Chamber and committees

We welcome the research of the Poverty Alliance, who worked in partnership with Transport Scotland to explore the links between child poverty and transport. As of April 2021, over 1.4 million older and disabled people were eligible for free bus travel, and almost 150,000 young people aged 16-18 could get a 1/3 discount on bus travel, through our concessionary travel schemes. We will not stop there and we continue to take ambitious action to make public transport more affordable and to ensure our young people can access education, employment and training opportunities – as demonstrated by our commitment to free bus travel for everyone under the age of 22.

We are also taking a number of actions to support low income families, including doubling the Scottish Child Payment to £20 per child per week, and delivering a Low Income Pandemic Payment of £130 for all households in receipt of Council Tax Reduction in April 2021 and for other households who are exempt or who have no liability – including those in temporary accommodation.

As we work to support a fair and sustainable economic recovery from COVID-19 it is imperative that we also introduce a fair system for paying for transport which alleviates the strain on those living in poverty, particularly children, and reduces inequalities.

The regulation of the provision and funding of bus services in Scotland is largely devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Transport Scotland liaises on a regular basis with the Department for Transport, and a Four Nations Green Bus Group has recently been convened to meet on a quarterly basis to discuss policy and share best practice.

The Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Plan (WHP) will be published shortly and includes a number of actions to improve access to appropriate support, speedy diagnosis and best treatment for endometriosis.

Work is already underway by the Modernising Patient Pathways Programme, as part of the Centre for Sustainable Delivery, developing a Pelvic Pain Pathway for Scotland, starting with endometriosis.

In the last year, Endometriosis UK were funded by the Scottish Government to carry out research to identify the challenges to diagnosis in primary care and implementation of the National Institute for Healthcare and Excellence (NICE) guidelines on endometriosis. This work has included updating endometriosis content on NHS Inform and the delivery of a webinar to support primary care to implement the NICE guidelines.

Information on the endometriosis waiting times in each NHS board is not currently available. Public Health Scotland are working with officials and Endometriosis UK to analyse national and board-level data to understand what information is available to assess current waiting times and identify future data needs that could be used to measure improvement in waiting times.

The Scottish Government aims to reduce the diagnosis time for endometriosis. The Scottish Government’s soon to be published Women’s Health Plan (WHP) includes a number of actions to improve access to appropriate support, speedy diagnosis and best treatment for endometriosis.

While there are no plans at the moment to introduce a waiting time guarantee and standard for endometriosis diagnosis and treatment we will continue to work with people with lived experience, Endometriosis UK and Public Health Scotland to identify realistic targets to measure improvement. The existing waiting times standards and guarantees for elective care continue to apply. NHS Board elective activity continues to remobilise at a safe pace, ensuring capacity remains in place to respond to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as required.

The recommendations of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Endometriosis fall into 4 main categories; a commitment to drive down diagnosis times, to ensure access to appropriate care, awareness and investment in research.

The Scottish Government’s soon to be published Women’s Health Plan (WHP) includes a number of related actions to improve access, for women, to appropriate support, speedy diagnosis and best treatment for endometriosis.

Collective bargaining agreements are a matter for CalMac, its employees and the recognised trades unions. In the case of any additional ferries secured by CalMac through a “time charter”, the crews of these vessels are not employed by CalMac and are not covered by collective bargaining agreements which are currently in place with RMT and Nautilus. Any agreement with the Unions would be a matter for the vessel operator in that instance.

The number of wind farm applications determined in the last 24 months due to a local authority's non-determination, broken down by local authority area, are set out in the following table:

Grant funding allocations were made to councils based on levels of deprivation and rurality within their areas, allowing them to purchase devices and connectivity for learners to align with local digital strategies. Local authorities have been responsible for securing and distributing devices, and for reporting to Scottish Government on progress. Global pressure on supply chains (primarily as a result of the pandemic and the move to home learning and working) has resulted in delayed delivery times for some devices.

The following table shows the number of devices ordered, received and distributed at end-March 2021 (immediately before the Easter break after which in-person learning resumed), as reported by individual local authorities.

The number of wind farm applications approved through the appeal process in the last 24 months, by local authority area, are set out in the following table:

The information requested is given in the following table: