Chamber and committees

The Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) proactively notifies victims of decisions not to prosecute in all solemn cases and all summary cases within the specified case remit of the COPFS Victim Information and Advice (VIA) service, including Domestic Abuse and Hate Crime. COPFS proactively notifies victims of decisions to discontinue prosecutions in all categories of cases. COPFS advises all victims of all decisions not to prosecute on request.

COPFS is exploring possible approaches to extending the current notification scheme to all relevant summary cases, including possible IT solutions.

We recognise the serious and immediate recruitment issues being experienced by the sector. Tourism and hospitality businesses have been extremely hard hit by the pandemic and the ability to employ committed, talented and enthusiastic staff will be an important part of the recovery, not just in Edinburgh but throughout the whole of Scotland.

To address recruitment issues, we are working with key sector organisations in the public and private sector to support a recruitment marketing campaign. This was launched on the 5 th July. In the first three weeks of the campaign, there has been 12,223 new users on the Career Scope website, where we are signposting people to find available jobs.

The campaign will promote a range of roles within the industry and help people find a job that suits different skill sets. It will support businesses fill staff shortages that have occurred as a result of Brexit and encourage those aged 18-30 to play their part in helping businesses recover from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic by applying their skills to the diverse job opportunities available now.

The campaign has been developed in conjunction with the sector, and lead partner the Scottish Tourism Alliance, and is supported by £100,000 of Scottish Government funding.

COP26 will be the biggest international summit the UK has ever hosted, meaning that the policing operation is considerable and will require large deployments of both Police Scotland officers and mutual aid officers brought in from other parts of the UK.

Decisions on how to allocate these resources are a matter for the Chief Constable. However, the recent HMICS review into Police Scotland’s planning for the event offers a high degree of assurance around the service’s ability to balance business as usual policing with delivering a safe and secure COP26.

The Scottish Government does not hold data centrally on how many people have been referred by their GP to mental health services.

Public Health Scotland have provided the following table information showing the number of mental health inpatients referred by their GP for the calendar years 2016 to 2020, broken down by year of admission and NHS board of treatment. This information will not show referrals to non-statutory mental health services which routinely are not recorded. Patients will be counted multiple times if they have been admitted within the same board in different years, or different boards in the same year, or both. Complete figures for 2021 cannot yet be provided.

The Scottish Government has committed to undertake a review of the Welfare Fund, including examination of its funding, administration, promotion, take-up and accessibility. The detailed scope, delivery and timescales of the review will be determined in due course. We intend to commence it during the first year of the new parliament.

Ear wax removal services are available through the NHS.

How to treat ear wax is a clinical decision; ear syringing is not the current preferred procedure and is no longer routinely provided by clinicians.

The NHS has continued to provide services to patients throughout the pandemic. However, due to the pressures of the pandemic some routine condition management has needed to be paused but only in those instances where it is safe to do so.

While the regulation of consumer protection is reserved to the UK Government, the Scottish Government supports this right for consumers in relation to faulty goods. It provides clarity to businesses about their obligations to their consumers and helps businesses to ensure that any complaints are handled quickly and easily. The UK Government published an Impact Assessment in January 2014 which estimated the net annual cost to UK businesses at £2.78m. No separate impact assessment was carried out for Scotland.

At its heart, Scotland’s Baby Box strongly signals our determination that every child, regardless of their circumstances, should get the best start in life by ensuring that every family with a newborn has access to essential items needed in the first six months of a child’s life. It’s a simple idea which helps to tackle deprivation, improve health and support parents during the first few months of their child’s life.

To ensure that Scotland’s Baby Box is delivered in as cost effective manner as possible, the box and its contents are bought in bulk aligned to Scotland’s birth rate to maximise efficiency savings and the operation and delivery of the Baby Boxes is streamlined to provide the best value for money while maintaining the highest quality of service. Any customisation of the box and its contents would result in a cost increase to the overall programme.

The Baby Box balances practical items, such as the clothing, changing mat, digital thermometer and bath & room thermometer with items designed to have a positive impact on parent-child interaction such as books, a baby wrap and a play mat to support attachment, early learning and play. The current box and its contents have been shaped by the evaluation of the initial pilot http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/06/8891 and ongoing feedback from health professionals and families.

The Scottish Government continues to monitor the Baby Box programme and has commissioned an independent evaluation of Scotland’s Baby Boxes which will be published later this year.

The Scottish Government has consistently called for the furlough scheme to remain in place for as long as it is needed to support businesses as we move through recovery. The UK Government should make it clear to businesses and workers, well in advance of the furlough scheme ending, what further assistance will be in place to support jobs and necessary labour market transitions in sectors that are most deeply impacted by Covid. Provisional figures from HMRC show at 31st May, 173,100 jobs (7% of eligible jobs) in Scotland were being supported by the Job Retention Scheme. This is a slightly lower than the UK (8%) and a fall of 102,600 from April when 11% of eligible employments in Scotland were on the scheme.

Whilst these figures show those on furlough are reducing, there is still a significant number of jobs which continue to be supported by this scheme. The Scottish Government is doing all it can to protect Scotland’s economy and ensure that as many people as possible on furlough keep their jobs. Our ambitious 10 year National Strategy will drive Scotland’s economic transformation, helping the country recover from COVID-19 and transition to a net zero economy, prioritising investment in the industries of the future and delivering new, good and green jobs.

During the period 1 January 2021 until 9 July 2021, CalMac Ferries Ltd had over 74,130 scheduled sailings to operate. From these, there were 62 instances where a vessel from the CalMac fleet was removed from service to allow unscheduled maintenance or repair work to be carried out at a cost £6,630,344. This represents only 0.08% of those sailings. Scheduled annual overhauls are carried out when vessels are not in service.

In many instances when a vessel is removed from service, a minimal number of sailings are affected.