Chamber and committees

We continue to work towards delivery of the commitment that at least 1% of frontline health spending will be dedicated to mental health services for children and young people by the end of this parliamentary session.

The NHS Recovery Plan 2021-2026 Annual Progress Update published in December 2023 confirmed that NHS expenditure on Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services rose from £88m in 2020-21 to £97.6m in 2021-22, an increase of £9.3m or 10.6% - representing 0.66% of total NHS expenditure.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children across Scotland can access high quality play opportunities in a range of settings to support their growth, development and wellbeing.

We will build on Scotland’s world-leading 2013 Play Strategy, and the 2019 Play Scotland progress report, to develop a vision statement and action plan for play in 2024. We will do this by listening to the views of children and young people and working in collaboration with our stakeholders.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-23760 on 9 January 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

The Scottish Government is taking a systematic approach to gathering information on transport demand management options. This includes reviewing relevant reports and evidence, tracking developments across the UK and abroad, and commissioning our own research where key gaps exist. Transport Scotland commissioned research on equitable options for car demand management, referred to in S6W-15653 on 21 March 2023. More recently, Transport Scotland commissioned an evidence review on ‘ Reducing Car Use through Parking Policies’ . Collectively, all available evidence from Scottish Government commissioned research and external sources will help inform options and proposals, which, working with local and regional partners, we intend to set out in a Demand Management Framework by 2025.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/questions-and-answers

Scottish Government values the NHS workforce and is committed to investing in Scotland’s NHS workforce. Official NHS Scotland workforce statistics show record high staffing levels across all professional groups as at September 2023, including Medical and Dental and Nursing and Midwifery staff.

On 23 November 2023 we announced an additional 153 training posts for junior doctors to be created across a wide range of medical specialties: the largest annual expansion on record. This brings the total number of extra training places created since 2014 to 880. These additional posts are supported by £42m of Scottish Government funding over the next four years and will be recruited to from 2024, with successful applicants taking up post in August 2024. We have also increased nursing student numbers every year for the last decade. In addition to this we are working closely with the RCN and the RCM as part of the Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce to develop alternative career pathways and working to widen access to nursing programmes.

Since autumn 2021 Scottish Government have invested £18m since autumn of 2021 to recruit 1,250 new registered nurses, midwives and allied health professionals from overseas by the end of this financial year. Over 1,000 staff have been successfully recruited to such posts so far. Scottish Government continues to encourage and support employers to prioritise wellbeing for their workforce and has launched a number of wellbeing resources. This includes the National Wellbeing Hub, the National Wellbeing Helpline and confidential mental health treatment through Workforce Specialist Service. We will continue to work with leaders across health, social care and social work as well as hearing directly from staff, to understand where the current pressures are, and what further actions can be taken to mitigate their impact on staff.

Scottish Government remains committed to reducing long waits, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic, to ensure all people receive the treatment they need as soon as possible. We’ve opened two National Treatment Centres this year, with two further centres opening in the near future. These Centres provide additional capacity for patients across Scotland and are an integral part of the wider waiting times improvement programme.

In line with international reporting practice and independent advice from the UK Climate Change Committee, Scotland’s statutory climate change targets are set on the basis of long-term reductions in total net territorial emissions, and also include a share of emissions from international aviation and shipping. As set out in the answer to S6W-23278 on 11 December 2023 the Scottish Government has no plans to set per capita carbon budgets. There have not been any discussions or review of what a 'vehicle kms travelled' budget may look like for Scotland. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/questions-and-answers

A breakdown of lead Directorates is available in the most recent Climate Change Committee progress report on adaptation (CCC, November 2023).The Committee’s recommendations for the highest priority climate risks to be addressed in the next Scottish National Adaptation Plan are broken down by Directorate on pages 18 and 19. Furthermore, each chapter ends with lead Directorates identified against specific policy recommendations relevant to the chapter.

The Scottish Government microplastics monitoring programme began in the winter of 2013, and has undertaken annual surveys since that time. 479 locations have been sampled between 2013 and 2022. These sample sites are distributed throughout the 11 Scottish Marine Regions and the Offshore Marine Regions. Not all Regions were sampled in every year and the number of sampling sites visited also varied between years.

The microplastics in surface water assessment in Scotland’s Marine Assessment 2020 gives the number of sample sites visited in each year from 2013-14 to 2019-20. This can be viewed at https://marine.gov.scot/sma/assessment/microplastics-surface-water In addition, the sites sampled each year up to and including 2021-22 can be viewed in the dataset published at https://data.marine.gov.scot/dataset/dataset-sources-sinks-and-hazards-micro-plastics-scotland%E2%80%99s-seas-2013-present/resource#{query:{from:400},view-grid:{columnsWidth:[{column:!season,width:157},{column:!date_deploy,width:149}]}} Data for 2022-23, and the current sampling year of 2023-24 have not yet been published.

a) The total number of inpatient and daycase hospital episodes here a lung volume reduction procedure was recorded, in Scotland, from April 2020 to March 2023 is 15 . This total includes two locations of treatment (i) Golden Jubilee National Hospital, National Waiting Times Centre and (ii) Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh at Little France, NHS Lothian.

Please note that figures for lung volume reduction procedures by individual location of treatment and financial year have ben aggregated to protect patient confidentiality, in accordance with our PHS Statistical Disclosure Protocol

Source: SMR01, Public Health Scotland, extract: 18 December 2023.

(b) This information is not held centrally.

Transport Scotland keeps forecasting methodology under review to ensure best practice. The Borders Railway business case demand forecasts were based on modelling that was informed by surveys of residents regarding their potential use of the line. This resulted in forecasts that underestimated demand from Borders stations and overestimated demand from Midlothian stations.

Rail demand forecasting has developed considerably since the demand forecasts for the Borders Railway business case were first developed in 2008. A post-opening hindcast from the South East Scotland Transport Partnership (SESTran) Regional model for those Borders stations gave forecasts within 30% of actual demand. Where available, Transport Scotland recommends to promotors the use of Regional models for new station demand forecasts .