Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government provides funding to both homeowners and landlords of properties through the Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grant and Loan Scheme and the Private Rented Sector Landlord (PRS) Loan Scheme respectively.

For homeowners who already have a heat pump installed in their property, the HES Grant and Loan Scheme currently offers up to £6,000 (£4,750 interest free loan and £1,250 grant) funding for solar PV and up to £6,000 (£4,750 interest free loan and £1,250 grant) for battery storage as part of a package.

For landlords who already have a heat pump installed in their property, the PRS Loan Scheme offers funding of up to £5,000 loan for solar PV and up to £6,000 for battery storage. Loans to landlords with five or fewer properties are interest free whereas loans to landlords with six or more properties in their portfolio will attract an interest rate of 2.5%APR.

A grant of £15 million for the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults was distributed to Third Sector Interfaces across Scotland in August 2022, to support local, grassroots community organisation. £14,975,678.28 had been distributed by the end of March 2023. Third Sector Interfaces reported a total underspend of £24,321.72 for that year.

A grant of £1,136,695 was provided to support administration costs and the capacity building efforts of Third Sector Interfaces in 2022-2023. Third sector interfaces reported a total underspend on the administration grant of £4,948.63.

Funding for the Independent Living Fund (ILF) Scotland is transferred each year to ILF Scotland to meet existing commitments to the current ILF population under the ILF Scotland policy framework. These policies are set by Ministers and can be found on the ILF website: ILF Scotland Policies | ILF Scotland .

The Scottish Government receives £53.3 million per year from the UK Government to help maintain support for the former ILF/UK population transferred in July 2015. The following table shows the funding allocated by SG to ILF Scotland annually since the first full financial year of 2016-17. In addition, the annual outturn of ILF Scotland can be found within their published accounts (linked here: ILF Scotland Annual Accounts )

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent advisory group which makes recommendations on all screening programmes in the UK, have never recommended routine breast screening for women over 71 years. The Committee has concluded that there is not clear evidence that the benefits of screening women in this age group outweigh the potential risks of harm.

Nonetheless, prior to the COVID pandemic, women over 71 could self-refer to be screened if they chose. As the service continues to recover from the pandemic, Women aged 71-74, and those over 75 with a history of breast cancer, are once again eligible to self-refer for a screening appointment. There continues to be a pause in self-referral appointments for women aged 75 and over without a history of breast cancer.

The Scottish Government understands the wish to widen self-referrals to include those over the age of 75 without a history of breast cancer. However, before doing so we need to understand the impact of current self-referral appointments on wait times for women between 50-70 for whom screening has clear benefits. These impacts are under regular review by the breast screening programme board.

Unused recipient funds, including those in consequence of the death of recipients, are returned to ILF Scotland who in consultation with SG officials, decide whether to use it for spending priorities associated with ILF or to offset ILF Scotland’s monthly drawdown on its annual funding allocation. In the past funds have been used to cover the cost of Scottish Living Wage uplifts for personal assistants employed by ILF recipients, reductions in contributions from recipients towards the cost of their support and a Digital Transformation for ILF Scotland IT systems.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people living with hypothyroidism and other thyroid diseases are able to access the best possible support and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care.

We expect clinicians to adhere to current guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment options from authoritative sources such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the British Thyroid Association (BTA) and have no plans at present to undertake a review of timescales for receiving a diagnosis.

While employment law is reserved to the UK Parliament, our Fair Work approach seeks to improve workers’ rights and conditions and aims to address women’s workplace inequalities by encouraging employers to take action to tackle gender pay gaps across the labour market in Scotland.

Our refreshed Fair Work Action Plan: Becoming a Leading Fair Work Nation by 2025 published in December 2022, reiterates our commitment to tackling Scotland’s gender pay gap and recognises that an intersectional approach is needed to address the overlapping labour market inequalities faced by women, disabled people, racially minoritized people and the over 50s workforce.

The Scottish Government recognises improving population health as a key priority and invests in a range of initiatives to support people with health conditions to sustain or return to work, including Healthy Working Lives (HWL). HWL is a programme delivered by Public Health Scotland (PHS) and the detail of the spend on the online platform is a matter for PHS. The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government regularly discusses net zero policy and progress towards targets with the UK Government. The primary vehicle for our engagement with the UK Government is the Net Zero Inter-ministerial Group (IMG), which meets regularly and involves all four governments of the UK. In the last year, the Net Zero IMG has met on 26 October 2022, 27 April 2023 and 28 June 2023.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government regularly corresponds with the UK Government regarding net zero issues to assure continued progress in achieving our gas emission targets. For example, I recently wrote to the Secretary of State for Transport, on 12 July 2023 to highlight the role Scotland could play in the production of Sustainable Aviation (SAF) - which could help to significantly reduce emissions - and to ask whether the UK Government intends to provide a form of price support mechanism for the substantially higher costs of SAF. Likewise, the Circular Economy Minister recently met with the Minister for Environmental Quality and Resilience in June 2023 to discuss the future of deposit return schemes (DRS) across the UK following the UK Government’s decision to refuse an exemption for Scotland’s DRS from the Internal Market Act.

Throughout our engagement with the UK Government, the Scottish Government continually advocates for the greater ambition required in reserved areas in order for both UK and Scottish emissions targets to be met. The Scottish Government agrees with the Climate Change Committee’s recent UK progress report, which emphasises that greater urgency is required from the UK Government if emissions targets for 2030 and beyond are to be met. We support the Committee’s calls for further and faster UK Government action in a range of crucial reserved areas such as hydrogen, electricity grid upgrades and decarbonisation of the gas network. We will continue to press for more ambitious action in these areas in our discussions with the UK Government.

No GP’s have been recruited from ScotGEM into NHS Highland, Western Isles, Orkney, Shetland, or Grampian as ScotGEM graduates are not yet eligible to apply for General Practice Specialty Training.

The first cohort of ScotGEM students graduated in summer 2022 after completing the four year course. All medical school graduates must then complete two years of Foundation training before they can apply for a specialty training post. The first cohort of ScotGEM students will therefore be eligible to apply for General Practice Specialty Training in 2024 following the completion of their second foundation training year.

Yes, third sector organisations are still able to receive funding through the National Drugs Mission. This might be direct funding from the Scottish Government, via Corra, or as a result of local commissioning by ADPs.