Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government seconded one individual to provide a Secretariat function to the Independent Advisor on the Ministerial Code while he conducted his review. Ahead of publication, Mr Hamilton requested additional secretariat support. Four additional permanent civil servants below the grade of Senior Civil Service were seconded to support the Secretariat from the SG Organisational Continuity Team (OCT) for a limited period from 15 March 2021, primarily to support the redaction and publication process. None of those civil servants was a Special Adviser and Special Advisers were not involved in the process of deciding what parts of the Hamilton Report to redact.

Please note we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested relating to names. This information is personal data of a third party, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and Section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Further to the response given by Miri McAllan MSP, in a particularly challenging fiscal landscape, the Scottish Government has had to take difficult decisions to deliver balanced and sustainable spending plans for the 2024-25 financial year.

The UK Autumn Statement was a worst-case scenario for Scotland. Our block grant funding, derived from the UK Government’s spending decisions, has fallen by 1.2 per cent in real terms since 2022-23 and our capital spending power is due to contract by almost 10 per cent in real terms over five years. Furthermore, the Spring Budget includes no new capital funding.

A significant proportion of the expenditure in the Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition portfolio is legally and contractually committed, and I have ensured that those commitments are met in full in this budget as well as allocating funding to support critical maintenance and renewal expenditure to ensure that the people of Scotland have access to a safe and reliable transport system. This has been compounded by continuing high inflation, which has further reduced our room for manoeuvre.

It is within these challenging circumstances that we have had to make difficult decisions to achieve a fiscally sustainable budget.

As Miri McAllan MSP indicated, the Equalities and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement and Carbon Assessment were published alongside this Budget. These impact assessments not only analyse the budget and the impact of the decisions contained in it, they also consider the process of making those decisions, and how we make sure the needs of all people are actively considered. The Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition portfolio was actively engaged in the analysis and production of these assessments.

The impact assessments for the E&S portfolio were prepared collectively and reflected in the Education and Skills portfolio analysis section in Annex B of the Equality and Fairer Scotland statement available at this link: Scottish Budget - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

In February 2022, an application under section 36 of the Electricity Act seeking consent for construction and operation of Peterhead CCS was formally lodged with the Energy Consents Unit. This is currently before Ministers for determination and as such, it would be inappropriate for Ministers to make any comment on it.

The Scottish Government is committed to Scotland becoming a net zero nation by 2045. Our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan sets out firmly our opposition to the continued use of unabated fossil fuels to generate electricity, while our updated Climate Change Plan contains more than 200 policies to reduce emissions across all sectors, including energy, in line with this bold ambition.

As the world’s largest commercial round for floating offshore wind, ScotWind puts Scotland at the forefront of offshore wind development globally.

The Strategic Investment Model (SIM) is coordinated by offshore wind developers, the Scottish Government, enterprise agencies and Crown Estate Scotland. Each SIM project is considered in terms of its relevance to developing the offshore wind sector in Scotland.

In October the First Minister announced strategic investment of up to £500 million over the next five years to help stimulate and support private investment in the infrastructure and manufacturing facilities critical to the growth of our world-leading offshore wind sector.

ScotWind provides an exciting opportunity to create thousands of good Scottish jobs and we want to ensure a just transition that takes our existing skilled workforce and supply chain with us. That is why we are kick-starting our commitment to anchor our offshore wind supply-chain in Scotland with investment of £67 million next financial year.

We are committed to maximising the public benefits of our renewables revolution and we will explore all options open to us to do so.

Our strategic investment of up to £500 million over the next five years will help stimulate and support private investment in the infrastructure and manufacturing facilities critical to the growth of our world-leading offshore wind sector. We are kick-starting our commitment to anchor our offshore wind supply-chain in Scotland with investment of £67 million next financial year. We are committed to maximising the public benefits of our renewables revolution.

It is vital that industries in Scotland have a fair opportunity to access funding under the UK Government's Green Industries Growth Accelerator. The Scottish Government is engaging with the UK Government to help ensure GIGA delivers for Scotland's businesses and communities.

Our National Strategy for Economic Transformation also sets out our ambition for Scotland to continue to take global leadership in the design, development and operationalisation within the renewables sector.

Our Making Scotland’s Future (MSF) programme helps ensure a coherent and focused approach to the provision of support to the manufacturing sector.

Centred within the MSF lies the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) which represents investment of £75 million from the Scottish Government and its agencies. NMIS works with industry to unlock productivity gains, develop new products and processes, and has a mission to make Scotland a global leader in advanced, sustainable manufacturing.

The Scottish Government’s Respiratory Care Action Plan for Scotland sets out our priorities and commitments for driving improvement in the prevention, diagnosis, care, treatment and support of people living with respiratory conditions such as severe asthma.

As part of work to improve the care for people living with severe asthma, the Centre for Sustainable Delivery is developing a ‘once for Scotland’ severe asthma pathway which will streamline access to advanced therapies and specialist care. This project aims to identify people with severe asthma in the community who are struggling to manage their condition and at high risk of a poor outcome and will provide a clear referral pathway through to specialist services.

(a) The Pain management - service delivery framework: implementation plan sets out the actions we will take to reduce the impact of chronic pain on quality of life and wellbeing and improve information, care and services for people in Scotland, which includes people living with chronic pain as a result of fibromyalgia. A report on the progress on the 18 initial actions was published on the 15 November 2023 Pain management service delivery implementation plan: progress report .

Additionally in November 2024, we published an updated Implementation Plan with updated actions following a period of stakeholder engagement. Progress on actions is discussed bi-monthly at the Pain Management Task Force , the minutes of which are available on the Scottish Government website.

We will continue to consult with people with lived experience of chronic pain, including those with fibromyalgia, throughout the development and delivery of actions outlined in the plan.

(b)The Short Life Working Groups (SLWGs) and Pain Management Networks established to support implementation of the Framework continue to evolve and develop the current actions. All the professional network leads (allied health professionals, pain psychologists, medics, pharmacist and nurses) are specialist pain management clinicians who have expert skills in supporting people with fibromyalgia.

Details on the role and membership of the Pain Management Task Force can be found at Pain Management Task Force .

Current guidelines for healthcare professionals regarding fibromyalgia are available from authoritative professional sources such as the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) - https://www.sign.ac.uk/our-guidelines/management-of-chronic-pain/ and the Royal College of Physicians https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/guidelines-policy/diagnosis-fibromyalgia-syndrome

The National Pain Education Group is developing a Chronic Pain Toolkit for all health and social care staff across Scotland - it will be Scotland's first national chronic pain training resource. It will be hosted on TURAS on a dedicated page called The Chronic Pain Knowledge Hub. This has been developed with lived experience input and NHS Education for Scotland colleagues.

Further to question S6W-07275, the latest Bikeability Scotland participation statistics are as follows: