Chamber and committees

Our justice recovery fund of £53.2 million in 2022-23 supports continued recovery, renewal and transformation activity across the justice system. This includes funding increased court and staffing capacity for the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, which has contributed to a fall of 12,000 in the number of scheduled trials between January and the end of October 2022.

Justice agencies have been clear that recovery from the impacts of the pandemic will take several years, and initiatives are underway to address backlogs and streamline processes in different ways. For example, a pilot of a new approach to managing summary cases began in Dundee, Hamilton and Paisley Sheriff courts in September. It is designed to make long term improvements to how the system works for its users, facilitating early disclosure of evidence and early judicial case management, reducing the number of unnecessary summary hearings, and ultimately reducing the time it takes cases to reach conclusion.

£10 million of funding has been directed to support Cancer Waiting Times improvements in our NHS across 2022-23, of which NHS Lanarkshire received a share of £1,229,861. Funding will be targeted towards the most challenged specialties, including colorectal. Significant funds are going towards up-skilling nurses and investment to support extended working days and weekend working to increase capacity and treat patients as timely as possible.

In addition the First Minister announced on 10 October that two new Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Services will be established, one of which will be developed in NHS Lanarkshire within existing infrastructure. The service will provide primary care with access to a new fast-track diagnostic pathway for patients with non-specific symptoms suspicious of cancer, such as weight loss and fatigue.

First introduced during the pandemic, Cytosponge is an excellent example of innovation in diagnostic services, supporting patients to access cancer checks closer to home and helping to reduce demand on health services.

Cytosponge has now been implemented in all mainland Health Boards, and collaborative discussions are ongoing between the NHS Scotland Centre for Sustainable Delivery and Island Health Boards to support implementation of a tailored model for Barrett’s Surveillance cohorts.

The figure used for the gigawatt value of ScotWind in the statement that Scotland has over 40GW of potential offshore wind developments in the pipeline, subject to planning and consenting decisions, and finding a route to market, was 27.6 gigawatts. This gigawatt value is based on each of the developers’ proposed project capacity in their applications to Crown Estate Scotland in the ScotWind leasing round.

We will set out our approach to the future electricity market in an Independent Scotland in the forthcoming Net Zero prospectus paper.

The most robust method for reporting ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) operational performance across the current contract to-date is by presenting the average daily number of non-operational charge point units. The following table provides a monthly breakdown of this information across the entire ChargePlace Scotland network under the current contract. The transitional period immediately after the migration to the current operator focused on network stabilisation, including resolving technical issues across the network, hence the disparity in operational performance in the months of August and September.

Most faults on the network are short-lived and in the majority of cases require no physical intervention by an engineer.

The Scottish Government do not currently hold this information by Local Authority area. However, CPS has recently published a new Network Performance page on the website which will be continuously updated with detailed information on the performance of the public charging network, such as uptime by Local Authority area.

There is no specific financial support to assist with the purchase of gluten-free food products. However, people who have been clinically diagnosed with coeliac disease or dermatitis herpetiformis can receive a range of gluten-free food on prescription at no charge.

There is a monthly unit allowance and people may choose to use all or part of that allowance to access gluten-free items through their local community pharmacy if they wish. To help with costs, patients may choose to order their maximum number of units each month.

The Scottish Government received confirmation from the Maritime Coastguard Agency on 20 October 2022 that a UK registered fishing vessel was the cause of damage to the subsea cable affecting telecommunications on Shetland.

The Covid Recovery Strategy focuses on reducing poverty and inequality and making progress towards three priority outcomes: to enhance the wellbeing of children and young people; to increase the financial security of low income households; and to create good, green jobs and fair work. These outcomes have been agreed with local government and the Scottish Government remains committed to achieving these outcomes together with partners across Scotland.

The financial situation facing the Scottish Government is, by far, the most challenging since devolution; the impacts of the pandemic coupled with Russia’s continued illegal invasion of Ukraine have created a disruptive set of financial and economic challenges that every government must address. The fiscal constraints of devolution mean that the Scottish Government cannot borrow to meet increased costs associated with the current financial situation. This means we have had to make hard choices to prioritise spending which supports those who need it most and find savings. In the context of the ongoing cost crisis, we are prioritising funding to help families, back business and protect the delivery of public services; the recent Programme for Government and Emergency Budget Review provide more detail about the Scottish Government’s approach.

The Emergency Budget Review, published in November 2022, identified savings in excess of £1.1 billion from the 2022-23 budget and confirmed a range of additional support in response to the cost of living crisis, guided by the principles of the Covid Recovery Strategy. This includes: expanding the Scottish Child Payment to eligible 6-15 year olds and increasing its value to £25 per child per week; doubling the Fuel Insecurity Fund to £20 million in 2022-23; and providing local authorities with additional Discretionary Housing Payment funding to mitigate the UK Government’s benefit cap as fully as possible.

The Scottish Government is committed to making progress towards the shared Covid Recovery Strategy outcomes and will continue to prioritise spending which is targeted to support those in most need across Scotland.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are currently achieving their 14 day wait to scan, with their current wait to scan being 11 days.

The NHS Recovery Plan published in August 2021, sets out the plans for health and social care over the next 5 years. Backed by over £1 billion of funding, the plan will support an increase in planned care and diagnostic capacity, including through seven mobile MRI scanners and five CT scanners across NHS Scotland. This additional capacity will support PET-CT waiting times across NHS Scotland.

The Scottish Government have also significantly increased the number of available Clinical Radiology training places, following the recommendations of the Scottish Shape of Training Transition Group (SSoTTG). Since 2014, Scottish Ministers have created 573 additional training places for trainee doctors. Of these, 78 have been in Radiology (68 in Clinical Radiology and 10 in Interventional Radiology). This followed a Ministerial commitment in 2018 to create 10 additional Clinical Radiology places per year over a 5-year period. The final 10 places are being recruited to by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) in 2022.

The most recent NES statistics from end-November 2021 show that the 182 established training places in Clinical Radiology were 100% full with no vacant posts.