Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government continues to prioritise funding for health, providing increases year on year and funding of £18 billion in 2022-23, as set out in the Scottish Budget.

However, the scale of the financial challenge across the Scottish Government and health and social care is unprecedented, as a result of rising inflation and energy costs and the ongoing impacts of Covid and Brexit.

The UK Government’s Autumn statement provided no additional funding this year to support health and social care in addressing these challenges or to support fair pay deals, with the funding outlined over the coming two years falling massively short of the combined impact of Covid pressures, energy costs and inflation.

It is vital that further funding is provided by the UK Government to address the backlog in care caused by Covid and to help our NHS and social care staff deal with the cost of living crisis

We have revisited the NCS financial memorandum assumptions and, based on a revised recruitment profile and revised investment in data and digital work, £15 million of funding in 2022-23 has been reprioritised. We are taking time to get this right, ensuring engagement through events such as the Forum and launch of the Lived Experience Expert Panel. As a result some costs that would have been expected in this financial year will not occur.

Legal costs incurred by the purchase of Glenprosen amount to £47,495, inclusive of Registers of Scotland fees.

Establishing a Rehabilitation Governance Board is one of the delivery outcomes of the Rehabilitation and Recovery: A Once for Scotland Person-Centred Approach to Rehabilitation in a Post-COVID Era. The approach paper states that we will “Develop clear reporting and accountability arrangements to ensure delivery of the recommendations”. The Scottish Government is in the process of establishing the Board, which will help to identify local rehabilitation leads, ensuring appropriate appointments to take forward the aims identified in Rehabilitation and Recovery. Recruitment to the Board will begin in the New Year and it is expected members will represent a broad-range of rehabilitation workforce and may be drawn from NHS Boards, Health and Social Care Partnerships and third sector partners.

COP27 finished on 20 November. A statement responding to the outcome of COP can be found here First Minister comments as COP27 concludes - gov.scot ( www.gov.scot ). The Scottish Government will report fully on the First Minister’s visit to COP27 in due course. There is an intention for there to be a parliamentary debate in the coming weeks.

There have been no discussions between Scottish Government and NHS Highland regarding the sale of Lochbroom House, Ullapool. The statutory duty for the delivery of care homes resides with the Local Authority.

Scotland’s Wild Salmon Strategy commits to publish an accompanying Implementation Plan. A Stakeholder Advisory Group is advising on the development of the Implementation Plan. The Plan will set out the detailed actions to be taken by Government, industry and the third sector to achieve our vision of flourishing populations of wild salmon in Scotland.

Statistics relating to new housebuilding are published quarterly on the Scottish Government website. They can be accessed using the following link: https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-for-scotland-new-house-building/

The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government is committed to protecting freshwater habitats from diffuse agricultural pollution.

Responsibility for regulation of agricultural diffuse pollution lies with SEPA. Since 2009, through River Basin Management Planning SEPA has identified 57 priority catchment areas where additional intervention is needed to tackle agricultural pollution.

This priority catchment approach, involving catchment-based farm visits, has been successful in building a strong working relationship between the agricultural sectors and SEPA. To date, SEPA has completed over 6000 initial farm visits and 3500 revisits to non-compliant operators in 38 of these priority catchments with six now regarded by SEPA as reaching full compliance. SEPA will continue to complete ongoing diffuse pollution compliance work in the other 32 catchments by 2027.

Phased work in the remaining 19 priority catchments began in October with initial visits by SEPA in two new catchments – Wick and Thurso - and as of 1 November initial farm visits have commenced in the River Leven catchment.