Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-30131

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 7 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many children and young people have been assessed for (a) autism and (b) ADHD through the NHS in each year since 1999.

This data is not centrally available; whilst Public Health Scotland publish the total number of patients waiting for specialist mental health services, detail of the individual types of assessment or diagnosis is not held. The publications for both CAMHS and Psychological Therapies waiting times for each quarter can be found at Publications - Public Health Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the National Neurodevelopmental Specification: Principles and Standards of Care for Children and Young People, published in September 2021, which specifies service standards that all children’s services should follow, to ensure access to support is effective and consistent across Scotland.

The Scottish Government have also established the National Autism Implementation Team, in partnership with Queen Margaret University, to support Health and Social Care Partnerships to consider best practice and support improvement through the redesign of autism diagnostic services.

The National Implementation Team is supporting NHS Boards to examine diagnostic pathways for autism and establish regional experts to assist with improving tiered autism specialisms across health boards.

Question reference: S6W-30127

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 7 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been spent on consultancy fees for the Sheriffhall roundabout upgrade project.

The Scottish Government has spent approximately £6.4 million on the necessary design and assessment work for the A720 Sheriffhall Roundabout scheme since Transport Scotland appointed its technical advisor, AECOM, in July 2013.

This figure is inclusive of VAT where applicable and covers costs associated with design and assessment work. This includes costs associated with options assessment, engineering design and preparation work, environmental assessment (including environmental survey work), traffic and economic assessment, stakeholder engagement, statutory process including public local inquiry, and supervision of ground investigation works.

Question reference: S6W-30132

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 7 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many children and young people have been assessed for (a) autism and (b) ADHD privately in each year since 1999.

The Scottish Government does not collect this data.

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the National Neurodevelopmental Specification: Principles and Standards of Care for Children and Young People, published in September 2021, which specifies service standards that all children’s services should follow, to ensure access to support is effective and consistent across Scotland.

The Scottish Government have also established the National Autism Implementation Team, in partnership with Queen Margaret University, to support Health and Social Care Partnerships to consider best practice and support improvement through the redesign of autism diagnostic services.

The National Implementation Team is supporting NHS Boards to examine diagnostic pathways for autism and establish regional experts to assist with improving tiered autism specialisms across health boards.

Question reference: S6W-30460

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 October 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 1 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it is having regarding introducing regulations similar to those set out by the UK Social Housing Regulation Act 2023 that require landlords to investigate and fix reported health hazards within specified timeframes (Awaab's law).

Question reference: S6W-30129

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 4 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many children and young people have waited over a year for medical treatment in each year since 1999.

Neither Scottish Government or Public Health Scotland (PHS) centrally hold all of the information requested.

Table 1 presents the latest available statistics on the total number of admissions for patients aged less than 16 years who had waited over a year for planned treatment as an inpatient or day case covered by the Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG) from 2013 onwards. The data below are presented at NHSScotland level for all specialties, broken down by calendar year. Please note that this does not cover services that are exempt from the TTG, including obstetrics services, and organ, tissue or cell transplantation whether from a living or deceased donor. Spinal treatment by injection or surgical intervention was excluded from TTG until 1 April 2014 and designated national specialist services for surgical intervention of spinal scoliosis was excluded until 1 October 2014. These have been included in the TTG reporting from these dates.

Table 1 – Total number of admissions as an inpatient or day case for patients aged less than 16 years who had waited over a year (52 weeks), NHSScotland and all specialty level, by calendar year, from 2013 onwards

Calendar Year	Waited over 52 weeks
2013	0
2014	22
2015	5
2016	9
2017*	25
2018*	137
2019	935
2020	779
2021	1,889
2022	2,001
2023	3,923
2024**	1,927

*Data for NHS Tayside are unavailable between April 2017 and June 2018 for inpatients and day cases. Therefore, please note that NHS Tayside data are excluded from NHSScotland totals for the affected period in the above table and data should be interpreted as ‘NHSScotland excluding NHS Tayside’.

**Please note that calendar year 2024 only includes data from 1 January 2024 to 30 June 2024.

Question reference: S6W-30130

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 4 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many children and young people have been on an NHS waiting list in each year since 1999.

This information is not held centrally by either Scottish Government or Public Health Scotland (PHS).

PHS does not capture waiting list information on all NHS services and where they are captured, many are sourced from aggregate returns submitted to PHS by NHS boards. It is therefore not possible to identify the number of individuals that ‘have been on an NHS waiting list’. In addition, the aggregate data supplied by NHS boards does not provide patient-level information and as such, age breakdown is not available.

Question reference: S6W-30135

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 3 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how many (a) local authority-owned and (b) privately owned properties have been identified by local authorities as containing suspected reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

The Scottish Government encourages all building owners to be open and transparent about the presence of Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) in their properties, including making information available on websites (although there is no duty on the part of local authorities to gather information on RAAC in privately owned buildings). Information on the presence of RAAC in the public sector can be found in a recently published Scottish Government report: https://www.gov.scot/publications/raac-in-the-public-sector/

Question reference: S6W-30134

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 3 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how many developments have been identified by local authorities as containing suspected reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), broken down by local authority area.

The Scottish Government encourages all building owners to be open and transparent about the presence of Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) in their properties, including making information available on websites. Information on the presence of RAAC in the public sector can also be found in a recently published Scottish Government report: https://www.gov.scot/publications/raac-in-the-public-sector/

Question reference: S6W-30133

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 3 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it spent the £97.1 million of Barnett consequential funding that it received from the UK Government to fund cladding remediation work, broken down by allocation.

Under devolution, consequentials of this kind become part of the Scottish Government’s overall budget for that year. As part of the Scottish Budget process, it is for Scottish Ministers to propose funding levels for specific programmes in Scotland, and when the budget is required.

In the case of cladding remediation, we have said that we will spend whatever is necessary to address the problems created by unsafe cladding, that we will make provision for that at the appropriate time, and that we expect the cost of that in Scotland to be at least the quoted amount of consequentials – that is, £97.1 m.

We publish updated information on programme spend on a quarterly basis at https://www.gov.scot/publications/single-building-assessment-spending-information/.

Question reference: S6O-03818

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 October 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions ministers have had with the City of Edinburgh Council regarding the proposed closure of Edinburgh's People's Story Museum.

Chamber and committees