Chamber and committees

Any loan provided to Business Stream will be made by Scottish Water Business Stream Holdings (SWBSH) on arms-length commercial terms, consistent with the Market Economy Investor Principle (“MEIP”) test, based on independent expert advice and benchmarking. The key terms of the loan facility are:

• New funding of £59m - £10m of equity, first tranche £24m debt, and second tranche £25m debt.
• The first tranche debt will attract an interest cost of SONIA (Sterling Overnight Index Average) +3%
• The second tranche debt will attract an interest cost of SONIA +9%
• First tranche debt would be provided before second tranche debt.
• All debt is to be repaid within 5 years. The debt is secured by a floating charge over the assets of Business Stream, granted in favour of the lender.

This is a matter for the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, and I have asked them to respond directly in writing to your question.

The Scottish Government is ensuring that a wide range of employability support is available to all those who need it during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The No-One Left Behind approach ensures that quality support based on individual need continues to be available across Scotland during this very challenging period. We are building on the £33 million already invested by the Scottish Government to support existing employability support services, including Community Jobs Scotland, Employability Fund and Fair Start Scotland, by investing a further £100 million to tackle unemployment and address retraining needs. This includes £60 million to support the new Young Person's Guarantee (YPG). The YPG aims to ensure every young person in Scotland, aged between 16 and 24 years, has the opportunity, based on their own personal circumstances and ambitions, of going to university or college, joining an apprenticeship programme, undertaking training or fair employment including work experience, or participating in a formal volunteering programme.

Under the Young Person's Guarantee, £30 million is being provided to Local Authorities to deliver enhanced employability support locally to young people across Scotland, ensuring one-to-one flexible support and training is available that will help young people to improve their future employability prospects. A significant part of the YPG funding will be for 'in-work' training, supporting SMEs and third sector employers to create more jobs, including pathways to apprenticeships. Other priorities include providing mental health support for young people and improving the availability of formal volunteering opportunities.

The National Transition Training Fund will support those aged 25 or over whose jobs are at risk as a result of the pandemic or have been made redundant, to access retraining. The first strand of the Fund, managed by Skills Development Scotland, was launched on 8 October. Individual Training Accounts (ITA), offer up to £200 to people of all ages who are unemployed or earn less than £22,000 who wish to upskill. ITAs reopened on 1 July this year, and remain open to applications.

We will continue to provide support for individuals affected by redundancy through our Partnership Action for Continuing Employment, PACE initiative. Through providing skills development and employability support, PACE aims to minimise the time individuals affected by redundancy are out of work. As announced in Programme for Government, we are investing an additional £5 million to scale up and enhance our support for those made redundant.

We have also provided additional funding of £2.35 million for our Parental Employability Support Fund which will provide intensive employability support for those most at risk of poverty, including disabled, young and minority ethnic parents to help them access or progress in work. This brings in year investment to £7.35 million.

All individuals can access careers information and guidance support from Skills Development Scotland through Scotland’s careers website: My World of Work , and a dedicated helpline: 0800 917 8000. Skills Development Scotland has also set up a dedicated Employment Online resource for advice on redundancy, employment, online learning, immediately available jobs, and wider support services: link

In terms of support specifically for graduates, Scottish Government is working with organisations in the FE and HE sector, including the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), Colleges Scotland and Universities Scotland on how to support increased graduate recruitment, internships and upskilling, by building on previous graduate employability models such as ‘Adopt-an-Intern’ and ‘Scotgrad’. Graduates can also access a range of services through their university Careers Office, with most universities providing support to graduates for at least a year following graduation. The October issue of the AGCAS journal, Phoenix, also provides some important advice for students and graduates and can be accessed via the following link: Responding to Covid-19

The Scottish Government recognises that people with learning disabilities will feel anxious about people not following COVID -19 guidance. That is why the Scottish Government has been working with partners including The University of Glasgow and The Scottish Commission for Learning Disabilities (SCLD) to produce easy read Self-Help Booklets and easy-read information on Coronavirus (COVID-19) including a section on tips for good mental health. It is important to talk about your feelings. The booklets are intended to give people with learning/intellectual disabilities an opportunity to talk through their feelings with people providing support to them. Over 12,000 booklets have been distributed in an effort to support people with learning disabilities.

