Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is working with hospitals across Scotland, including NHS Grampian, to minimise unnecessary long delays in A&E departments and deliver safe, person centred and effective care to every patient, every time through the six essential action improvement programme.

Scotland has outperformed the rest of the UK in terms of performance against the four hour A&E target for more than two and a half years and has the lowest rate of long (12 hour) delays in the UK. Over the last four years (Between 2012-13 and 2016-17) the number of delays in Scotland over four hours is down by 10%, compared to an increase of 180% in England. The latest monthly figures for November 2017 show that no patients waited over 12 hours in NHS Grampian - additionally, core performance in the year to November 2017 was 94.2%.

This winter has seen unprecedented winter pressures across the health service, which has impacted on waiting times in A&E departments across Scotland and we are working closely with those sites facing the greatest challenges, including NHS Grampian.

In terms of resources NHS Grampian's resource budget has increased by almost 2% to £898.6 million in 2017-18. We have invested an extra £22.4 million for health boards this year to support their overall unscheduled care, and winter pressures; NHS Grampian received almost £2 million, and staffing numbers have increased by more than 7% between September 2006 and September 2017.

Service transformation is one of the 10 priorities set out in the Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland 2016. The goal of service transformation is to create a modern and effective fire service which meets new and emerging risks facing communities in Scotland. This will be delivered through SFRS developing a new flexible role for fire-fighters and a more focused deployment of resources where and when they are most needed. SFRS will make increased use of new technology to prevent and fight fires and will work with partners to develop an extended role in delivering effective harm prevention measures.

The Draft Budget for 2018-19 provides the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) with a £5.5m increase in funding on top of allowing SFRS to benefit in full from the additional £10m spending power from the changes in VAT treatment. This £15.5m additional spending power will allow SFRS to invest in service transformation.

Following the Royal Bank of Scotland's announcement on 1 December of a further 62 Scottish branch closures I spoke with the bank's Managing Director, Personal Banking in Scotland to immediately raise the Scottish Government's concerns and to seek assurances that personal and business customers will have continued access to essential banking services.

Informal discussions we had with members of the Scottish Board of RBS at the recent Fintech Scotland Dinner at RBS Head Quarters at Gogarburn.

I had a further meeting with RBS on 13 December at the Scottish Parliament to discuss in more detail the bank's proposals to support customers. The issue of branch closures was also discussed a the latest meeting of the Financial Services Advisory Boards (the industry leadership group) which was attended by senior representatives of RBS.

The Scottish Government will continue to engage with RBS and the wider banking sector directly, and through the work of Scottish Financial Enterprise, in an effort to secure essential services for the customers, businesses and communities affected by these planned closures.

I previously stated that the AWPR was scheduled to open this Spring and indeed, work has been progressing at pace in recent months. However, following the announcement that Carillion filed for insolvency on 15 January, it is important that we now take the necessary time to work closely with ARL to identify any impacts on delivery. Although the announcement does not in itself affect project delivery timescales, it may take some weeks to determine whether there will be any indirect impact on the sub-contracting supply chain. Our thoughts meantime are with the Carillion workers affected by this announcement. On 17 January I had a constructive meeting with representatives from the STUC, Unite and GMB unions and assured them that we are doing all we can to minimise job losses. I asked union representatives to encourage any members with concerns to contact our helplines which have been set up for apprentices, employees and companies for support and advice. Should it be necessary we stand ready to support any affected employees through our Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE) initiative which aims to minimise the time individuals affected by redundancy are out of work.

In 2018-19 all Scottish schools will have access to Bikeability Scotland training, which is administered on our behalf by Cycling Scotland. While it is a matter for individual schools whether they access this training, we intend that funding will be available for all schools to receive Bikeability training. Because of the opt in nature of the training it is not possible to set out a detailed programme or cost in advance. The Scottish Government is, however, working with stakeholders to maximise the number of children receiving cycle training.

Heath and social care services are under increasing pressure to meet service demand. The Scottish Government are committed to delivering the investment and reform necessary to ensure our NHS is fit for the changing needs of a 21st century Scotland.

We are undertaking a programme of record investment and reform, working to shift the balance of care away from hospitals and into community settings. This is backed by a health revenue budget that will increase by almost £2 billion by the end of this Parliament. These changes won’t happen overnight, but are part of a clear, long-term strategy of matching increased investment in our NHS with reform to ensure our health service is providing care to the people of Scotland long into the future.

We are also investing £200 million in a network of 5 new elective and diagnostic treatment centres including one in Aberdeen.

We have received close to 3,000 responses to our consultation on the National Concessionary Travel Scheme. This is a considerable response and we will need to consider the views expressed during the consultation process carefully. The analysis of responses will be published in due course.

The consultation set out a number of options to safeguard free bus travel. It also asked about the extension of the scheme to young Modern Apprentices and provision of companion cards to disabled children under five years old. No decisions have been taken. However, I can reconfirm that anyone who already enjoys a concessionary travel card will continue to keep it.

Redesign of the Minor Injuries and Illness service in Angus is a matter for the Angus Integration Joint Board working with its NHS and Local Authority partners. We expect provision of modern, high quality services across health and social care.

Details of overtime accrued are as follows 

Please note that the figures in each case are totals, across the Rural Payments and inspections Division (RPID) and the Information Systems Division (ISD). Staff in these divisions work on a range of activities, which are more or less related to the task of making payments (application processing, validation, inspections, field mapping, monitoring, administering, supporting the IT, etc). A precise breakdown by activity is not available.