Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government welcomed Alzheimer Scotland’s Fair Dementia Care Report and began consideration of the report’s call for a definition of advanced dementia care, free at the point of delivery, prior to the onset of the pandemic.

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport announced in Parliament on 16 February that the Scottish Government supports the recommendations of the Independent Review of Adult Social Care and, subject to the outcome of the election, would support the creation of a National Care Service which will ensure there is national accountability for the delivery of social care. As an initial response to the Independent Review recommendations there is an increase in rates of allowances for free personal and nursing care by 7.5% from 1 April. This was welcomed by Alzheimer Scotland as a first step in meeting the aims Fair Dementia Care.

In addition, learning from the pandemic, we are taking forward new work on clinical models of care in care homes and the report’s recommendations on improving the quality of care for people with advanced care needs will also be considered as part of that work.

We also continue to fund national dementia workforce development and service improvement programmes to support the delivery of high quality dementia care. We will also take forward work with Health Boards and others to explore how we might expand the focus on the Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Nurse Consultants – part funded by the Scottish Government, Health Boards and Alzheimer Scotland – to include additional strategic work with the care home sector.

The Scottish Government’s Dementia and COVID-19 Action Plan was published in December, to build on, continue and expand national action on supporting people with dementia, their families and carers in response to the pandemic.

As detailed in the Scottish Government’s response to questions S5W-34614 and S5W-34612 on 1 February 2021 we have provided funding for around 18,000 new and enhanced opportunities to support young people in 2020-21.

We have previously stated, in response to question S5W-33395 on 2 December 2020 that given the uncertainty around the labour market, with the extension of the furlough scheme and the impact of Brexit, we are not setting targets for the Young Person's Guarantee.

The Guarantee is not a standalone programme. We are providing £70 million in 2021/22 to create more opportunities for young people, building on our significant existing investment in Education, Employability and Skills infrastructure. We are in the process of developing a measurement and evaluation framework to understand how the Guarantee is delivering a range of different opportunities to support young people, as set out in response to question S5W-34872 on 1 February 2021 .

As part of this process, we recently published the first Local Authority Labour Market Dashboard and Skills Development Scotland (SDS) published the first monthly Participation Snapshot for 16 and 17 year olds. The Snapshot provides more timely data on the participation rate of young people across Scotland and will provide information on the activities young people are participating in.

This information along with the annual Participation Measure produced by SDS and planned evaluative activity will help us to monitor the number of opportunities as well measure and target opportunities and support for young people.

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

The ongoing response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been and continues to be the focus of our activity. We have agreed with BMA Scotland that the report and its important recommendations will be released when it has been fully considered.

The Centre for Workplace Transformation is being developed in a way that is wholly consistent with the Scottish Government’s National Performance Framework and commitments to inclusive growth and fair work. Embedding equality – including gender equality – will be at the core of the Centre’s activity.

The Scottish Government recognises that the pandemic could exacerbate existing labour market inequalities for protected groups including women. The Centre will help strengthen the range of activity already being undertaken through the Gender Pay Gap Action Plan to improve the experiences of women within the labour market.

Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that their staff have access to appropriate equipment in order to carry out their work. The Scottish Government has focused on supporting digital inclusion amongst learners and to date, over 67,000 devices and almost 14,000 connectivity solutions have been distributed.

GP practices can identify high-risk people with asthma by searching their records for patients codified as having asthma alongside other factors such as inhaled steroids, courses of oral steroids prescribed, hospital admissions, or smoking status.

The guarantee is compliant with EU state aid rules and did not require EU approval.

The Scottish Government recognises the role played by the Commissioner and their role as the guardian of children’s rights in Scotland. The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body sets the terms of the Commissioner’s appointment, including the allocation of resources. The Commissioner is required to report to Parliament each year on the exercise of his functions.

With regard to the creation of a Commissioner for Older People, the Scottish Government’s position has not changed and is set out in response to S5W-32242 on 22 Oc tober 2020. 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 .

Emissions from energy from waste plants are strictly controlled under the Pollution Prevention and Control regulatory regime. Correctly operated, modern energy from waste facilities should have minimal impact on overall local air quality.

A multi layered and highly precautionary approach is taken to the permitting and operation of Incineration sites, and these facilities receive a continued high level of scrutiny from SEPA throughout their lifetime.

The Pollution Prevention and Control permitting process goes into significant detail on the design and performance of the proposed EfW plant, with modelling studies for air emission and human health reviewed in detail by dedicated specialists within SEPA. The relevant standards were reviewed and considerably tightened last year in alignment with the EU BREF process and these very tight standards must be complied with by December 2023.

Incineration sites are required to have a Continuous Emissions Monitoring system (CEMS) in place, which uses a dedicated separate computer system and has a standby system in place. Manual monitoring of emissions also takes place four times within the first year of Operation (subsequently twice per year) alongside multiple tests during commissioning. SEPA also undertakes its own manual samples of air emissions once per year. Soil samples are also taken at regular intervals on or near to the site to monitor long term effects and in some cases ambient air quality near to the site is also sampled. The results of all of these tests are publicly available through SEPA’s Public Register. No site is permitted to operate above the consented limits with inbuilt safeguards called interlocks forcing the site to shut down `if limits are breached.

All local authorities are required to regularly review air quality in their areas and to submit an annual report to the Scottish Government summarising their air quality work from the previous year. This report should include identification of and assessment plans for any new potential emissions sources.

The Scottish Government is in regular contact with the GFG Alliance both at the Lochaber and Dalzell sites, as well as at Group level, mostly via officials. I chair the Lochaber Delivery Group meeting which last met on 23 February 2021.