Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises the heavy impact of the pandemic on city centres.

We have supported many city centre businesses through our investment of more than £3.7bn in business support across Scotland.

The City Centre Recovery Task Force started its work in March this year, as a partnership between the Scottish Government and our seven cities. We kick-started that work with investment of a £2m City Centre Recovery Fund, which has already supported a range of projects including virtual cultural events, marketing campaigns and support for businesses to make more use of outdoor areas. That is in addition to our £2m Regional Recovery Fund, which cities also benefitted from.

The Task Force will allow our cities to put forward proposals that meet their own individual needs, and it present its recommendations for action this autumn. In the meantime, we continue to work with the cities individually as well as collectively. I will attend a meeting of Glasgow’s own City Centre Task Force on 27 October, following engagement by the Deputy First Minister who has attended previously.

The Scottish Government supports Scottish Canals to conserve Scotland’s canals as part of our heritage, and transform them to play a vital role in local communities and as an asset for all of Scotland.

Scottish Canals is engaged in regeneration projects across the canal network as part of how it delivers wider public value and is a key partner working with local authorities, local communities and funders to deliver projects that will bring about a wide range of benefits for many communities which sit along the canal network. Recent projects include The Claypits, Bowling Harbour and the Ardrishaig Egg Shed.

The First Minister announced in the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government on 7 September that this Government will carry out scoping work on the remit and powers of a Learning Disability, Autism and Neurodiversity Bill, in this Parliamentary year.

A decision on the timing of a Bill will be taken by Cabinet in the context of setting the content of future legislative programmes. Meantime, the Scottish Government will work closely with stakeholders to consider the issues and how to deliver change quickly and effectively to uphold people’s rights.

The Scottish Government places a high level of importance on providing awareness-raising and suicide prevention training for staff working in frontline public services, to help them identify and support people at risk of mental ill health or suicide. Action 2 of our Suicide Prevention Action Plan (Every Life Matters) sets out our plan to deliver this.

Working with our National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group to deliver the Suicide Prevention Action Plan , the Scottish Government funds Public Health Scotland (PHS) and NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to jointly develop and promote freely-available online learning resources on suicide prevention, mental health, and self-harm for the Scottish workforce, including frontline public service workers. These evidence-based learning resources build organisational capability to effectively respond to mental health issues of people using their services, including suicide risk. The resources can be adapted to meet individual organisation’s needs and many public sector organisations, including Police Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service, are integrating these resources into their existing staff training programmes.

Additionally, the Scottish Government provides funding to PHS to manage the licences and processes to enable delivery of the face-to-face suicide prevention training programmes safeTALK, and ASIST. This training is available to front line public services, and delivered by accredited third-party trainers Face-to-face training of these courses was paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic in line with the licence conditions. However it will recommence in November 2021, with priority access for frontline public service workers.

These programmes and resources complement our wider work under the National Trauma Training Programme, which supports the Scottish Government’s ambition for a trauma-informed and trauma-responsive workforce across Scotland. The National Trauma Training Programme, led by NHS Education for Scotland, provides a suite of freely available, evidence based, trauma training resources and implementation support to help ensure that our services and care are delivered in ways that prevent further harm or re-traumatisation for children, young people or adults affected by psychological trauma.

The Scottish Government does not routinely monitor how many people in frontline public services access suicide prevention training. In relation to Health Boards, the Scottish Government wrote to all Boards in May 2019 to ask that the requirement for NHS staff to undertake mental health and suicide prevention training (as set out in our Suicide Prevention Action Plan) be included as an essential element of Boards’ Workforce Development Plans with immediate effect. We will continue to engage with Health Boards, and the wider public sector, to design, support and evaluate approaches to the delivery of mental health and suicide prevention training.

The Scottish Government aims to carry out scoping work on the remit and powers of a Learning Disability, Autism and Neurodiversity Commissioner in this Parliamentary year.

Following the successful passage of a Learning Disability, Autism and Neurodiversity Bill, a Commissioner would be appointed as soon as possible.

The Scottish Government is not currently introducing on-demand antibody testing.

Immune responses are more complex than the measure of an antibody test. The Chief Medical Officer's advice urges caution around the interpretation of antibody test results, and has advised Health Boards in Scotland to focus on using antibody tests to improve our understanding of COVID-19, and in the clinical management of patients, where appropriate.

Clinicians have the discretion to request an antibody test for an individual if they determine the result will be of benefit to the clinical management of a patient.

We know the vaccine offers significant protection against the virus, and as further research of the immune response to COVID-19 vaccinations in patients with immunosuppressed conditions continues, we would urge those individuals to continue to be cautious to help keep themselves safe.

Research is underway which will help us better understand the immune response to COVID-19, and vaccine efficacy in immunosuppressed groups, and which will be instrumental in helping inform how best to protect immunocompromised individuals from COVID-19 infection in the future.

Our approach to antibody testing is being kept under review.

The Scottish Government does not provide specific funding to local authorities or territorial NHS Boards to carry out suicide prevention training. The Scottish Government provides funding to Public Health Scotland (PHS) to manage the licences and processes to enable delivery of Scottish Mental Health First Aid training and suicide prevention training programmes (safeTALK and ASIST), which are delivered by accredited third-party trainers. This training is available to individuals living in Scotland, including those working in local authorities, NHS boards, third sector organisations and community groups. Between 2018-19 and 2020-21, PHS was allocated a total of £400,000, principally for the management of these training programmes as part of its mental health improvement and suicide prevention work programme.

Through work with our National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group to deliver on our Suicide Prevention Action Plan (Every Life Matters) , the Scottish Government funds PHS and NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to jointly develop and promote freely-available online learning resources on suicide prevention, mental health, and self-harm for the Scottish workforce. These resources are accessible through the NES online training platform. Between 2018-19 and 2020-21, the total allocation to NES and PHS, principally for this work on learning resources, was £495,659.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

I asked the Scottish Qualifications Authority to reply.

Initial modelling indicates that 53% of SQA’s running costs (permanent SQA staff, overheads and other indirect costs) were attributable to the implementation of the Alternative Certification Model (ACM) in 2020 and 56% are attributable to the implementation of the ACM in 2021. Including direct delivery costs, the cost of the ACM was therefore:

(a) 2020: £33.4m

(b) 2021: £41.7m (forecast)

The SQA levy to local authorities and entry fees charged to independent schools and colleges for National Qualifications have remained unchanged since 2012-13 despite changes in costs. In addition, 2020 and 2021 late entry fees have been waived and there have been no charges for appeals.

Savings generated by the delivery of the ACM in place of an ordinary exam diet reduced SQA’s grant-in-aid requirement from Scottish Government, and enabled support for other critical pressures, supporting people and communities during the pandemic.

We will lay the draft National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) in the Scottish Parliament this autumn and will consult widely on it. We recognise that we need to act now to reduce emissions, adapt to a changing climate, and to protect, restore and better connect Scotland’s biodiversity.

Our approach to NPF4 will ensure that climate change and nature recovery are at the heart of the new spatial strategy.