Chamber and committees

The Scottish Landfill Communities Fund has played an important role in funding community and environmental projects across Scotland.

The Investing in Planning consultation closed on 31 May 2024. We will publish the responses received, our analysis of them, and the steps we intend to take to improve the capacity of the planning system by September.

The Education (Scotland) Bill, introduced by the Scottish Parliament on 4 June, sets out the provisions for Board membership of Qualifications Scotland to include one or more member who has relevant knowledge of the interests of employees within Qualifications Scotland.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of ensuring that there is an effective staff voice within the formal governance structures of Qualifications Scotland. As the Bill progresses in Parliament, there will be opportunities to consider the detail of this aspect, as part of the organisational design work. Further engagement will take place with SQA staff and the recognised unions on this matter.

There are a number of complexities around UK benefits and student systems and these can impact negatively on each other. With the Scottish Government Paramedic, Nursing and Midwifery Student Bursary, maintenance elements of the Bursary are considered as income for Universal Credit and other means-tested reserved benefits.

If a Universal Credit award is removed due to ‘excess income’ such as the bursary, students would also lose entitlement to Scottish Government benefits such as Scottish Child Payment. This includes the non-means tested bursary, the Spouse or Cohabiting Partner Allowance, the Child Dependent Allowance and the Lone Parents' Grant.

The Scottish Government have introduced a Special Support Loan for 2024-25 academic year and have obtained agreement from the Department for Work and Pensions that this element of student income will be disregarded when assessing Universal Credit entitlement.

The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice wrote to Viscount Younger of Leckie , Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions, on 17 April 2024 asking for Student Maintenance Loans to also be disregarded as income for the purposes of calculating Universal Credit entitlement, particularly as they are a loan which must be repaid, but no reply has been received to date.

It should also be noted that due to the receipt of the non-repayable Paramedic, Nursing and Midwifery Bursary, students are not eligible for student loans. The Scottish Government has committed to carrying out a review of student finance for paramedic, nursing and midwifery students.

The Scottish Government understands the financial challenges faced by all students, including nursing and midwifery students, and recognise that this has been exacerbated by the cost of living crisis.

The Scottish Government package of support for Scottish student nurses and midwives is currently at its highest level, and is the highest level of support available to nursing and midwifery students across the UK. The annual £10,000 bursary is non-means tested and non-repayable. Eligible students receive free tuition, free uniforms, free disclosure and health checks as well as the reimbursement of clinical placement expenses (travel and accommodation).

Both the Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Midwifery Officer have participated in roundtable events hosted by the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwifery, where they have heard first hand student testimony around financial hardship.

Following those discussions, but alongside the work of the Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce and the findings from the royal colleges’ student surveys, the Scottish Government has committed to carrying out a review of nursing and midwifery student financial support.

The hospital group codes that have been quoted in the question are only present in data that are used for the Public Health Scotland ‘Costs Book’. Therefore, the figures quoted below are based on hospitals that have been assigned with one of the hospital group codes in this annual data collection to support the Scottish Health Service Costs publication. Information is available for financial years 2007-08 to 2022-23 (most recent). Group code ‘J26’ (community hospitals) was not used until the 2009-10 data collection. A mapping exercise identified that group codes ‘A5’ and ‘B10’ (both since discontinued) were previously used to define community-based hospitals up to that point, and this is reflected in the following table. It should also be noted that changes over time in the following table will reflect system reconfigurations, e.g. the Acute Services Review in Greater Glasgow, where several smaller acute facilities were reconfigured over two larger main sites, including the opening of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus in 2015.

Another important point of context is that models of patient care have changed markedly over the 17-year time period covered by the question, with initiatives such as ‘Hospital at Home’ now offering supported care at or closer to home, where possible, in place of longer hospital stays.

The following table sets out the number of hospitals by group code in financial years 2007-08, 2009-10 and 2022-23:

The Scottish Government welcomes the Student Midwives Finance Report, published by the Royal College of Midwives and thanks them for holding the roundtable event in the Scottish Parliament on 30 May 2024.

The event was attended by the Chief Midwifery Officer Justine Craig who heard powerful accounts from the students who clearly articulated their experiences.

A similar event was held by the Royal College of Nursing in September last year and following that the Scottish Government created a short-life working group comprising representatives from the Scottish Government, Student Awards Agency Scotland and higher education institutes to review the placement expenses guidance.

This group recently concluded its review and revised guidance will go live on the 1 of July. Their work will ensure students are refunded as promptly as possible and has provided students with greater flexibility on issues such as claiming advance payments. A national FAQs has also been developed to ensure greater consistency in the application of the guidance by HEIs across the country.

The Scottish Government has also committed to carrying out a review of student financial support more widely.

Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) manage the reimbursement of clinical placement expenses for student paramedics, nurses and midwives on behalf of the Scottish Government and has a 12 day service level agreement in place. Since the start of the 2024-25 academic year the average turnaround time is 7.2 days and as of 21 June, SAAS were working on claims received on 20 June.

All placement expenses are routed to SAAS via Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) who assess students’ claims in the first instance before sending them to SAAS for reimbursement. The Scottish Government, SAAS and HEIs have met regularly to improve the process of these reimbursements and to create more flexibility within the rules for students. Revised guidance will go live on 1 July 2024 and a key element of these improvements has been to ensure that students are aware that they can claim expenses in advance.

Currently there are no territorial NHS Boards consulting on major service change proposals on the future of hospitals.

Any major service change proposals being considered by NHS Boards are subject to at least three months formal public consultation and, ultimately, Ministerial approval; in line with national guidance which is available at:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/planning-people-community-engagement-participation-guidance-updated-2024/ .

Removing the timing restrictions on off-peak fares helps to simplify ticket options and supports flexible working practices which have grown in popularity. Such simplicity is also helpful in providing more flexible choices for families.