Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of reported fraud incidents committed against pensioner households. Some information is available from a 2018-19 study into police recorded fraud in Scotland, the findings of which were presented within the Recorded crime in Scotland 2018-19 National Statistics .

Further analysis from this study suggests that an estimated 1,260 crimes of recorded fraud (or 13% of all fraud that year) had a victim of pensionable age (specifically those aged 66 and over).

In line with European best practice for scheme administrators of deposit return schemes, Circularity Scotland Ltd is a private company independent of the Scottish Ministers. Accordingly, the Scottish Government is not required to verify the processes used by the Scheme Administrator when it sets its fees.

The following table details annual spend on signage on the trunk road network during the period 2013 to 2022 within the Scottish Parliament Highland and Islands electoral region. These figures include spend on sign plates, sign poles and sign bases.

Signage on Local Authority roads is a matter for the relevant Local Authority.

We do not hold the spend data for these specific items prior to 2013.

Scottish Ministers have carefully considered the findings of the 2021 National Marine Plan Review. In our Programme for Government 2022-23, Scottish Ministers committed to start the process of developing a new National Marine Plan, to address the global climate and nature crises by carefully managing increasing competition for space and resources in the marine environment. Scottish Ministers will formally commence this process via the publication of its Statement of Public Participation and Stakeholder Engagement Strategy in the coming weeks.

Scottish Government are working with the UK Health Security Agency to secure further allocations for Scotland from additional vaccine supplies arriving in the UK, to protect high risk groups against monkeypox. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde will be able to request vaccines from these to meet their service delivery requirements.

The Scottish Government is not aware of concerns being raised by Unison regarding unsafe working practices at NHS Dumfries and Galloway.

The Health Secretary has been absolutely clear that when someone raises concerns about safe staffing and patient safety, it must be treated with the utmost seriousness.

The requested information on how many staff vacancies there currently are in pulmonary rehabilitation services is not centrally available.

The Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR) service is run by a team of specialists which includes but is not limited to:

• Physiotherapists

• Pulmonary Rehabilitation Practitioners

• Assistant Pulmonary Rehabilitation Practitioners

The service is run for people who are having difficulty managing symptoms associated with a diagnosed breathing problem.

Information on how many Physiotherapist vacancies there are can be found in the following link: NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

This information is not held by the Scottish Government. Pay for directly employed staff would depend on a number of variables like the Banding of the nurse, the length of the shift and whether the shift takes place at night or over the weekend when an unsocial hours premium would apply.

The information requested is not held centrally.

NHS Boards are expected to provide those who have a survived a stroke with the appropriate multi-disciplinary assessment, and are required to demonstrate their provision of access to acute therapy assessment during Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme (SSIP) annual reviews. Exploring ways to drive improvements in early access to assessment and rehabilitation is a key aspect of the work underway to develop the refreshed Stroke Improvement Plan.