Chamber and committees

The Zero Waste Scotland website pages for the Scotland Deposit Return Scheme were launched in May 2019. Data on the number of visits to these pages has been made available to the Scottish Government for the period between September 2019 to 9 March 2023, totalling 348,175 visits across this period. These pages received 21,176 in 2019 (from September), 45,956 in 2020, 72,053 in 2021, 97,691 in 2022 and up to the 9 March 111,299 visits in 2023.

We are working closely with NHS Boards to support a range of local initiatives designed to meet the basic and practical needs of junior doctors, and their teams. This includes access to quiet spaces to support health and wellbeing, the installation of lockers and further support to facilitate out of hours catering.

The Scottish Government is determined to deliver the recommendations of the Expert Working Group’s report on junior doctor wellbeing and have begun introducing further improvements to working conditions. We have met the key recommendation of limiting consecutive days of long shifts, with 100% compliance achieved in December 2022. We will continue to work with NHS Boards and employers to monitor and ensure this continues in the long-term.

In February 2023 we invited Boards to consider the purchase of small hot food appliances for all Doctors in Training in Secondary Care. We encouraged Boards to liaise with their local BMA rep around the specifics of the ask and are currently in the process of allocating budget to cover the purchase of appliances.

Social Security Scotland received 91,225 new applications for Scottish Child Payment between 14 November and 31 December 2022. This does not include applications from existing clients looking to add additional children to their current award.

The majority of people who applied or added additional children to their existing award during this period have now received a decision. People who made new applications and received an award decision received their payment by the end of February. For people who were adding additional children, payments will follow their existing payment cycle.

Where someone applied for Scottish Child Payment before 31 December 2022 and has not received a decision, this is because additional information or evidence is required to process their application. Social Security Scotland has been in contact with everyone in this situation.

Circularity Scotland is delivering major inward investment to Scotland and protecting and creating jobs in recycling and logistics. Circularity Scotland has recently announced 140 new jobs for the scheme at a recycling plant in Motherwell, 70 jobs have already been announced for Aberdeen and further announcements will follow for sites in other locations including Skye, Inverness, Thurso, Dundee, Grangemouth and Oban, bringing a total of 500 new jobs to Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to re-opening the 2015 Fund when affordability and sustainability can be assured. We will continue to actively consider re-opening the Fund as part of the annual budget setting process.

The following table sets out how many training places were advertised per year from 2018-2022, the number of posts which filled successfully, the fill rate (%) and the number of unfilled posts.

There are 3 dental schools in Scotland at Aberdeen, Dundee, and Glasgow Universities. There are no plans for any new dental courses to be introduced at the current time.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) already has a range of civil sanctions, such as fixed monetary penalties or enforcement undertakings, which it can impose as part of its enforcement of a wider range of existing environmental legislation.

Civil sanctions mean that SEPA has a flexible range of enforcement tools available to deal with any breach of environmental legislation. The Lord Advocate has issued guidance to SEPA on its use of civil sanctions which can be found at Lord Advocates guidelines to SEPA: use of enforcement measures under the regulatory reform (Scotland) act 2014.

In terms of criminal remedies, SEPA would refer such instances to Police Scotland or the relevant police service elsewhere in the UK.

The Best Start North review was commissioned jointly by NHS Grampian, NHS Highland, NHS Shetland, NHS Orkney and NHS Western Isles. NHS Tayside now also participates in this work. The Best Start North review was commissioned jointly by the original five participating NHS Boards and is led by those NHS Boards. The Scottish Government understands that the primary focus of this work is collaboration towards continuous improvement of services in the North, support for the effective implementation of the recommendations in The Best Start and to work together on midwifery workforce and education. This work sits within the existing regional planning partnership, under the sponsorship of NHS Board Chief Executives, and was both established and operates at the regional level. You may therefore wish to direct specific queries regarding the work of the Best Start North group to the Nurse Director at NHS Shetland and Chair of the Best Start North group and the Director of Midwifery at NHS Highland.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14838 on 9 March 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .