Chamber and committees

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS do not currently hold this type of report and is not aware of any structural issues affecting these accommodation halls.

The Enhanced Psychology Practice (EPP) training course was established by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) in 2021, with the first round of training commencing in October of that year. Training numbers so far as follows;

• 14 learners from the Adult EPP Cohort 1 have completed training. 5 learners from Cohort 1 are still to complete due to extensions. Cohort 2 commenced in April 2022, with 22 learners currently in training.
• The Children and Young People (CYP) EPP pilot cohort commenced in April 2022 with 10 learners currently in training.
• Interviews concluded for the November 2022 cohorts of EPP-A and EPP-CYP learners in August. NES HAS issued offers for 32 places across both programmes.
• When at full capacity, an annual intake of approximately 100 learners will be possible. This will form a rolling programme of recruitment over several intake cycles.

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) estimates that capacity for up to 100 newly created posts can be created each year when the programme reaches full capacity, with scope to employ up to 300 by 2026.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of providing compassionate, person-centred support for people who have been bereaved by suicide. This is reflected in the Scottish Government and COSLA’s new suicide prevention strategy and action plan, Creating Hope Together, which published in September. The strategy is supported by the Programme for Government commitment to double funding for suicide prevention to £2.8m per annum by the end of this Parliamentary term.

The new action plan includes a commitment to roll out bereavement support across Scotland, drawing on the evaluation of the current Suicide Bereavement Support Service pilot. The Scottish Government funds this pilot in two Health Board areas; Penumbra leads delivery of the pilot in Ayrshire and Arran and Change Mental Health (formerly Support in Mind Scotland) leads delivery in Highland. The total cost of the pilot service is £255,000 per annum, and this funding, split between the two organisations, has been allocated in 2021-22 and 2022-23.

Additionally, we have allocated Cruse Scotland a total of £16,780 for 2021-22 and £33,560 in 2022-23 to provide bereavement support in workplaces which have been affected by the suicide of a colleague.

The decision to freeze the non-domestic poundage rate at 49.8p is expected to save ratepayers £308 million in 2023-24, compared to uprating the poundage in line with September’s measure of CPI which would have resulted in a poundage rate of 54.8p in 2023-24. This figure is broken down in Table 1 by property class, as the Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

These tables are based on an imputed Valuation Roll based on an incomplete draft Valuation Roll, as used by the Scottish Fiscal Commission in Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts December 2022, and are therefore subject to change. Figures in this table are rounded to the nearest £1,000.

Table 1: Gross savings to ratepayers of poundage freeze compared with maintaining real terms income, by property class

Table 1 presents the estimated gross savings to ratepayers due to the increase in the rateable value threshold for the Higher Property Rate (HPR) to £100,000. This table does not take into account any reliefs, including Transitional Relief. This is broken down by property class, as the Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

These tables are based on an imputed Valuation Roll based on an incomplete draft Valuation Roll, as used by the Scottish Fiscal Commission in Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts December 2022, and are therefore subject to change.

Figures in this table are rounded to the nearest £1,000.

Table 1: Gross savings to properties removed from HPR in 2023-24 due to the threshold increase, by property class

The Enhanced Psychology Practice (EPP) training course was established by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) in 2021, with the first round of training commencing in October of that year. Training numbers so far as follows;

• 14 learners from the Adult EPP Cohort 1 have completed training. 5 learners from Cohort 1 are still to complete due to extensions. Cohort 2 commenced in April 2022, with 22 learners currently in training.
• The Children and Young People (CYP) EPP pilot cohort commenced in April 2022 with 10 learners currently in training.
• Interviews concluded for the November 2022 cohorts of EPP-A and EPP-CYP learners in August. NES has issued offers for 32 places across both programmes.
• When at full capacity, an annual intake of approximately 100 learners will be possible. This will form a rolling programme of recruitment over several intake cycles.

The inflation rate for construction work will vary from project to project.

The Office for National Statistics Construction Price Indices dataset provides an estimate of inflation within the UK construction industry. In the 12 months to April 2022 there was annual growth in the all construction Output Prices Index of 8.8%.

Source: Construction output price indices - Office for National Statistics

The Mental Health Workforce Plan is scheduled to be published in spring 2023. A separate National Workforce Strategy for Health & Social Care was published on 11 March 2022, with a new Staff Wellbeing Strategy to be published in early 2023.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) are unable to confirm when it will be possible to resume publishing the Migration Statistics Quarterly Summary for Scotland as the data required is not currently available.

The release is a summary of data sources from UK Government departments including the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Home Office.

These departments have temporarily suspended most statistical releases for reasons such as data quality, other underlying data issues, and reviewing the way they produce statistics to make best use of available data.

More information can be found on the NRS, DWP, ONS and Home Office websites.