Chamber and committees

The next summary report, for the period January to June 2023, will be published in the coming weeks at: Access to counsellors in secondary schools and children and young people’s community mental health services – summary reports - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The following table shows the number of attendances and those waiting eight hours or more and 12 hours or more aged 65-74, 75-84, 85-94, and 95+ at A&E in Scotland in 2023-24.

NHS Boards are responsible for their own spending decisions. Scottish Government regularly review NHS Board financial positions to ensure value for money is being achieved for resources allocated. There will be examples where PR spend is required to communicate essential public health messages, or consultancy spend is required for specialised skills.

Our 110,000 affordable homes target includes that “at least” 10% of those homes will be delivered in rural and island areas. We allocate Affordable Housing Supply Programme funding to local authority areas based on our Strategic Housing Investment Framework agreed with COSLA in 2012. Local authorities then prioritise the use of this funding as outlined in their Strategic Housing Investment Plans. This includes the size, tenure and location of homes.

We are investing in rural and island areas through both our mainstream Affordable Housing Supply Programme as well as demand-led funds including the Rural and Island Housing Fund and the Rural Affordable Homes for Key Workers Fund which are part of our approach to addressing the specific housing issues that rural and island areas face. From 2016-2017 to 2022-23 we have supported the delivery of 10,094 affordable homes in rural and island areas. This accounted for 16% of homes delivered over this time period.

We will invest nearly £600m in affordable homes this year including our demand-led Rural and Islands Housing Fund and Rural Affordable Homes for Key Workers Fund.

One of the key aims of the Scottish Government’s new strategy on palliative care, which is currently being developed, is that children living with a life-shortening condition, anywhere in Scotland, will have equitable and timely access to the general and specialist palliative care services they may need.

The development of the strategy has been informed by representatives of palliative care for children and young people on the Strategy Steering Group. A Children and Young People’s Working Group, including experts in neonatal and paediatric palliative care, is developing new actions to address equity and continuity of access to paediatric palliative care across all places of care for babies, children and young people, including care around dying or transition to adult services.

The findings from the Heriot-Watt study present a disturbing picture of racial and sexual abuse that food delivery drivers have experienced in the course of their work.

The Scottish Government is clear that there is no place for harassment or abuse in the workplace, and everyone deserves to be respected and to feel safe in their working environment no matter their job or industry. All employers have a duty of care to protect the health, safety and welfare of their workers.

While the legal powers governing Health and Safety and Employment are reserved, this government will continue to promote its Fair Work policy, to make workplaces fairer and more inclusive but also safer and healthier environments for all workers. We encourage all employers to have in place robust workplace policies for handling issues such as bullying or harassment.

We are developing, and will publish by summer, a delivery plan for the refreshed Equally Safe Strategy to enable its aims and vision to be progressed in a practical way. This strategy seeks to prevent and address all forms of violence against women and girls, including in the workplace, specifically violence, abuse, and exploitation directed at them because of their gender. This behaviour is predominantly carried out by men and stems from deep-rooted gender inequality.

The Scottish Government's annual teacher workforce planning process is informed by a statistical model which estimates the number of Initial Teacher Education students required to maintain teacher numbers. The model considers a number of inputs, including projections of the number of teachers retiring.

The Strategic Board for Teacher Education, which comprises a range of key education stakeholders, is also considering issues around the recruitment and retention of teachers in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to protecting teacher numbers, and we are offering local authorities £145.5m in this year’s budget for that purpose. This funding will allow councils to protect teacher numbers in order to support children’s education.

The number of premises that are either due to be delivered or have been delivered on the 15 islands that have had new subsea cables installed as part of the Scottish Government’s £600 million R100 contracts are in the following table.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS takes a multidisciplinary approach to meet both the emotional and physical needs of those in our care, as well as taking steps to safeguard prisoners and staff from the harm of illicit substances. We work closely with NHS partners and others to meet individual needs, including those receiving treatment for substance use and those abstaining from substance use.

Within our estate the SPS recovery agenda is strong, and we work collaboratively with third sector partners, including the Recovery Consortium, to ensure we meet the needs of those on their recovery journey.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that everyone living with diabetes can access the care that they need to live their lives well. This includes increasing access to diabetes technologies.

Between 2016 and 2022, we invested £29.6 million of additional funding to support the increased provision of diabetes technologies.

I am delighted to confirm that this financial year, up to £8.8 million of funding will be made available to expand access to diabetes technologies in Scotland. The focus will primarily be on providing access to all children that want Closed Loop Systems, but will also allow us to continue increasing access to adults.

This investment will allow us to continue developing innovative care models for diabetes in Scotland that have a focus on digital pathways and peer support.