Chamber and committees

The second tranche of the £50 million to address waiting times will be issued to Boards shortly - with Greater Glasgow and Clyde receiving a further £5.6 million. The second tranche will be issued against specific improvement plans.

The specific information requested is not available centrally. Information on the 8 key diagnostic tests including imaging tests is only collected on the number of patients on the waiting list on the last day of month and provides information on the number of patients on that day waiting over the 6 week target.

Consultant vacancy data for Clinical Radiologists is collected on a quarterly basis and published on the ISD website.

The most recent Medical and Dental dashboard, published on the 4 th September 2018 for posts vacant as at 30 June 2018, can be found at http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2018-09-04/Medical-and-Dental.asp .

Scotland is making excellent progress in tackling climate change. The most recent statistics show that greenhouse gas emissions have almost halved since 1990. The Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan contains a package of transformative measures to continue reducing emissions, including significant decarbonisation of transport.

Our investment in electric vehicle charging means that EV drivers in Scotland benefit from one of Europe’s most comprehensive and easy to access charging networks, Charge Place Scotland.

In 2017, this network of chargers was used over 420,000 times by over 8,000 members, enabling 12.8 million electric vehicle miles to be travelled.

As part of a package of investment to help accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles we are investing £15 million, to add 1500 new electric vehicle charge points in homes, businesses and communities, including 150 new public charge points.

The Scottish Government is committed to making an unprecedented level of investment in high quality early learning and childcare through the near doubling of the funded entitlement from 600 to 1140 hours per year from August 2020 for all 3 and 4 year olds, and eligible 2 year olds.

To enable this the Scottish Government reached a landmark agreement with COSLA Leaders on 27 April on a multi-year revenue and capital package which will fully fund the expansion in funded entitlement to 1140 hours by 2020. This agreement will see annual revenue investment increase by £567 million by 2021-22, whilst £476 million of capital funding will be provided over four years.

The multi-year agreement includes funding to enable local authorities to pay a sustainable rates to providers that reflects the cost of delivery in a setting and allows for delivery of national priorities including payment of the Scottish living wage to all childcare workers delivering the funded entitlement.

The funding agreement will enable significant increases in the funding rates paid to partner providers between now and 2020 and underpins our new provider neutral Funding Follows the Child model, which will allow families to choose to access their provision from a greater range of high quality settings across all sectors, including in the private and third sectors.

On 1 April 2018 we introduced a new 100% rate relief for private properties wholly or mainly used as day nurseries. We estimate that the relief will remove the burden of rates from up to 500 businesses in the sector.

Providers in all sectors can also apply for funding from our £2 million Early Learning and Childcare inclusion fund, which opened for its first round of applications in May. This fund will provide an additional source of funding to support specialist training, equipment and adaptions to enable staff to support children with additional support needs or disabilities.

I do agree with the Committee that the principle should extend to all existing sources of noise. I note that Mr Tomkins has lodged an amendment to the Planning Bill on Agent of Change, as has Lewis Macdonald. We will look at these and other options and continue to consider what is the best way of addressing the issues.

Ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly meet with representatives of all Health Boards, including NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

The Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership, who are responsible for developing this proposal, have been working closely with Police Scotland from the start to ensure that they are included in any discussions around the development of this facility, and any potential for increased criminality. There is significant evidence from existing drug consumption facilities around the world that show their presence does not increase drug use, drug dealing or crime in the areas in which they are located.

The Scottish Government have been clear that first and foremost we want to prevent drug related harm by adopting a public health approach to drug use, and this includes being innovative in our solutions irrespective of whether they may seem initially controversial or unpopular. Nevertheless, we remain clear in our commitment to doing everything we can to tackle the problem of illegal drugs by applying the full force of the law on those groups and individuals who profit from the human misery brought about by the illegal sales of these substances. We will support the work of Police Scotland, and Serious and Organised Crime colleagues, to ensure that those groups involved in drug dealing or distribution are effectively targeted for prosecution.

Temporary accommodation is an important part of Scotland’s strong homelessness legislation and we are committed to ensuring that temporary accommodation is of good quality and serves the needs of its residents in helping to ensure positive outcomes for those experiencing homelessness.

Last month the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group released its recommendations for transforming temporary accommodation, most of which we have accepted in principle. Together with the Group’s previous recommendations around eradicating rough sleeping that were issued in March, there is a focus on preventing the need for temporary accommodation in the first place, by reducing demand through effective prevention measures, and improving outflow or move-on by increasing appropriate options for accommodation.

Among the measures proposed is a proposal to extend the 7 day restriction on unsuitable temporary accommodation, enforced by the Homeless Persons (Unsuitable Accommodation) (Scotland) Order 2014, to all homeless people. Currently the order prevents local authorities placing households with children and pregnant women into "unsuitable" temporary accommodation, except in exceptional circumstances. Other measures include the development of a national system of rapid rehousing, including moving to a ‘Housing First’ model for those with most complex needs, where people, for whom it is appropriate, move straight into a permanent, settled home rather than temporary accommodation.

It is intended that the Action Group will submit its final set of recommendations on ending homelessness at the end of June and following this, together with our partners, we will bring forward a programme of work to take forward the recommendations.

Since the announcement of the Enterprise and Skills Strategic Board on 27 November 2017, the Board has met on 4 occasions.

Nora Senior, Chair of the Strategic Board gave evidence to the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee on Scotland’s Economic Performance and meets regularly with Mr Brown, as well as the First Minister and other Ministers with a portfolio interest.

The Board is developing an early Outline Strategic Plan, expected to be published in June 2018, which will set out the Board’s intentions for its full Strategic Plan, which it intends to be publish between the Programme for Government and the draft budget. The Board will engage widely with key stakeholders to progress this work.

The Outline Strategic Plan will include sections on:

• Cross Agency Collaboration and Culture Change
• The customer experience - for both business users of the system and learners;
• The Board’s initial “missions” - the areas that the board is taking a close look at that affect productivity and growth;
• A performance framework for how the Board will measure and monitor progress, and
• A routemap setting out an outline to completion of the full Strategic Plan.