Chamber and committees

The launch of our National Mission on Drugs in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way. Many of the milestones are being delivered through the National Mission and others are being picked up as part of more recent Government commitments.

As part of the National Mission, Public Health Scotland established the Rapid Action Drug Alerts and Response (RADAR) system. The first published report was issued on 11 October 2022 and that has been followed by quarterly publications. It reports on drug-related indicators in order to inform action to prevent drug harms and deaths.

The launch of our National Mission on Drugs in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way. Many of the milestones are being delivered through the National Mission and others are being picked up as part of more recent Government commitments.

The Medication Assisted Treatment standards published on 31 May 2021 and are a set of standards aimed at providing a framework to ensure that MAT is sufficiently safe, effective, acceptable, accessible and person-centred to enable people to benefit from treatment for as long as they need it.

The standards are evidence based and were developed through extensive consultation with multiagency partners that deliver care, and, with the individuals, families and communities with experience of problematic drug use.

The Scottish Government has committed to full and sustained implementation of MAT standards 1-10 in community and justice settings by April 2026. To help local areas achieve this, the MAT Implementation Support Team (MIST), based within Public Health Scotland (PHS) is supporting the roll out of the standards ensuring local areas have systems, protocols and procedures in place to be able to continuously improve services based on evidence.

In order to demonstrate implementation of the MAT standards, local areas provide process, numerical and experiential evidence to MIST which helps to inform an annual National Benchmarking Report, published by PHS. Process evidence includes formularies, clinical guidelines, care pathways, standard operating procedures, policies and other supporting documentation.

The National Benchmarking Report for 2022/2023, published in July 2023 reported that the 29 ADP areas assessed against each of the 10 MAT standards, 66% (96/145) of MAT standards 1–5 were fully implemented and 88% (127/145) of MAT standard 6–10 were partially implemented.

Yes, on 8 November 2021 the Scottish Government published A Review of the Existing Literature and Evidence on Young People Experiencing Harms from Alcohol and Drugs in Scotland.

The review can be found here: A Review of the Existing Literature and Evidence on Young People Experiencing Harms from Alcohol and Drugs in Scotland (www.gov.scot)

In 2021, the Scottish Government formed a working group to develop Action 4 from the Rights, Respect and Recovery Action Plan. The aim of the working group is to ensure that good quality early intervention support services are available across Scotland for young people with emerging problematic drug and alcohol use.

The first phase of this work involved the working group gathering data from a range of sources to understand the size of the problem of younger people using drugs and alcohol as well as risk factors.

In 2022, we commissioned We Are With You to engage with young people in order to learn from their experiences of drug and alcohol use. This engagement has helped the working group to understand young people’s preferences for seeking help and the perceived barriers they face and this insight will aid the development of support for young people at risk from drugs/alcohol harms.

In Spring 2023, the working group began engaging with young people, using a co-design approach, to gather their views of good support. These findings, along with existing international evidence of good practice will be used by the working group to develop standards of support for children and young people.

The working group will outline the minimum principles of support that is required to meet the needs of children and young people and provide early intervention support in a way they want.

The Scottish Government’s ability to respond to the current financial context is limited due to overall UK Government cuts and by the financial restrictions of devolution, requiring extremely hard funding decisions to be made across the budget. The Scottish Government values our culture sector and the contribution of the grassroots music industry to the cultural and economic offer in Scotland. We will continue to work with the sector to identify barriers to recovery, and do everything within our powers and resources to help it overcome these.

I met with the UK Government’s Minister of State for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries on 13 June 2023, to discuss the imminent publication of the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Creative Industries Sector Vision.

The UK Government have not confirmed if there will be any Barnett consequentials as a consequence of their announcement.

Since the changes to SME Loan eligibility regarding Solar PV measures went live on 27 June 2023 on the Scottish Government’s SME Loan Scheme, there have been 18 rejected applications on this basis.

The following table shows the average amount of time it has taken from a loan application being received to either a loan offer or rejection being sent. Applications processed are not dependent on measure types and there is a single application form for the SME Loan covering all technologies that are funded.

The decision to close the SME Loan Scheme to new Solar PV was taken on 20 June 2023 and was implemented on 27 June.

Solar is a key part of our energy transition and is recognised as such in our draft strategy. Solar PV is also an increasingly established technology which is often deliverable without government support. On this basis, and considering finite budgets, the decision was taken in order to keep remaining budget resource available to support SMEs to install zero direct emissions heating and energy efficiency measures, in line with our Heat in Buildings Strategy priorities. We will regularly review our budget position and consider reinstating a more targeted Solar PV offering if additional funding becomes available.

The Scottish Government’s Care Experienced Children and Young People’s Fund (CECYPF) has provided over £50 million to local authorities since 2018 to support children and young people’s attainment and wellbeing. The Fund is for care experienced children and young people, including those who have been adopted.

CECYPF has been used for a range of work, for example inclusion support teams who provide direct trauma-informed help to young people to be fully included in educational settings. The Fund has also supported extensive staff training, including for primary and secondary school teachers, to develop more trauma informed educators, to enable care experienced children to learn efficiently and effectively.

Education Scotland has also developed a Keeping Trauma in Mind professional learning programme for education practitioners, including primary and secondary school teachers, across Scotland. The programme develops the skills, knowledge and understanding required to support children and young people (including adoptees) who may be impacted by trauma.