Chamber and committees

Public Health Scotland statistics published in November 2024 show that NHS dental services are performing well at a national level, with almost 4 million courses of treatment delivered to patients between November 2023 and September 2024. 

There are many reasons why people may choose not to attend the dentist, which is not shown in participation data. This does not necessarily mean that these patients are unable to access an NHS dentist.

The Draft Budget reinforces our commitment to NHS dentistry, with an increase of almost 15% in funding for primary care dental services planned for 2025-26. Within this we will look to continue our work to improve NHS dental workforce and training measures, in line with our Vision for Healthcare Services.

Since 2008, the Scottish Government has made available £42 million per year to local authorities to invest in flood risk management actions – a commitment that is in place until 2026. A further £150million was committed across the course of this parliament.

Social Security Scotland routinely publishes information on Scottish Child Payment applications, payments and the number of children actively in receipt of the payment by local authority area.

While the latest statistics do not currently include information on the total number of children who have benefitted from Scottish Child Payment, they show that for Scotland, as of 30 September 2024, 325,790 children aged 0-15 years were actively benefitting from Scottish Child Payment. Of those children, 10,335 resided in Aberdeen City.

The next Scottish Child Payment publication, covering the period to the end of December 2024, will be published on 25 February 2025.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-32827 on 16 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

All Scottish Government fleet vehicles are maintained in line with manufacturers guidelines to ensure emission regulation compliance. 

At present the only existing licence condition applied by NatureScot for Schedule 1 species is for disturbance of any such species where the work is to be undertaken on a National Nature Reserve (NNR). This condition requires prior land owner notification before the work is carried out. No work authorised by this licence may be undertaken on a NNR without the prior permission of the NatureScot NNR Manager.

NatureScot intend to introduce a new condition to schedule 1 disturbance licences that will require prior land owner notification on all land for the forthcoming monitoring season.

Information listing the location and opening hours of all Changing Places facilities, including those within railway stations is available from the Changing Places Toilet website. For Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central stations, this is available on Network Rail’s website.

The information requested is not collected or held centrally by the Scottish Government and would require to be obtained from Health Boards.

This Government is committed to continuing to help crofters and their families to live on and work their croft, contributing to the sustainability of our rural and island communities.

*Figures are broken down by the Rural Payments and Inspections Division by area not by local authority area.

The information requested on how many patients have attended chronic pain clinics in each NHS board in each of the last five years is not held centrally. This information is held by each Board. Quarterly wait times statistics for chronic pain are published by PHS.