Chamber and committees

I warmly welcome the Scottish Veterans Commissioner’s report, “The Veterans Community – Employability, Skills and Learning”. This is an important subject and I am keen that we can respond positively to his recommendations. The report contained a wide-ranging set of 19 recommendations and work is underway to examine these in depth.

In November 2016, I informed the Commissioner formally that I welcome and accept his recommendation to update Parliament on progress on all his recommendations on an annual basis. A response on the full set of recommendations contained in the report will be published before the next cross-party working group on the Armed Forces and Veterans in early-March 2017.

There have been 55 inward investment projects confirmed since April 2016.

Although data on pregnant women treated outwith their NHS board area are collected locally the specific reason for this are not held centrally.

While management of Minor injuries Units and Medical Assessment Centres are operational matters for NHS Health Boards, the Scottish Government has received reassurance from NHS GG&C that the Minor Injuries Unit and Medical Assessment Centre at the Vale of Leven Hospital will continue to function as normal over the winter months.

This Government is committed to undertake a review which will focus on whether the provisions in the 2003 Act fulfil the needs of people with learning disability and autism.

The work to identify a Chairperson is underway. An initial scoping exercise has now concluded which made clear that this role will be key to the success of the review. It’s also important that the Chairperson is supported by a core group of people who can include all perspectives equally for an inclusive and credible review.

A remit for the review will be agreed with the Chairperson and informed by the scoping exercise report. It will be for the Chairperson to decide on an engagement strategy which will include gathering evidence for the review in a variety of ways. We have been clear from the outset that we have no wish to impose an unrealistic timeline in which the review should operate, and there was no consensus from the scoping exercise on a suitable timeline. It is, therefore, sensible for the Chairperson to determine the length of time they need to complete a comprehensive review. An official report will be published following its conclusion.

Information to answer the question can be found in the following table.

Source: ISD Scotland ISD(S)1

Notes

1. ISD(S)1 provides routine quarterly aggregate information for monitoring activity in hospitals, and activity carried out in health centres and clinics in NHSScotland.

2. An available staffed bed is a bed which is resourced for inpatient or day case care.

3. Average Available Staffed Beds reflect the average number available in that specialty and significant facility over the whole year.

4. Numbers are shown rounded to the nearest whole number for ease of interpretation but may in fact be fractions, thus totals may not match for the constituent NHS Boards.

5. Where beds figures are unavailable due to data submission issues, data has been estimated using the last 3 data submissions from the relevant NHS Board. Please note this method is different to the estimation process within the publication. Please note the following caveats on data submission and data estimation:

The codes used to define specialties are as follows:

Paediatrics - AF

Paediatric Surgery - CA

In 2015-16 and 2016-17 capital borrowing was limited by the Scotland Act 2012 to up to 10% of the Scottish Government's Capital DEL budget and a total of £2.2 billion over ten years. This provided borrowing limits of £312 million in 2015-16 and will equate to £322 million in 2016-17.

From 2017-18, under the Scotland Act 2016, the aggregate borrowing cap will increase to £3 billion, with an annual limit of 15% of the overall borrowing cap, which amounts to £450 million.

For the purposes of budgeting to date, the Scottish Government has modelled borrowing from the National Loans Fund, but the terms of the Scotland Act 2016 mean that the Government can consider a range of options to maximise borrowing flexibility, including issuing bonds.

The £30 million represents estimated repayments from 2017-18 for planned borrowing in 2016-17. To date, no borrowing has been undertaken in 2016-17, but the Scottish Government has indicated that it plans to borrow up to the full amount available this year and it is prudent to budget now for future borrowing repayments. Decisions about actual required borrowing in 2016-17 will be taken nearer the end of the financial year. The estimated borrowing repayments in 2017-18 have been modelled on the basis of a 10 year repayment period, with repayments in equal instalments.

There was no revenue cost for borrowing in 2015-16 as the Scottish Government had no powers to borrow in 2014-15.

In 2016-17 there is no revenue cost as although notional expenditure was set against the Scottish Government’s borrowing cap in 2015-16, no borrowing occurred in that year.

The 2017-18 pay policy allows for the following increases in pay:

• an overall 1 per cent cap on the cost of the increase in the baseline paybill for those earning more than the low pay threshold of £22,000

• an increase of £400 for all staff with a full-time equivalent salary of less than the low pay threshold

• a commitment to paying at least the Scottish Living Wage

• allow individual employers to reach their own decisions about pay progression where staff are eligible to move towards the maximum rate for the job

Full details of the 2017-18 pay policy are available at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Government/public-sector-pay

This link also contains a list of the public bodies that are directly covered by the Scottish Government’s pay policy.