Chamber and committees

Review of NHS Hyperbaric Medicine Services in Scotland is ongoing. Scottish Government officials have been in contact with NHS National Services Scotland as commissioner of these services and NHS Grampian who provide and co-ordinate hyperbaric medical services in Scotland.

NHS Grampian have continued to engage with the private service provider in Oban and agreed to undertake further review of the facility. This took place in early May. Findings from the visit are being compiled and analysed before next steps are determined.

Discussions with stakeholders regarding the service are an operational matter, however we are being kept updated as review of the situation continues and have been assured risk is minimised, service capacity is in line with demand and plans are in place for the timely transfer and treatment of patients.

The Scottish Government continues to provide £16 million per year to ensure that all secondary schools have access to school counselling services.

Local authorities have confirmed that all secondary schools in Scotland have access to counselling services. All school pupils aged 10 and above have access to the service.

It is up to local authorities to decide how to deliver the service in their area to best suit the needs of their children and young people.

School counselling is just one of a range of services that schools and authorities have in place to support the mental health of children and young people.

In 2024-2025 we are making available £12.113 million for the provision of more social and affordable homes in the Scottish Borders Council area. We will invest almost £600 million in affordable homes across Scotland in 2024-2025 and will continue to work with partners – including in the Scottish Borders – to increase the delivery of more affordable homes, the majority of which will be for social rent, including supporting acquisitions of existing properties.

It is for individual local authorities to decide whether they wish to declare a Housing emergency and to outline their reasons for doing so. The Scottish Government has asked individual local authorities who have declared housing emergencies to share specific actions that they are taking in response.

I will be shortly providing Parliament with an update on the implementation of short-term let licensing, which will highlight the difficulties with the accuracy and completeness of different datasets about short-term let numbers. Prior to licensing there has not been a single robust data source about the number of short-term lets in Scotland and while we recently started publishing data on short term lets licensing applications, this is still provisional and partial data that is subject to upward revision in future releases. The Scottish Government therefore does not hold the information requested.

The Post-School Education and Skills Reform: Consultation on legislation was published today, 25 June 2024, with a closing date of 20 September 2024. The consultation seeks views on proposals for changes to simplify the funding body landscape in the post-school education and skills system. The consultation can be accessed here .

The Scottish Government recognises that solar power has an important role to play in decarbonising our energy supply and supporting a just transition to net zero, however, we cannot meet our climate targets without ending the use of polluting heating systems in our buildings and moving to clean heat alternatives.

With sustained demand for the scheme and in the context of the real terms cuts to the Scottish Government’s capital funding – as well as drastic reductions in financial transactions – these changes were necessary to ensure that funding is best focused on interventions which directly decarbonise heat or reduce heat demand and ensure the scheme stays within its available budget.

With sustained demand for the scheme and in the context of the real terms cuts to the Scottish Government’s capital funding – as well as drastic reductions in financial transactions – these changes were necessary to ensure that funding is best focused on interventions which directly decarbonise heat or reduce heat demand in existing homes and ensure the scheme stays within its available budget.

The New Build Heat Standard currently requires new homes and buildings with a building warrant applied on or after 01 April 2024 to install a clean heating system, such as a heat pump. As these systems are now required to be included in the design of a project, it is expected that self-builders take into account the cost of installing a clean heating system into their project budget.

An annual capital and financial transactions budget is allocated to the Heat in Buildings programme, which covers a range of funding programmes. The Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grant and Loan Scheme is allocated an element of this budget.

The HES Grant and Loan Scheme budget is agreed annually and investment for 2024-25 remains subject to final accountable officer sign off.

All projects that were allocated funding through European Structural Funds must have met the European Commission's criteria to qualify for support. A full list of projects that were awarded allocations is available on the Scottish Government's website: European Structural and Investment Funds: operations funding - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .