Chamber and committees

Vaccine certification is not currently an alternative to managed isolation.

We are, however, contributing to the World Health Organisation Safer Vaccination Programme on vaccine certification. This includes consideration of technical details, ethical and equality issues, and privacy standards. The outcome of those discussions will guide our work in this area.

It is too soon to introduce any form of certification. We need to know more about the efficacy of the vaccines, their impact on transmission and the length of immunity before it would be safe to introduce a vaccine certificate. However work has started to scope and develop a technical solution to allow secure, authenticated access to Covid vaccination status. This is to ensure technology is not the limiting factor should the work underway indicate it would be appropriate to introduce certification at the right time.

Any decision on ending the policy of managed isolation will be contingent on the epidemiological data and wider evidence about the rollout and success of our vaccination programme. Such a decision will be considered, in due course, in the context of a refreshed strategic approach to suppressing the virus.

There will be limited exemptions from the requirement to enter managed isolation. We understand how difficult this is, but to manage the risk of importing new variants and to give vaccine deployment the best chance of bringing us closer to normality these limits on international travel are necessary.

The clinical advice is clear that a comprehensive system of managed quarantine is essential to minimise the impact of new COVID-19 variants. This means that we must restrict how many exemptions are in place otherwise the policy will not be effective.

On the 2 February, the First Minister confirmed that the Scottish Government will introduce a routine testing programme for schools and childcare staff. This includes all Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) and School-aged Childcare staff (SAC) who work in a setting that is registered with the Care Inspectorate.

Phase one of the testing programme is being rolled out to all schools, ELC and SAC settings that are attached to school buildings, during week commencing 22 nd February. Phase two will see testing rolled out to all local authority and private, voluntary and independent led standalone settings which are not attached to schools.

We are currently gathering data for settings, in conjunction with local authority partners, to enable delivery of testing kits to settings included in phase two. We will confirm a delivery schedule for phase two, following this data collection.

The Scottish Government funds a range of services for survivors of all types of childhood abuse, including sexual, and for people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Our vision for mental health is of a Scotland where people can get the right help at the right time, expect recovery and fully enjoy their rights, free from discrimination and stigma.

The Scottish Government has a dedicated fund for non-statutory organisations who provide support to adult survivors of childhood abuse, the Survivors of Childhood Abuse Support (SOCAS) Fund. The SOCAS Fund is a £10m fund over four years with an estimated yearly spend of £2.5m. It launched in April 2020, with 29 organisations from across Scotland successfully securing funding for the duration of the Fund. It will run until the end of March 2024. The funded organisations support adult survivors of all forms of childhood abuse, physical, emotional and sexual abuse and neglect.

As well as providing funding to these organisations, one of the key aims of the SOCAS Fund is to build resilience and sustainability in the sector and encourage the sharing of best practice. To help achieve these aims the Fund has specialist fund managers to advise the individual organisations and to facilitate collaboration. The Scottish Government also works with an independent Advisory Panel, made up of people with lived and professional experience of child abuse, to help drive the direction of the fund.

The Scottish Government also funds Future Pathways, a service for adult survivors of childhood abuse experienced while living in care in Scotland. Future Pathways takes a person centred, outcomes based approach, looking at what is important to the individual and advising on and helping to coordinate the support they are looking for. The Scottish Government initially invested £13.5m in Future Pathways, to run from 2016 to 2021. In July 2020, the Minister for Mental Health announced up to a further £9 million investment to enable Future Pathways to provide vital support to survivors for a further two years, until March 2023.

Psychological Therapies and CAMHS services in Scotland provide therapies for trauma as needed for children, young people and adults based on individual treatment formulation and needs. These therapies and interventions last as long as is needed to help the individual. Treatment may include psychotherapy, trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR), group therapy; and antidepressants.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of marriage and civil partnership to couples and to society more widely. Whilst our priority is public health, we know that the sector has been hit hard and we do not underestimate the crisis created by the pandemic.

The Scottish Government continues to listen to concerns from businesses as we explore how to continue to help during this unprecedented economic crisis.

The Scottish Government has no plans, at present, for a route map specific to the wedding sector. We understand that people want certainty: but nothing would undermine public confidence and trust more than setting arbitrary future dates for relaxation without having an objective basis to be confident we will be able to achieve them safely.

Officials recently met with representatives from the Scottish Wedding Industry Alliance to hear their concerns and we will consider next steps. I continue to engage with the sector and I am due to meet with them again soon. Informed by these discussions, we hope to offer greater certainty in the coming weeks around how and when restrictions affecting the range of business in the wedding sector will be eased, as the evidence allows

On 23 February, we published an update to our coronavirus strategic framework. The First Minister also confirmed to Parliament that we will set out more detail in mid-March any revision to the content of each protection level taking account of our experience and of sectoral views.

Baby sensory classes do not meet the definition of close contact services as stated in The Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions and Requirements) (Local Levels) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 and are therefore ineligible for support under this fund.

Baby sensory class practitioners may be eligible for support through the UK Government’s Self Employment Income Support Scheme which protects up to 80% of a self-employed person’s average monthly trading profits. The £120 million Local Authority Discretionary Fund provides another potential route to financial support, I would encourage those who run these classes to check their Local Authority website for eligibility.

All Health Boards have included their housebound patients within their delivery models for each priority group. We have had confirmation that those aged 80 and over living in the community who are housebound have received their vaccination, with only small gaps for reasons such as illness or non-consent.

We wrote to Health Boards asking that they secure sufficient capacity to deliver 400,000 doses per week in February.

This will require a daily workforce of around 1,700 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) vaccinators and around 1,300 support staff.

We have taken steps to supplement our seasonal flu vaccination workforce with healthcare workers from the fields of general practice, dentistry, optometry and pharmacy.

Close to 12,200 vaccinators are registered on our national Vaccination Management Tool.

We are in ongoing dialogue with Boards and will continue to review workforce requirements in partnership with them as the programme progresses.

On 16 February 2021, I announced that the Scottish Budget 2021-22 would extend the COVID-19 relief for properties in the retail, hospitality, leisure and aviation sectors, and newspaper publishing, for all of 2021-22 provided the Scottish Government receives the funding already assumed from the UK Budget on 3 March, and that requisite funds are available to maintain existing support into 2021-22.

The Statement of Reasons setting out why the Scottish Government thinks Parts 1 of the two Scottish Coronavirus Acts should be extended was laid in Parliament on Wednesday 24 February. It has also been published on the Scottish Government website - Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 and the Coronavirus (Scotland) (No.2) Act 2020 - proposed extension: statement of reasons - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

This includes extending the non-eviction provisions until 30 September 2021. The Coronavirus (Scotland) Acts (Amendment of Expiry Dates) Regulations 2021 were also laid in draft at the same time to provide for the extension of the Acts to this date. We have no confirmed dates yet for when the Scottish Parliament will consider these regulations.