directly with STV.

The original design for Scotland’s Census 2022 included the use of administrative data from across the Scottish public sector to quality assure the outputs produced from the census data.

Following the collect phase, and working closely with a group of international census experts, National Records of Scotland (NRS) have adapted their statistical methods to deliver estimates which represent 100% of Scotland’s population. This includes the increased use of administrative data alongside the Census Coverage Survey to help estimate how many people did not respond to the census.

In June 2023, NRS published a paper outlining the methodology enhancements to secure high quality census outputs and population estimates .

COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly. Due to the breadth of conduct which is covered by the term “sexual offending” and the operational nature the COPFS case management system, the requested dataset is not available.

The Scottish Government’s 2021 Population Strategy sets out the factors driving population decline in some parts of the west of Scotland, recognising the different demographic challenges that individual communities face. It shows that areas are each uniquely shaped by natural change (births minus deaths) and net migration. We know that specific local factors influence population outcomes and that no single solution will apply to all communities.

We are assessing a range of factors affecting population outcomes in parts of the west of Scotland as we develop the Addressing Depopulation Action Plan, including: housing; transport and digital infrastructure; local and regional economic development; and public service provision and accessibility. Following this assessment, we will apply a place-based approach within the Action Plan and set out action at a national, regional and local level to address population decline and meet the discrete needs of communities.

A new edition of the Scottish Ministerial Code was published on 20 July 2023 and is available here: https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781835210567 .

Third sector organisations are vital in delivering services to those affected by drugs and alcohol, and their families. The majority of available National Mission funding is allocated to alcohol and drugs partnerships who have local arrangements to support third sector organisations. Scottish Government also fund third sector organisations directly including through the Corra Foundation funds which values £65m over 5 years, and via SG managed grants.

As funding is distributed through these various channels, throughout the year at both local and national level, the total available to third sector organisations is subject to factors such as grant funding applications and local decision making.

The Scottish Government is working to make information around the development and delivery of chronic pain more publicly available and we are currently reviewing the information on the Scottish Government website. We will be updating the chronic pain webpage in summer 2023 to provide information, including membership of the Pain Management Task Force and relevant working groups, on how we are developing and delivering the Pain management - service delivery framework: implementation plan - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

While funding is provided by Scottish Government to support recruitment and retention initiatives in primary care services, such as Golden Hellos, practices are paid directly from this available funding by NHS Boards upon receipt of an eligible application. As the administration of initiatives is delegated to NHS Boards, Scottish Government does not hold detail of payments made as the data is held locally.