Chamber and committees

Following the inclusion of squash in the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympics, squash will now be eligible for the UK Sport investment process. UK Sport strategically invests in the summer and winter Olympic and Paralympic Games and other major championship events to maximise the performance of UK athletes.

The Scottish Government is a strong supporter of Scottish Squash and recognises its contribution to raising Scotland’s profile on the international sporting stage, as well as promoting the wider benefits of sport and physical activity.

sport scotland, our national agency for sport, is investing up to £494,700 into Scottish Squash in 2023-24, an increase of 14.9% in investment from the previous year. sport scotland’s investment supports a wide range of activity that encourages and supports people to participate in squash at all levels, including school, club and coach development, and its performance programme. The additional investment in 2023-24 is specifically aligned to the continued development of a broader and more inclusive player pathway.

The budget for the ‘Brush Up’ campaign to increase awareness of NHS dentistry reforms was £250,000.

Over the past five years, the Scottish Government has provided NHS Lanarkshire with the following Baseline funding, and Capital resource for NHS Estate Maintenance, which can be used at the discretion of individual NHS Health Boards:

The Scottish Government remains committed to improving mental health service provision in primary care settings. The newly published Mental Health and Wellbeing Delivery Plan sets out our ambition to drive a shift in the balance of care across mental health to ensure a focus on prevention and early intervention in the community, including a focus on providing high quality mental health care in General Practice, by:

• Working collaboratively to improve access to support, assessment and treatment in primary care mental health and wellbeing services. This will include the development of multi-disciplinary teams in general practice, and maximising the role of community mental health teams, digital provision and NHS 24 to make access simpler and quicker, aligning care and quality with the Getting it Right For Everyone (GIRFE) principles. We will produce an initial report on progress, which will include equality impacts, by November 2024;
• Publish guidance on measuring and evaluating outcomes from mental health and wellbeing services in primary care by the end of 2023. This includes data indicators for protected characteristics and deprivation; and
• Continue to include primary care and community mental health as priorities within the Mental Health Outcomes Framework.

We will work with partners, including primary care stakeholders, to progress this ambition.

Additionally, as at 12 July 2022, 958.9 whole time equivalent (WTE) mental health roles have been filled using Action 15 funding, including 356.1 WTE posts in GP practices. Having met and exceeded the Action 15 commitment, the Scottish Government has continued to fund the roles that were recruited to.

By March 2023 186 WTE mental health workers had been recruited under the Primary Care Improvement Fund (PCIF). The PCIF also funds Community Link Workers (CLWs) as part of primary care multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs) and, at March 2023, more than 308 WTE CLWs were in post supporting GP practices. We are investing almost £190 million (£170m plus Agenda for Change Uplifts) in the Primary Care Improvement Fund in 2023-24, for the ongoing development of primary care multi-disciplinary teams and we have committed to the PCIF being £170m plus Agenda for Change uplifts in future years.

The authors of this letter recognise the very real progress being made on child poverty because of Scottish Government policies, including our ‘game-changing’ Scottish Child Payment.

More than 323,000 children were benefitting Scottish Child Payment at the end of September 2023, providing support to families which is unparalleled across the UK.

We have committed to uprating Scottish Child Payment by inflation next year and will continue to do everything within the scope of our powers and limited budget to tackle child poverty, in line with our challenging targets.

The Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance will set out the Government’s spending plans in the 2024-25 Scottish Budget, which will be presented to Parliament on 19 December.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) multiple technology assessment (MTA) final guidance is currently expected to be published on 20 March 2024.

As the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) is partnering with NICE in the assessment of these medicines, the SMC will publish recommendations aligned with the final NICE guidance thereafter for Health Boards in Scotland to consider.

As announced in March 2023, of the £30 million allocated for the Fuel Insecurity Fund this financial year, £9 million was made available to Advice Direct Scotland to administer the Home Heating Support Fund.

We currently estimate the awards of around 160,000 people will be selected for ‘managed transfer’ to Adult Disability Payment.

As part of the £30 million investment in the Fuel Insecurity Fund for 2023/24, the Scottish Government has allocated £9 million for the Home Heating Support Fund (HHSF), administered by Advice Direct Scotland (ADS), to support households with increased energy costs.

The most common reasons for HHSF applications being rejected are that evidence requirements are not met; or the customer has not already received debt advice, which is a requirement for support. As part of the appropriate verification and compliance process, relevant supporting evidence is required.

ADS adopt an holistic support approach, meaning that households presenting with debts exceeding £1,700 are internally passed to their FCA-accredited debt advice team for more comprehensive support and debt solutions. In all cases, ADS works with the applicant to ensure they have what they need to reapply to the HHSF.

11 December 2023

Monica Lennon (Central Scotland) (Scottish Labour Party): To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the Mental health and wellbeing: workforce action plan 2023-2025, whether it will provide an update on the development of a resource toolkit for Mental Health Unscheduled Care Practitioners.

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Maree Todd: The Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan, makes a commitment to develop the Mental Health Unscheduled Care resource, in partnership with key stakeholders. This will look similar to the Resources for Mental Health and Wellbeing in Primary Care Services published on the Scottish Government website ( www.gov.scot ) on 27 July 2022.

The work to develop this resource will be taken forward with partners over the coming year.