Chamber and committees

The information requested on how many NHS care navigators currently work in the NHS, broken down by NHS board is not centrally available.

Information on the NHS Scotland Workforce, broken down by NHS Board, can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland Workforce Data .

This question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court and Tribunals Service (SCTS) corporate body. The question has been passed to the Chief Executive of the SCTS who reply in writing within 20 days.

The specification for single building assessments is in development and is due to be published by the end of May 2024. I will write to the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee once there is an updated position regarding the specification.

Timings for Stage 3 of the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill will be agreed by Parliament in due course.

The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) undertook a data collection exercise in December 2023 on the presence of RAAC in social housing. Findings of this have been published by SHR giving a breakdown of the number of homes identified as containing RAAC and how many were still under investigation. At that time, 953 homes were identified with RAAC present across 9 social landlords and 27,318 homes were still under investigation. This was further broken down by landlord and analysed by local authority area. The findings are available on the SHR website FOI requested copy of RAAC dataset | Scottish Housing Regulator .

SHR also sought additional information on homes where social landlords have maintenance obligations, provide factoring services, or have previously sold. The intelligence gathered suggests RAAC has been primarily used in public sector house building.

SHR are currently undertaking further data collection and have requested updates from landlords where investigations are still ongoing and will release their findings in due course. SHR will continue to engage with landlords who have identified RAAC and the Scottish Government will be engaging directly with the affected landlords through the RAAC Cross Sector Working Group.

Many of the technologies required for hydrogen are already mature, however research and innovation still has an important role to play to reduce costs, improve integration models and efficiency to help enable the production and use of hydrogen at scale.

We continue to build the research base in collaboration with academia and industry on a number of fronts for example Scottish Government are partnering with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on the MultHyFuel Programme designed to help the development of a common strategy for implementing Hydrogen Refuelling Stations (HRS) in multi-fuel contexts, contributing to the harmonization of existing laws and standards based on practical, theoretical and experimental data as well as on the active and continuous engagement of key stakeholders.

Our Emerging Energy Technologies Fund Hydrogen Innovation Scheme (HIS) was launched in June 2022 to support the Scottish Government’s commitment to drive technological progress and innovation in the hydrogen field. To date the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme has offered grants totalling over £7m to 31 projects that will drive innovation in renewable hydrogen production, storage, and distribution.

Additionally, we are funding a Hydrogen Business Development service, delivered through the Energy Technology Partnership, to accelerate knowledge exchange between academia and enterprises to stimulate innovation in the hydrogen sector.

In the area of Carbon Capture Technology we are advised by the Climate Change Committee, the independent, statutory body established to advise on emissions targets, that CCS is a necessity, not an option, and we have regular engagement with Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage (SCCS) at the University of Edinburgh and the Centre for Energy Policy at the University of Strathclyde.

The Scottish Government values the important role of Scotland’s third sector in working across communities to tackle tough social issues at source. We recognise the challenges faced by the third sector in the current cost crisis and we will do what we can to take account of the pressures on organisations.

We also recognise that the third sector needs stability and the opportunity for longer term planning and development. That’s why we’ve committed to developing a Fairer Funding approach for the third sector.

Regrettably, the late timing of the UK Government Autumn Statement and the catastrophic cuts to Scotland’s block-grant have caused unavoidable delays in finalising budgets for 24-25.

Therefore, our initial focus has been on improvements to our grant-making arrangements to provide greater clarity and consistency of practice including prompt notification and increased multi-year offers.

We are continuing to explore the extent to which multi-year funding can be secured within the unpredictable and volatile fiscal circumstances we face and remain committed to increasing the number of arrangements.

We are still progressing our commitments and will report on our progress in due course.

The potential use of biodegradable barrier tape is an operational policing matter for Police Scotland. The Police Scotland Environmental Strategy 2021 sets out the context, pathway and implementation plan for reduction of energy, resource and carbon across the organisation.

The 2023-24 Programme for Government outlined our commitment to develop legislative proposals and other actions to support Community Wealth Building across Scotland. In 2023, we held a consultation that sought views on the changes and actions required to advance the approach. An independent analysis report of the consultation was published in October 2023.

We are undertaking detailed analysis of respondents’ feedback in relation to the proposal for a duty to advance Community Wealth Building and examining the feasibility of the proposals for other areas of legislative change that were submitted through the consultation exercise.

On the morning of 25 March 2024 there were (a) no 16 year olds and (b) five 17 year olds held in Young Offender Institutions in Scotland.

Operational decisions, including those such as dispute resolution, are a matters for individual colleges.

The Scottish Government has no role to play in these processes.