Chamber and committees

The global pandemic was the biggest shock our NHS has faced in its 74 year existence. Our NHS Recovery Plan published on 25 August 2021 invests £1 billion of targeted funding over five years to increase NHS capacity, deliver reform, and ensure everyone has the treatment they need at the right time, in the right place, and as quickly as possible.

Work to develop the prospectus is drawing on a range of officials across the organisation who will contribute to varying extents as part of their wider responsibilities in supporting the Scottish Government. The exact number of officials contributing as part of their wider responsibilities is not known as the Scottish Government has no need to record this information.

The Constitutional Futures Division coordinates work on the Building a New Scotland series. As of 22 February 2023, it comprises 24 civil servants, including one Deputy Director. This equates to 23.3 FTE .

The Scottish Government remains committed to the removal of non-residential social care support charges within the lifetime of the current Parliament, so that services are based on a person’s need and not their ability to pay.

In December 2021 the Animal Disease Policy Group (ADPG), which includes a range of avian influenza experts and representatives from UK administrations, agreed to collect and store samples from non-avian wildlife through the existing Diseases of Wildlife Surveillance (DoWS) scheme for retrospective testing. This would allow a better understanding of the epidemiological situation regarding influenza viruses in non-avian wildlife species while limiting the pressure on veterinary resource or the National Reference Laboratory (NRL) Weybridge allowing the prioritisation of testing of wild birds and poultry. ADPG took the decision in July 2022 to commence the retrospective testing of stored samples of mammal carcasses at the NRL. The samples had been collected as part of routine wildlife surveillance in 2021 and 2022. In February 2023 it was reported to Scottish Government that four seals from Scotland have returned positive findings of HPAI H5N1 from this retrospective testing programme.

Despite these findings, the risk of the H5N1 strain to non-avian species, including humans, remains low. The positive identification of HPAI in mammals remains an unusual event and available genomic surveillance data, reported by APHA in the UK, indicates that there is no widespread mammalian adaption of the virus.

Scottish Government continues to monitor the UK and international situation regarding HPAI in avian and non-avian wildlife. Since the beginning of 2023, APHA have moved to a system of real-time testing through the GB wildlife surveillance scheme of mammalian samples collected including seals.

In partnership with the Scottish Strategic Network for Genomics Medicine (SSNGM), we have been developing our Strategic Intent for Genomics Medicine which will be published in the coming weeks.

While early in its’ development, we will also publish our first Genomics Strategy for Scotland and associated implementation plan in the course of 2023.

To support public authorities compliance with the duty created under Section 2 Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018, the Scottish Government and its forestry agencies have consulted on and published Scotland’s Forestry Strategy 2019-2029, which provides an overarching framework for sustainable forest management.

We have maintained and promoted the UK Forestry Standard, the technical standard supporting the delivery of sustainable forestry in Scotland. To ensure this framework remains relevant we are working with the other UK Governments to update the Standard including inputs from public bodies in Scotland such as NatureScot and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

The Scottish Government has put in place planning policy and legislation that supports the delivery of this duty through the National Planning Framework 4, the implementation of the Control of Woodland Removal Policy and the requirement under the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 for planning authorities to prepare Forestry and Woodland Strategies. These strategies should include setting out how planning authorities will protect, develop and expand forestry and woodlands in their area. Scottish Forestry will shortly be working with partners to review the guidance to support the preparation of these local strategies.

The Scottish Government is also working directly with public authorities including statutory consultees and local authorities to actively support sustainable forestry management through partnership initiatives such as the Clyde Climate Forest, Rainforest Alliance, Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust and Cairngorms Connect.

The average repairs and maintenance expenditure per council house by local authority from 1998-99 to 2021-22 is set out in a document that has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, Bib number 64022.

It should be noted that the vast majority of funding available to councils is provided by means of a block grant from the Scottish Government. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on maintenance of council housing, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Scotland’s Redress Scheme provides freedom of choice for applicants throughout the process. The scheme is designed to ensure that applicants do not have to fund legal costs from any redress payment they may receive. While applications can be made without the need for a solicitor, applicants are strongly encouraged to take up the offer of funded legal advice, particularly before signing a waiver and accepting a redress payment.

Costs and expenses reasonably incurred in the making of an application are reimbursed and, recognising the importance of legal advice, the scheme ensures that where an applicant chooses to take legal representation there is a clear route for this to be funded directly from the Scottish Government to the solicitor. The maximum levels of legal fees which can be reasonably paid directly to a solicitor by the scheme are prescribed in legislation, though there is scope under the scheme to pay additional fees in exceptional circumstances. The prescribed sums are set at £450 + VAT for a fixed rate and next of kin payment and £2,000 + VAT for an individually assessed payment. However, as per the legislation, applicants are free to appoint their own solicitor and come to their own arrangements on the payment of fees if they choose to do so, and the terms of the engagement should be agreed at the outset.

Information is provided to applicants to ensure that they can make informed choices about the funding of legal advice. Practical, emotional, legal and general support is available to all applicants to Scotland’s Redress Scheme at all stages of their application.

As of 28th February 2023, £100,244 has been paid directly to solicitors. Redress payments of just over £17,500,000 have been paid directly to applicants.

An update on the progress of Scotland’s Redress Scheme was provided to the Education, Children and Young People Committee on 12 January 2023. The official report of the meeting can be found on the Scottish Parliament website .

The Scottish Government has supported payment of the real Living Wage in our Public Sector Pay Policy since 2011. Data from the 2022 Annual Survey of Hourly Earnings (ASHE) shows that 97.6% employees in the whole Scottish public sector (devolved and reserved) earn at least Real Living Wage or more. The recent increase to the real Living Wage to £10.90 per hour should be applied as part of public sector pay settlements from April 2023. The 2023 ASHE data (expected to be released in October / November) will show the proportion of employees who are paid the £10.90 Real Living Wage in the Scottish Public Sector.

The analysis was published on 3 March and can be found here - https://www.gov.scot/publications/energy-system-transition-independent-analysis/ .

This publication is an independent report, reviewed by an independent panel, which provides a significant volume of evidence and analysis and will contribute to our understanding of the opportunities and challenges in energy transition. To allow stakeholders to fully consider this material before responding, the consultation period for the draft ESJTP has been extended by 5 weeks, and will now close on 9 May.