Chamber and committees

As at October 2023, the Scottish Government’s Health and Social Care Directorates (HSCD) have 8 specialist advisors procured under a Service Level Agreement from NHS Ayrshire and Arran.

Service Level Agreements (SLA) with other public bodies are a commonly used and effective way to procure specialist advisory services for a defined period. Underpinned in Scottish Procurement law by the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 Regulation 13, the SLA approach is used to deliver a specific service through an individuals’ existing specialist skills and experience and so are commonly used across Health and Social Care Directorates (HSCD) to bring in the specialist, clinical knowledge and experience to enhance our vital services.

An SLA is not, therefore, an employment arrangement as the individuals’ employment contract arrangements remain with their employer. In the case of those individuals brought into HSCD, the service level agreement is between the Scottish Government and the relevant NHS Scotland Board.

The following working groups sit under the remit of the Education and Skills portfolio:

National Response to Improving Mathematics in Scotland Short Life Working Group

National Response to Improving Literacy in Scotland Short Life Working Group

NIF Statutory Guidance Working group

National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy External Strategic Working Group

Scottish Government Cross-policy Working Group on Transitions

Improvement and Regulation Working Group

Student Mental Health and Wellbeing Working Group

Short Life Working Group on Data Sharing in Relation to Student Sexual Misconduct

Access Data Short-Life Working Group

Short Life Working Group on the Scope of the Accreditation and Regulation Function for the New Qualifications Body

Short Life Working Group on Economic and Social Opportunities for Gaelic

The Scottish Government has regular meetings with both College Employers Scotland and the representative campus trade unions, where a number of broad workforce issues are discussed.

Given there is no timeframe set out in your question, I have provided a note of all meetings for the 2023 calendar year where pay and industrial relations within the sector was discussed since I have taken up office as Minister for Higher Education and Further Education.

Between November 2020 and March 2023, awareness of the Young Person’s Guarantee among employability staff was achieved using existing networks and communication channels. There was no funding allocated to the specific promotion of the Young Person’s Guarantee aimed at employability staff.

Under extended producer responsibility for packaging, local authorities will receive the full net cost of operating an efficient and effective collection service for household packaging waste, paid for by producers. This is estimated at £1.2bn per annum UK-wide in the government response published by the four UK governments on 26 March 2022.

Between Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Ministers, grant funding of up to £20.1 million has been allocated through the Green Jobs Fund.

An Assurance Board was established in December 2022 to monitor and scrutinise NHS Forth Valley against an agreed Improvement Plan. The Assurance Board has met 13 times and continues to meet monthly to review progress.

A copy of the latest Improvement Plan along with the minutes of the Assurance Board meetings are published here: NHS Forth Valley Assurance Board - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Funding for mental health services is drawn from the overall funds allocated to NHS Scotland by the Scottish Government. The latest available data from the Public Health Scotland Scottish Health Service Costs shows that for 2021-22 total expenditure by NHS Scotland on mental health was £1.299 billion. The figures for 2022-2023 are yet to be published.

As part of the block funding provided to NHS Boards by the Scottish Government, NHS Boards make operational decisions on how to deploy spend, in a way which best meets local needs. The detail of this is not held by the Scottish Government.

Prevention and early intervention remain a priority for the Scottish Government.

We have placed a stronger focus on preventing mental health issues and tackling the underlying causes and inequalities through our recently published Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy. The provision of advice and support will continue to be an important part of our approach.

We continue to undertake a range of preventative and early intervention mental health work, key examples include:

• We have invested a total of £51m since 2021 in our Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults, with approximately 3,300 grants made to local projects across Scotland in the first two years alone.
• We have allocated a total of £45m since 2021-22 for local authorities to provide over 300 community mental health and wellbeing supports and services for children, young people and their families.
• We published an ambitious Suicide Prevention Strategy and Action Plan with COSLA in 2022, with the vision of reducing suicide deaths and tackling the inequalities which contribute to suicide. The strategy is supported by record funding to double the annual suicide prevention budget to £2.8m by 2026 and we are well on track to achieving this target.
• Since 2016, we have invested over £21m in our world-leading Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) programme, which offers timely, compassionate support to people in distress who come into contact with frontline services. Over 50,000 people have already been referred for DBI support. We are on track to have DBI available in all NHS Board areas by March 2024.

Over the last three years (2021-24), £51 million has been provided through the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults. The following amounts have been provided in each year:

• 2021-22 (Year 1) – £21 million.
• 2022-23 (Year 2) – £15 million.
• 2023-24 (Year 3) – £15 million.

This is in addition to the £45 million allocated to local authorities since 2021 to provide community-based mental health and wellbeing support for children, young people and their families.

Future funding will be subject to the annual budget process and approval by the Scottish Parliament.