Chamber and committees

We expect to obtain credible evidence of actual uptake of Continuing Care as part of the “Children’s Social Work Statistics” in 2019. We have estimated approximately 74 eligible care leavers per year will take up the offer.

Continuing Care should be considered alongside the range of options available, including extended Aftercare support up to age 26, available to young people leaving care.

The Scottish Government are working with local authorities via Staf (Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum) Continuing Care Focus Group, Social Work Scotland, The Fostering Network and CoSLA to gather information that will identify any particular barriers to eligible young people remaining in their care setting under Continuing Care arrangements that will help us to resolve any issues. We also fund the Centre of Excellence for Looked after Children in Scotland (CELCIS), who provide ongoing support for practitioners to implement Continuing Care.

The Scottish Government will continue to review all the information available, including Ms Dugdale’s ‘Falling Through the Cracks Report’ published in July and consider the most appropriate action to ensure eligible children and young people who would like to remain in their care setting under Continuing Care arrangements are able to.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-11399 on 2 October 2017.

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 .

For all young people who choose Continuing Care there is an expected saving arising in the form of the forgone Aftercare service costs.

The Scottish Government is providing additional funding to local government of approximately £9m in year 1 (2015-16) rising to approximately £13.5m by 2020 for Aftercare (extension to age 26 and amending the age eligibility from school leaving age to 16), and Continuing Care. Continuing Care represents £4.2 million rising to £9.3 million over the same period, by 2019/20 at which point, we expect the net total cost each year to stabilise.

Continuing Care and Aftercare both provide young care leavers with support that should meets their individual needs.

Local authorities are responsible for managing Continuing Care arrangements and making decisions about the levels of allowances and fees. The Continuing Care guidance requires local authorities to carefully consider the financial implications for carers offering a Continuing Care placement to ensure that a lack of financial support is not a barrier to any young person remaining with their care family.

The Scottish Government does not provide ring-fenced funding for Continuing Care provision or indeed any of the provisions in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. Funding is included in the block grant which the Scottish Government provides to all local authorities as part of the annual local government finance settlement. It is the responsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financial resources available to it on the basis of local needs and priorities having first fulfilled its statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities including the Scottish Government's key strategic objectives.

The Scottish Government provides over £500,000 annual funding for the NHS Research Scotland Neuroprogressive and Dementia Network. The role of the network is to support academic and commercial studies, including clinical trials, in neurodegenerative conditions that are taking place in the NHS in Scotland.

The provision of healthcare services is the responsibility of local NHS Boards, taking into account national policies/guidance, local service needs and priorities for investment. The breakdown of NHS Boards’ spend on services for Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is not held centrally. However, we can advise, in 2018-19, the health resource budget will increase by over £400 million to £13.1 billion and by the end of this parliament, the health resource budget will have increased by £2 billion.

Since 2012 the Scottish Government has provided £129,190 to third sector organisations to assist with their work supporting people living with MND, including care advisor posts for short term immediate care for people with MND, an equipment loan co-ordinator and delivery of a nationwide benefits advice service for people living with MND, their families and carers.

In addition, as noted in the reply to S5W-18214 on 29 August 2018, the Scottish Government has co-funded a Clinical Research Fellowship with MND Scotland designed to increase research capacity in MND research here in Scotland. The SG contribution to the fellowship is £96,000.

We have delivered on the 2016 manifesto commitment to fund 3 Ph.D. Studentships in both Motor Neurone Disease and Multiple Sclerosis. The SPRINT-MND-MS programme sees the 6 Scottish Government-funded Ph.D.’s matched by an investment of 7 Ph.D.’s funded by a collaboration of 5 Scottish HEI’s to create an integrated and pan-Scotland MND/MS Ph.D. training programme. Already 9 of the 13 Ph.D.’s have been appointed with the final cohort to be recruited by early 2019 .

We have partnered with the University of Edinburgh to fund two 3 year postdoctoral scientist positions working on MND at the UK Dementia Research Institute. Their work will involve research on innovative clinical trial design in Motor Neurone Disease.

In partnership with MND Scotland and the MND Association, we are funding a Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh's Euan MacDonald Centre for MND Research.

In August 2018 we announced a collaboration with MND Scotland to fund a second Clinical Research Fellow. We expect to appoint the successful candidate in early 2019.

In April 2018 we hosted the Scottish Neuroprogressive Conditions research day. This brought together stakeholders to discuss how to maximise the number of clinical trials in neurodegenerative conditions (including MND) in Scotland.

The Scottish Government provides over £500,000 annual funding for the NHS Research Scotland Neuroprogressive and Dementia Network. The role of the network is to support academic and commercial studies, including clinical trials, in neurodegenerative conditions (including MND) that are taking place in the NHS in Scotland.

Officials from the Chief Scientist Office met with MND Scotland at the Scottish Government sponsored Neuroprogressive Disease Research Day on ‎19 April 2018. This led directly to the announcement of a co-funded Clinical Research Fellowship designed to increase research capacity in MND research here in Scotland. The SG contribution to the fellowship is £96,000. The fellowship is currently advertised on the CSO website with a closing date for applications of 28 September 2018.

In April 2018 the Scottish Government announced that it would be providing half the funding for an almost £400,000 initiative at the Edinburgh hub of the UK-wide Dementia Research Institute to fund 2 postdoctoral scientists over 3 years. Their work will look at chemical compounds that have the potential to be developed into drugs to treat MND. These would then go through a process that could include clinical trials to test their safety and effectiveness.

We have also provided funding of £75,000 to partner with MND Scotland and the UK-wide charity the MND Association in supporting a Clinical Research Fellowship based at the Euan MacDonald centre for MND Research at the University of Edinburgh.

Through the Chief Scientist Office, the Scottish Government contributes around £10 million annually to allow Scottish-based researchers to apply for funding to the UK-wide research programmes from the National Institute for Health Research. These schemes are open to applications looking at the underlying causes, diagnosis and treatment of MND.

The appropriate training for existing licence holders seeking to renew their licence is the half day Scottish Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (Refresher) course, which requires some pre-reading prior to attending.