The resources are available at:

COVID-19 Guided Self-Help Bookets (scld.org.uk)

https://www.scld.org.uk/information-on-coronavirus/

http://peoplefirstscotland.org/

In addition, Scottish Government has funded over £300,000 to organisations through the Third Sector Wellbeing Fund to deliver essential support services for autistic people and/or people with a learning/intellectual disability throughout the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This includes support to:

• ENABLE Scotland, who launched ACE Connect and Family Connect in response to the pandemic as places where members could stay connected and access emotional support through new dedicated helpline.
• Downs Syndrome Scotland who have extended their helpline in order to provide essential advice and support to people and families.
• PAMIS, who have supported and advocated for families and carers during the disruption caused by the pandemic.

Winter funding of around £90k has just been made available to learning disability and autism organisations to tackle isolation over the winter months.

NHS Scotland Guidance on ‘outpatient and primary care consultations during community circulation of COVID-19’ was issued to all Health Boards in September 2020.

The full guidance is available at:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-outpatient-and-primary-care-consultations---principles/

This guidance states that when appropriate, patients can be accompanied by a dedicated person. This includes where a person has a learning disability.

Scottish Government have been working with partners including People First (Scotland) and Scottish Commission for Learning Disabilities (SCLD) to produce easy-read information on Coronavirus (COVID-19.)

Easy-read guidance on the Local Protection levels is available on the Scottish Government website at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-scotlands-strategic-framework---translations-and-alternative-formats/

Easy-read guidance for Christmas day is available on the Scottish Government website at: Coronavirus (COVID-19): Christmas and the festive period - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Since July, healthcare staff in specialist oncology wards, long term care of the elderly wards and long stay old age psychiatry and learning disability wards have been offered weekly PCR tests. Testing of asymptomatic healthcare staff in an area where there is an outbreak of COVID-19, in a non COVID-19 ward, has also been in place since July.

In line with the clinical review of our testing strategy, the Scottish Government announced in Parliament on 25 November the roll-out of routine twice weekly testing for all patient-facing Healthcare Workers, in hospitals, Covid-19 Assessment Centres and the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS).

Testing is only one measure of protection against COVID-19, alongside a strong emphasis on robust infection prevention and control measures, including the use of PPE, the extended use of face masks, physical distancing and good hygiene.

The Scottish Government has undertaken a review of the status of drive-in events, including drive-in cinemas and drive-thru events, in light of representations that these should be permitted in level 3 areas. Following the review, the Scottish Government has concluded that the position on drive-in events (including drive-thru events) should remain unchanged, permitted up to and including level 2 areas and not permitted in level 3 or 4 areas.

The review identified that drive-ins carry particular risks around the provision of toilets and refreshments; risks around the potential for people to travel to attend events out-with their Local Authority area; and risks around compliance with the guidance against car sharing. Level 3 is characterised by an increased incidence of the virus, with multiple clusters and increased community transmission. There are therefore greater public health costs from not restricting activities as the virus would continue and accelerate its spread, ultimately resulting in direct harms to health. In order to prevent further increases in transmission and a move to level 4, activities need to be sufficiently restricted in level 3 to reduce spread of the virus. Therefore, while acknowledging the economic and social benefits of drive-in events, the Scottish Government concluded that the existing restrictions on these events in level 3 and level 4 areas should not be changed.

I refer the member to the answer to the answer to S5W-33749 on 4 December 2020 which highlights the publication of Making Scotland’s Future: A Recovery Plan For Manufacturing for consultation on 4th December 2020.

The consultation on the Recovery Plan has been extended to 12 February 2021, due to early feedback from industry stakeholders. A final Plan, consolidating all feedback, will be published in March 2021.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office (CSO) operates open competitive grant and fellowship schemes providing opportunities for funding for applied research across the wide range of health conditions and public health and care challenges in Scotland, which can include applications for research on Mesothelioma. Applications submitted to these schemes are subject to independent expert peer review with funding recommendations made by independent expert committees. Currently, CSO is supporting (with a total of about £44k from CSO), along with NHS Education for Scotland, a three year postdoctoral clinical lectureship investigating a new avenue for potential treatment of Mesothelioma.