Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people are able to access the right support for their mental health as early as possible, without stigma. We encourage children and young people to speak to their GP or school/college/university in the first instance to discuss any concerns about their mental health and wellbeing and enable their referral to any additional services or support required.

We are committed to improving access to community mental health and wellbeing support, and to an approach based on prevention and early intervention. This year, we have provided local authorities with an additional £15 million to fund over 230 new and enhanced supports and services for children and young people. These include digital and text services, play and art-based therapies, single points of access, family support and counselling services for those experiencing emotional distress. Establishing these services is a significant step forward in supporting the mental health of our children and young people, making sure they receive the help they need, when they need it.

In 2022-23, we will issue a further £15 million to local authorities to fund the continuation of these services. In addition, the Scottish Government and Scottish Green Party shared policy programme commits to doubling the budget for community-based mental wellbeing services for children and young people to £30 million per annum by the end of this parliament.

We continue to invest in a range of pre-emptive measures to support children and young people in looking after their own mental health and wellbeing. This includes providing enhanced digital resources on mental health and wellbeing available via the ‘Aye Feel’ website and social marketing campaigns, managed by Young Scot and support for parents via the Parent Club website.

Furthermore, we have delivered on our commitment for all secondary schools in Scotland to have access to a mental health counsellor, investing £16 million per annum to ensure children and young people have the support they need at the earliest possible stage.

The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people is an absolute priority for the Scottish Government.

Education authorities and schools have a wide range of approaches in place to support pupils’ mental health and wellbeing.

Our refreshed Scottish Attainment Challenge, backed by record investment of £1bn in this Parliament, empowers schools and local authorities to drive education recovery and accelerate progress in tackling the poverty-related attainment gap.

We continue to support our local authority partners with £16 million in funding to ensure that every secondary school has access to counselling services.

The Mental Health in Schools Working Group, established in 2019, has overseen the development of a professional learning resource for school staff, published in June, and guidance to support whole school approaches to mental health, published in August. These resources help school staff respond to the range of mental health and wellbeing concerns that young people may experience.

The Scottish Government also published the Mind yer time and Aye Feel resources which provide sources of support and information for children and young people.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving Mental Health services and the Programme for Government commits to ensuring that by the end of this Parliament, a minimum 10% of frontline NHS spend goes towards mental health, with at least 1% going towards child and adolescent mental health services.

We also remain committed to meet the standard that 90% of children and young people begin treatment within 18 weeks of referral. We have allocated nearly £40m additional funding in 2021-22 to NHS Boards to improve CAMHS from our £120m Recovery and Renewal fund. £4.25m of that allocation is directly focussed on offering treatment to those already on CAMHS waiting lists, with a view to clearing all backlogs by March 2023.

We are closely monitoring those NHS Boards with significant performance challenges and supporting the continuous development of their detailed local improvement plans. The creation of these plans is further supported with direct enhanced support from subject matter experts and the sharing of best practice. This support is centred around and supported by the implementation of the CAMHS national service specification which outlines the expectations of the quality of care that families can expect.

NHS Boards who are receiving this enhanced support have provided trajectories to meet the 90% waiting times standard and we are using these to monitor and drive improvements within CAMHS.

There are very strong links between education and health on the matter of mental health and wellbeing in schools.

Formally, the Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Joint Delivery Board, established in 2021, oversee reform across relevant areas of education, health, community and children’s services and wider areas that impact on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. Membership on the delivery board includes a wide range of stakeholders from health and education.

The Mental Health in Schools Working Group was established in 2019 to support the Scottish Government’s ongoing commitment to supporting positive mental health in children and young people in school. The Group has a large membership including national organisations who work to support children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing and representatives from the education and health sector.

The Working Group has sought to establish a comprehensive approach to supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing in schools through a Whole School Approach Framework, published in August 2021. The framework is clear on the importance of a holistic approach to mental health and wellbeing and encourages partnership working with community and health partners.

Our commitment to invest in school counselling services across secondary schools in Scotland, announced in our 2018-19 Programme for Government, is now delivered across all local authorities. The first reporting exercise for the commitment highlighted the various referrals made by schools to health services, including GPs, school nurses and other health professionals. The approach to counselling in schools has been developed and implemented by education officials using resources provided by the health department and progress has been jointly reported to Ministers with portfolio responsibility for both health and education.

