Chamber and committees

A total of 22,635 dental staff are registered on the Vaccine Management Tool (VMT). This includes both dentists and dental nurses.

These staff would register voluntarily, as independent contractors, on the relevant staff bank of their health board, and book shifts via that system, which does not constitute secondment.

NHS Boards will be allocated the £30 million to support GP practices in two tranches based upon their practices’ weighted share of registered patients under the Scottish Workload Formula at the time of the allocation. The following table provides an indication of what the first NHS Board allocation will be based upon practice shares of patients in October 2021.

As stated in the answer to question S6W-04876 on 20 December 2021 we have committed to establishing an independent taskforce to consider investigatory powers of the Scottish SPCA. The taskforce’s remit will cover the Scottish SCPA’s role in investigating wildlife crime and will involve engaging with the Scottish SPCA, alongside other relevant stakeholders, as it conducts its review.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government has regular discussions with stakeholders, including the Scottish SPCA at both official and Ministerial level. We will continue to work closely with stakeholders as work on the taskforce develops.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Teachers’ pay negotiations are a matter for the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT), comprising membership from local authority employers, teacher unions and Scottish Government.

The last SNCT pay negotiation meeting was held on 17 November. The next meeting will be arranged at the appropriate time.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting a fair pay offer for teachers and remains committed to working with our partners in the SNCT to bring these discussions to a successful conclusion.

Through Zero Waste Scotland, Scottish Government has provided the amounts shown in the table below, since 2011, directly to support local authorities’ recycling and re-use services. These grants included support for communications.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) has operational responsibility for our Modern Apprenticeship (MA) programme. Official MA statistics are published quarterly by SDS, including the number of starts, however a breakdown by month is not available.

The total number of MAs recruited by each occupational grouping is published at the end of each year, as recruitment of apprentices is carried out throughout the year. The MA 202-/22 Q4 (Year End) statistics are expected to be published in May 2022.

There are a large number of Small and Medium Enterprise businesses who take on smaller numbers of cohorts each year. The table below shows the top three employers who have recruited the largest number of MAs each year since 2019 and the volume of MA starts each year:

Official Modern Apprenticeship statistics are published by Skills Development Scotland quarterly, including the number of starts. The Modern Apprenticeship 2021-22 Q4 (Year End) statistics is expected to be published in May 2022. Foundation and Graduate Apprenticeship statistics are published on an annual basis.

The annual Foundation Apprenticeship (FA) statistics are:

? Cohort 4 (2019) – 3,450 (SCQF Level 6) and 442 (SCQF Level4/5) FA Starts

? Cohort 5 (2020) – 2,975 (SCQF Level 6) and 1,265 (SCQF Level4/5) FA Starts

The annual Modern Apprenticeship (MA) statistics are:

? 2019-20 – 27,875 MA Starts

? 2020-21 – 18,655 MA Starts

? 2021-22 Q2 – 11,104 MA Starts

The annual Graduate Apprenticeship (GA) statistics are:

? 2019-20 – 1,157 GA Starts

? 2020-21 – 1,158 GA Starts

The Quarter 2 statistics, published on 9 November 2021, show a positive increase in Modern Apprenticeship starts in comparison to the same time last year but are still lower than at the same point pre-pandemic, reflecting the ongoing impact from COVID-19.

The following table below provides a breakdown of the quarterly Modern Apprenticeship Starts since 2019/20 which are cumulative throughout the year.

Detailed data on the use of exemptions at a UK level is held by the Home Office and we are therefore unable to publically share this for other parts of the UK. However, we are able to confirm that in Scotland in the period between 26 November - 13 December there were a total of 217 people entering managed isolation after arriving from a red list country. In that same period, 123 seafarers have come to Scotland from red list countries using the seafarer exemption. This is a disproportionate number of travellers compared to the total entering managed isolation, which they are exempt from thanks to the sectoral exemption.

We continue to review our international travel restrictions and associated exemptions and health measures and will consider appropriate changes where clinical and scientific advice allow it. With the recent removal of the countries from the red list, we expect the vast majority of seafarers to be covered under the inbound vaccinated traveller scheme for the purposes of travel to Scotland for non-work related purposes.