Chamber and committees

The information is not held centrally. I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-29834 on 16 July 2020 for further information about data on hospital admissions from care homes. 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

On 3 June, the NRS published data on the number of COVID deaths of people whose usual residence was a care home and who died in hospital. That figure was 154.

This information can be accessed via the following link:

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/covid19/covid-deaths-care-home-residents.xlsx

One of our key priorities is to ensure that children and young people with additional support needs, continue to be fully supported with their learning as we begin to transition back to a greater level of face-to-face education.

The needs of individual children should be carefully considered by education authorities, schools and early learning centres within the plans for anticipating a return to schools on a full-time basis in August. Our national guidance on continuity of learning supports this approach.

To further support local authorities and schools, Education Scotland has developed bespoke resources to assist in planning the individual support that children and young people with additional support needs may require in their transition back to school or in their progression to another learning setting.

The Scottish Government was sent a copy of the decision paper prior to publication and noted its contents.

Ministerial Objectives set the strategic priorities for the regulatory period and require Scottish Water to maintain, and where possible improve, levels of service to customers. Scottish Water identifies the level of expenditure and investment required to achieve those objectives. The Commission determines maximum charges for the period based on its assessment of Scottish Water’s analysis.

In 2018 the Scottish Government participated in the OECD pilot project to identify best practice for each of the OECD Water Governance Principles, and to develop water governance indicators to assess progress. The results of this project were published in “Implementing the OECD Principles on Water Governance: Indicator Framework and Evolving Practices”. The Pilot project highlighted the Scottish framework as an exemplar of good practice and identified a small number of areas of improvement to further strengthen Scotland’s water governance.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-30032 on 2 July 2020. Key papers and minutes are available on the Commission’s website at https://www.watercommission.co.uk/view_Publications_Main.aspx .

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 .

As set out in the Scottish Budget for 2020-21, the Scottish Government has made provision to lend £215 million in this financial year.

Health Protection Scotland are conducting surveillance swab testing in the community for individuals with mild to moderate symptoms. Testing commenced on 27 April and results are available a week later by HPS report for internal planning and surveillance purposes. Details of this can be found at: https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/a-to-z-of-topics/enhanced-
surveillance-of-coronavirus-covid-19/ .

A pilot project for the current community surveillance ran for two weeks (weeks beginning 13 th April and 20 th April) before the surveillance testing was rolled out across Scotland from 27 th April. This pilot ran in NHS Fife only in order to ensure the process was efficient prior to wider use.

The Scottish Government published a description of how the Covid-19 R number is calculated on 21st May. This is available via the link. https://www.gov.scot/publications/
covid-19-modelling-epidemic-scotland/ .

The model uses data and provides an R value for Scotland in its entirety. The contribution of care homes, hospitals and the community at large to the overall value, and the links between them, are not well understood. Scottish Government analysts are working with academic groups and modellers from across the UK, through the SPIM and SAGE groups to develop ways to do this, and we await their findings. The Scottish Government is also carefully considering a range of Covid statistics on care homes. This includes data produced daily by Scottish Government on the number of number of care homes notifying cases of COVID-19, and the number of suspected cases of COVID-19 in care homes. This also includes weekly excess deaths produced by National Records of Scotland to help understand where people have died from Covid-19.