Health and Wellbeing is one of the eight curricular areas in Curriculum for Excellence. Its substantial importance is reflected in its position at the centre of the curriculum and at the heart of children’s learning. Mental health and wellbeing has specific experiences and outcomes, within this framework.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-05796 on 27 January 2022. 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 .

While many aspects of employment law and particularly pay legislation are reserved to the UK Government, promoting fair pay is a key element of the Scottish Government’s Fair Work policy. Scottish Ministers believe that all workers should receive a fair pay for the work they do, regardless of their age and status.

The Scottish Government is committed to using all the levers it has at its disposal to promote fair work practices across Scotland including payment of the real Living Wage. We firmly oppose the inappropriate use of zero hours contracts and other non-standard types of employment that offer workers minimal job or financial security. We have set out our position in our Fair Work First approach and within our National Tourism Strategy; Outlook 2030 which states our commitment to support and enable the adoption of fair work practices in Scotland’s tourism sector.

The Scottish Government has made a clear commitment to promote collective bargaining through the inclusion of an employee voice indicator, measured by collective bargaining coverage, within the National Performance Framework. Our Fair Work Action Plan confirms our subsequent commitment to work with the STUC to achieve increased coverage focusing on four key sectors one of those being hospitality.

The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting strong Trade Unions in Scotland for the benefit of workers and our economy and have provided funding of £250,000 for the last six years to STUC to help unions embed the Fair Work Framework in workplaces in Scotland.

We also support Unite’s FH Charter which helps to promote fairer working practices for its members and all workers across the wider hospitality sector as Scotland recovers from Covid and beyond.

The British Standards Institution (BSI) standards relate to the overall approach to retrofit and general processes to be followed by installers in installing energy efficiency measures. These standards are intended to be informed by agreed best practice, as they are applied to different construction types and local conditions. The Scottish Government is working with the BSI to set up a Scottish specific working group to feed into the standards to ensure the unique circumstances in Scotland are reflected in the standards e.g. building types and geography.

We require projects funded as part of our fuel poverty schemes including Local Authority Area Based Schemes, Warmer Homes Scotland and the Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund to comply with all relevant building regulations, retrofit standards and guarantee requirements. The PAS 2035 standard has applied since July 2021 and retrofit installers must now work to this specification.

PAS 2035 standardises the fabric first approach to retrofit and installation of measures by installers, not the quality or effectiveness of the energy efficiency product measures themselves. As for audits and inspections then these are carried out by TrustMark which is the approval scheme for PAS 2035 and involves 10% desktop audits and 10% onsite audits. The work completed in a property is lodged into the TrustMark Data Warehouse where records of the improvement works are held identifying all aspects of the design and installation with all supporting warranties required for the work. In the event that the standards have not been met then TrustMark working with the Scheme Providers will take the necessary steps to address this through their Operating Framework and deliver remediation and redress where required.. This is also underpinned by access to the Dispute Resolution Ombudsman where disputes need to be escalated.

Our guidance for schools is informed by expert advice from bodies including SAGE and the Health and Safety Executive, which indicates that air cleaning/filtration devices, such as HEPA filters, should never be used as a substitute for efforts to improve ventilation. For example, the Health and Safety Executive’s guidance on air cleaning/filtration devices states: “ These units are not a substitute for ventilation. You should prioritise any areas identified as poorly ventilated for improvement in other ways before you think about using an air cleaning device.”

The Scottish Government keeps its guidance under regular review in light of the latest expert advice, and will consider any necessary updates as research and evidence evolve.

The Scottish Government’s guidance on reducing risks in schools, which is published on the Scottish Government website, sets out the advice that local authorities should have regard to when undertaking CO2 monitoring in schools. This includes guidelines as to the actions that should be considered when CO2 readings are at certain levels.

The Scottish Government has not supplied local authorities with a detailed methodology on the use of specific models of CO2 monitors in schools. This is because, drawing on £10m of Scottish Government funding, a variety of fixed and mobile CO2 monitors have been procured by local authorities for deployment to their schools, in order to support local strategies and enable rapid procurement and assessment. Our guidance makes clear that relevant local authority teams should provide clear advice on the appropriate use of CO2 monitors in their schools.