Chamber and committees

All Personal Independence Payment awards received from the Department for Work and Pensions are tracked throughout the case transfer process, to ensure a safe and secure transition into Adult Disability Payment. We monitor the progress of transferring clients’ awards on a daily basis and have a joint Scottish Government and Department for Work and Pensions forum to discuss progress and to raise and address any issues that may arise. Approximately 90% of all cases transferred from Personal Independence Payment progress through the process automatically and do not require any additional checks by client advisers.

Social Security Scotland ask clients about their experiences of case transfer as part of their regular client survey. The latest published survey covers January to March 2023 and can be found on the Social Security Scotland website. The Scottish Government are also currently undertaking an evaluation of case transfers to Child and Adult Disability Payment as part of the wider programme of evaluation of disability benefits.

In academic year 2021/22, £15.5 million was spent on the delivery of workforce training opportunities through the Flexible Workforce Delivery Fund.

The area of High Conservation Value Woodland (HCVW) on Scotland’s national forests and land has not decreased in real terms. The method used to calculate HCVW area has been refined to more accurately reflect where native trees would naturally occur.

Plans are in place for Forestry and Land Scotland to increase the amount of HCVW they manage through (a) greater rates of restoration of Plantations on Ancient Woodland Sites from funding awarded by SG totalling £2.8M between FY 2022-23 & FY 2023-24. This will be used to commence a programme of rainforest restoration works, as part of the Programme for Government commitment to support the restoration and expansion of Scotland’s rainforests, and establish a National Register of Ancient Woodlands. This funding has enabled FLS to underpin the restoration of 658 hectares of priority rainforest area in Cowal, Argyll (Kintyre & West Loch Awe), Loch Lomond Basin, Wester Ross and the Isle of Arran (North Sannox). Activity includes INNS control, clearing non-native tree regeneration and deer management.

And (b) improvements to the condition of ancient semi-natural woodlands. This will be achieved on 4,663 ha of Ancient Semi-natural woodland areas on Scotland's national forests and land within the Rainforest Zone. Work is underway to remove non-native tree regeneration and invasive non-native species from prioritised areas.

Deer management will continue to increase, with positive benefits for PAWS restoration and ASNW condition already being observed. It is anticipated natural tree regeneration will occur within PAWS under restoration and colonisation more generally throughout rainforest habitat following a reduction in deer densities, buffering zones for natural colonisation are being planned within Land Management Plans .

Additionally improvements to the condition of ancient semi-natural woodlands areas in upper Spey-side are being achieved through participation with the Cairngorms connect project.

Out with the Rainforest Zone, alternative funding streams are being explored to support the continued restoration of iconic landscapes such as Glen Affric and the Black Wood of Rannoch.

All £15.5 million plus an additional £4.5 million was spent by Forest Enterprise Scotland (the predecessor to Forestry and Land Scotland) on rhododendron control between 2010 and 2020.

The area treated was in the region of 16,000 hectares. Complete eradication of this highly invasive plant is not realistic due in part to the continued reinvasion of seedlings from adjacent uncontrolled sites. FLS considers successfully controlled sites as those in the ‘maintenance phase’ where rhododendron no longer threatens the conservation interest on a site and recolonisation will be slow.

FLS continue to control rhododendron in priority sites on Scotland’s national forests and land, and where possible in collaboration with other land managers at the landscape scale.

Forestry and Land Scotland accounting systems do not differentiate rhododendron control from other environmental expenditure such as Invasive Non-Native Species control. Therefore, figures of expenditure on a) new rhododendron and b) ongoing treatment cannot be provided.

It is not possible to say how many hectares of land managed by Forestry and Land Scotland rhododendron has been eradicated in each year since 2020.

For FY 2023-24, £1.0 million has been budgeted for INNS and rhododendron follow-up control over a minimum of 440 hectares.

Most of this expenditure will be targeted at ongoing treatment of existing areas of rhododendron.

Monitoring of performance against the nationally agreed criteria in the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme, which now includes a requirement to demonstrate adequate provision of psychological support, allows us to identify where challenges are being faced in the delivery of high-quality stroke care and supports the implementation of quality improvements.

Demonstrating provision of post-stroke psychological care is a new requirement for NHS Boards and therefore it will take time for implementation to be successful.

The Scottish Government expects NHS Boards to increase performance against the criteria outlined in the review process, and we will work with them to support this.

The new Stroke Improvement Plan , published in June, includes a commitment to assess the current ability of NHS Boards to implement the National Model of Psychological Care in Stroke (Scotland).

This is being assessed via NHS Board reviews, which now include a requirement to demonstrate adequate provision of psychological support for those who have suffered a stroke.

In September, we published the National Specification for Psychological Therapies to help support improvements in the delivery of psychological care.

Priority six in the Stroke Improvement Plan is focused on psychological care and includes commitments to understand the availability of existing resources and develop strategies for raising awareness of the emotional and psychological impact of stroke on mental wellbeing. Work to appraise the range of resources currently available is scheduled to begin in 2024.

Education and training programmes on post-stroke psychological and emotional impacts are available as part of the Stroke Training and Awareness Resources (STARs) Core Competencies and Advancing Modules, hosted by Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland (CHSS). These resources were developed with the input of clinicians from across Scotland.

The criteria for NHS Board reviews sets out the Scottish Government’s expectation that all staff potentially dealing with hyperacute stroke patients should have undertaken the STARS Advancing Modules.

The Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (“ACCC”) has previously welcomed significant progress made by Scotland in addressing the concerns identified by the ACCC. Officials worked with Defra to submit an action plan to the ACCC on behalf of the UK in July 2022, in response to the ACCC’s decision VII/8s issued in October 2021. Work is ongoing in order to strengthen Scotland’s compliance and address the areas of concern raised by the ACCC. A progress report was submitted to the ACCC in October 2023, again following liaison with the UK Government and in particular Defra.

In July 2022 the Scottish Government introduced an exemption from court fees for Aarhus Convention cases in the Court of Session. The Scottish Civil Justice Council (“SCJC”) is undertaking a review of court rules relating to Protective Expenses Orders. As the SCJC is an independent body, the Scottish Government cannot commit to a timeframe for completion of the rule review. The SCJC have however noted it in their annual report and work programme as a priority for completion in 2023/24. Policy development is ongoing in relation to a new Human Rights Bill for Scotland, which is to include a right to a healthy environment.

The deadline for addressing areas of concern and submitting a report to the ACCC is October 2024.

The Scottish Government delivers support for the historic environment through sponsorship of Historic Environment Scotland, which is the lead public body to investigate, care for and promote Scotland’s historic environment.

Historic Environment Scotland provides a wide range of grants and funding for projects that aim to protect and promote historic places. It provides circa. £14 million each year to local communities to repair and revitalise the historic environment.

The Scottish Government has been engaging with Historic Environment Scotland, Church of Scotland and other stakeholders on the closures of historic and listed churches.

We will continue to work closely with the Church of Scotland and leaders of all faiths and denominations, to regularly discuss issues impacting on their communities.