Chamber and committees

As the answer to question S5W-33155 outlined, this matter has been raised with stakeholders including the Clinical and Professional Advisory Group for Care Homes. The Chief Medical Officer wrote to Adult Care Home Providers, Primary care leads and others on 21 January 2021, outlining that all residents in adult care homes should be assessed for vitamin D supplements as part of their regular routine clinical review and that decisions on whether to prescribe vitamin D for care home residents, should be taken on an individual basis. This is to ensure that the supplements would be of benefit and to check the need for co-prescribing with calcium as well as for other contraindications or side effects.

The Agriculture (Retained EU Law and Data) (Scotland) Act 2020 requires Scottish Ministers to lay a report before the Scottish Parliament on progress towards establishing a new Scottish agricultural policy no later than 31 December 2024.

Future rural policy, post-CAP, will be developed in co-production with farmer led groups supported by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

This year the Scottish Government has increased funding for policing in Scotland by £60 million to more than £1.2 billion. The allocation of these resources across policing priorities is a matter for the Scottish Police Authority and the Chief Constable to determine.

People living in Scotland’s rural areas are less likely to be a victim of crime now than a decade ago, as detailed in the 2018-19 Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, over three-quarters (77%) of those living in rural areas believed that the local crime rate had been stable or fallen in the previous two years.

The Scottish Government will continue to bear down on crime in Scotland, through protecting police budgets as well as through substantial investment in preventative programmes.

The British Red Cross (BRC) are playing a leading role co-ordinating Voluntary and Community Sector support for the COVID-19 vaccination programme in Scotland. Scottish Government officials have been meeting weekly with the BRC Scotland Director, through the Voluntary and Community Sector Advisory Group (VCSAG), also chaired by the BRC Scotland Director. Official level discussions continue, to engage with health boards to process offers of support, and to explore how volunteers can contribute to the vaccination programme, as it rolls out across Scotland.

The Scottish Government has not engaged with St John’s Scotland about mobilising volunteers to take part in the COVID-19 vaccination programme.

On 14 January we published our Coronavirus (COVID-19): vaccine deployment plan 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . The plan describes the steps we will take to deliver 400,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine per week by the end of February subject to the necessary vaccine supply being made available. Workforce modelling estimates indicate that this will require a workforce of c. 1700 whole time equivalent (WTE) vaccinators and c. 950 WTE support staff.

We recognise that not every member of staff will work on a full-time basis and local headcount will be adjusted to reflect less-than-full-time working, predictable absence and clinic operating hours; health board work with these variables when undertaking local recruitment and setting rostering patterns. The total number of vaccinators and support staff by headcount is therefore likely to be significantly higher than the above WTE estimates. We regularly reassess board capacity through the programme and are monitoring the total pool of trained vaccinators that boards can access.

Data extracted on 19 January 2020 from the Covid Vaccinations Management Tool, shows that nationally boards have collectively registered approximately 7,500 vaccinators.

Scottish Government recognises that to address the challenges rural Scotland faces, a cross-portfolio approach is crucial. In September 2018, the National Council of Rural Advisers (NCRA) published over 50 recommendations of which we accepted over 90%. Their leading recommendation was to effectively mainstream rural needs within all policy and decision-making processes. Our officials work day-to-day to ensure the needs of rural Scotland are fully considered as part of its existing and future policies.

In addition to this as required under the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018, Island Communities Impact Assessments (ICIAs) are required. These enable relevant authorities to assess and take into account the impacts of their policies, strategies or services on island communities.

Regarding budgets, Scottish Government are committed to using the most up to date information for the full range of indicators, including population dispersion and rurality, at the time the local government finance settlement is calculated. This ensures funds are fairly dispersed. We also provide a Special Islands Needs Allowance (SINA) for local authorities with populated island communities, to help meet the additional costs of providing services to those communities which are not fully accounted for in the local government funding distribution formula.

Export Health Certificates (EHCs) are not dealt with by Marine Scotland, so no staff are employed for that purpose.

EHCs for seafood exports are normally issued by Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) working for local authorities. However, given the anticipated massive increase in demand for EHCs arising from the UK leaving the EU single market, the Scottish Government, Food Standards Scotland (FSS), seafood businesses and logistics providers have worked to put in place a FSS-staffed certifying service at three existing logistics hubs in central Scotland, thereby reducing what would be an unmanageable burden on local authorities. FSS have 11 staff employed to work at those hubs, with additional contingencies in place to increase resources should that be necessary. Local Authority EHOs will continue to provide EHCs for exporters who choose not to, or who are unable to, use the logistics providers operating the three hubs.

We confirmed on 20 January that support equivalent to the Strategic Framework Business Fund will also be made available to B&Bs who do not pay Non Domestic Rates but pay council tax. This support, which is £2,000 every four weeks, will be paid by local authorities and details of how businesses can access the support will be published shortly.

This is also available to B&B business who do not have a business bank account.

We have agreed to pay £2,000 every four weeks to bed and breakfasts, either through the Strategic Framework Business Funds for those who pay non-domestic rates, or through the bespoke B&B fund for those who pay Council Tax. For the latter, the cost is around £1m every four weeks.

In delivering the £100 COVID Winter Hardship Payment, the Scottish Government agreed with local authorities that children and young people in receipt of Free School Meals on 30 November, based on low income eligibility criteria, should receive the payment prior to Christmas wherever possible.

It was also agreed that those newly registered, up to and inclusive of the end of the school term prior to the winter break, should receive their payment no later than the second week in January. We are aware that a small number were still being processed as of 22 January, however these will be made to eligible families as soon as possible.

We estimate that around 156,000 children and young people were eligible to receive this support. We will make information on the number of payments issued available in due course, once local authority returns are received.