Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is currently working on a National Treatment Specification for Alcohol and Drug Treatment in Scotland.

This document will be informed by numerous sources including the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment and the recently published Public Health Scotland review into Alcohol Brief Interventions as well as key independent reports such as Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP) report, Exploring the delivery of alcohol-related health advice in dental practice settings: A scoping review.

Officials will work closely with colleagues within Primary Care including the team of the Chief Dental Officer to ensure that the National Treatment Specification fully reflects the importance of dentistry as an integral part of Scotland’s alcohol treatment provision.

The Scottish Government recognises the gradual reduction of alcohol-related hospital admissions over the past decade and is working closely with Public Health Scotland, local services and other stakeholders to ensure the reasons behind the gradual reduction are factored in to service provision.

The cap of £86,000 proposed by the previous UK Government had been due to come into force in October 2025, however, on the 29 July 2024 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that these reforms (and thus the cap on care costs) would not be taken forward in October 2025.

It should be noted that the proposals put forward by the UK Government were for personal care costs and did not include “hotel costs” - accommodation, food, energy bills, lifestyle and wellbeing and consumables etc. In Scotland personal care costs for adults who have been assessed as requiring such personal care do not pay for this service, regardless of their condition or means. Nursing care is also free at the point of delivery. The Local Authority pay for these elements of the residential care for all those assessed as needing them.

There is already existing discretion within NHS arrangements for dentists to charge patients for late cancellations and missed appointments, in accordance with their business need.

As circumstances may vary considerably between practices with respect to demography, registered patient numbers and other key determinants for the viability or necessity of additional charging, it would not be appropriate to implement a national policy on such matters.

We must ensure our children and young people learn about the issues affecting their daily lives, including consent and healthy relationships. The concerns raised by the Young Women's Movement and NSPCC around the consistency in delivery of RSHP education highlight the need for us to ensure we get the revision of the RSHP guidance right.

However, that should not restrict the professional judgement of our teachers who are able to use a range of resources to deliver age-and-stage appropriate education on consent and healthy relationships in a way that enables children and young people to make informed decisions about their lives. That can include using the excellent resources developed by the Young Women's Movement through their Young Women Know campaign.

As confirmed in the latest Programme for Government, we will implement the Curriculum Improvement Cycle (CIC), with work already underway on a number of curricular areas, including health and wellbeing. The CIC introduces a systematic approach to ensure that Scotland's curriculum remains relevant, forward looking, clarifies knowledge and ultimately support high quality teaching and learning. We will ensure this important work aligns with the work to update the RSHP teaching guidance to help ensure consistency in delivery of learning and teaching.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-32859 on 20 January 2025. 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

There is ongoing engagement with the Nordic countries on a wide variety of policy issues which deliver against the commitments in Scotland’s International Strategy and the Scottish Government’s Priorities for Scotland. For example: officials are working to develop opportunities for policy learning and exchange with Sweden on forestry and peatland restoration, while collaboration with Denmark is proving pivotal to informing the Scottish Government’s approach to digitisation and health reform. Scottish Government officials benefit from working closely with colleagues from Scottish Development International, who are based in the Nordic Office. Integrated working between the two teams has led to the first Space Scotland Summit which can be linked to £2 million of exports.

The Scottish Government are liaising with NHS National Services Scotland, as the contract holder, and are a member of their GPIT Incident Management Team which has specifically been established to lead on this matter. Through this, NSS are in regular contact with the Administrator. Assurances are continually sought from the Administrators on their plans to ensure continued performance and delivery of the Managed Services to NHS Scotland for the foreseeable whilst the administrators actively seek a buyer for In Practice Systems Ltd.

In the meantime, there remains no impact on GP service delivery and existing operational governance around Service levels is very much still in place. GP practices are advised to utilise the service and raise any queries through their usual health board escalation routes.

The figures requested are as follows:

1. In the 2021-22 financial year, there were 12,912 unclaimed deposits, totalling a value of £3,306,695.

2. In the 2022-23 financial year, there were 13,900 unclaimed deposits, totalling a value of £3,660,948.

3. In the 2023-24 financial year, there were 20,197 unclaimed deposits, totalling a value of £5,419,255.

In reference to the increase of number and value of unclaimed tenancy deposits in recent years, Scottish Government received notification from one of the schemes in August 2023 explaining that they had reviewed the criteria used to report on unclaimed deposits. This resulted in a fluctuation in their figures with a corresponding increase in the total unclaimed deposit value pool amongst the three schemes.

Each of the three schemes may calculate unclaimed deposits differently, as an unclaimed deposit is not currently defined in law. Provisions within the Housing (Scotland) Bill will create a legal definition of when a tenancy deposit can be considered unclaimed, ensuring there is consistency in all three schemes figures if the Bill is approved.

The Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) provides a snapshot of the occupied domestic housing stock in each survey year, including energy efficiency ratings and household composition..

In 2022 using data from the SHCS it is estimated that approximately 690,000 individuals were living in rented accommodation with an energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of D or lower (under the SAP2012 v9.93 methodology).

This ought to be considered as an approximate estimate as the SHCS survey methodology is not aligned with more robust population estimates from sources such as the Population Census, instead the SHCS methodology focuses on alignment by household numbers and by different types of dwellings.