The Innovative Finance Steering Group was established to support the delivery of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032 by providing strategic advice to the Scottish Government on opportunities for innovative finance models to support the affordable housing sector (Registered Social Landlords and Local Authorities) over the next 9 years. The Group convened at the end of 2022 to agree an approach to governance and its work. Members of the Group participate in horizon scanning to identify priority areas for further development and the group is expected to formally convene later in the year to discuss the opportunities highlighted and exchanged to date.

The group consists of members from ALACHO, SFHA, CoSLA, Wheatley Group, Link, Scottish Futures Trust, Scottish National Investment Bank, Glasgow West Scotland Forum, UK Finance and Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government will publish high level updates on the work of the Group on the Scottish Government’s websites as appropriate and recognising the commercial nature of this work.

The 2023-24 Scottish Budget delivers record funding of £19 billion including increases in funding for community and primary care health services such as GP practices where the vast majority of people with chronic pain seek support. Detail on how funding has been used specifically for the assessment and treatment of chronic pain would require to be requested from NHS Boards. NHS Boards and healthcare professionals locally have responsibility for both service delivery and people’s care.

After being temporarily paused in March 2020, chronic pain services started to resume in September 2021 as part of the planned remobilisation of services. Referrals are now back to pre-pandemic levels and we’re working with all health boards to understand the challenges and improvement opportunities to address longer waiting times as boards deal with extremely challenging circumstances.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) wrote to all college and university principals on 8 August 2023 highlighting the issue of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) and where they can find guidance on the identification and assessment of RAAC.

The SFC has asked all colleges and universities to provide information on the presence of RAAC in their estate buildings.

The Scottish Government and SFC are working closely together on this matter; and SFC will keep principals informed of further guidance and sources of information.

The Task Force was created in June 2022. No money was spent on the Pain Management Task Force or its subsidiary committees in 2021-22.

There are no plans for a universal 15 minute frequency on all Glasgow region suburban routes. Some key route sections already have a higher frequency of trains.

The timetable for each line is developed by ScotRail and Network Rail based on demand, which varies throughout the day.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-19803 on 31 July 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

The scoping exercise is complete with a final report anticipated by late September 2023. The specialists have been further commissioned to undertake a stage 1 desktop and stage 2 visual inspection of the SG Estate for the presence of RAAC. This work is anticipated to be completed by mid November 2023.

The Scottish Government is keen to raise awareness of the implementation of Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) standards and there could be a role for Royal Colleges in contributing to this.

However, the training and education programmes provided by Royal Colleges are decided on by the Colleges, reflecting the needs and interests of their members and practitioners more widely.

The Scottish Government would certainly consider funding any relevant training and education programmes from the Royal Colleges.

Following the motion passed by the Scottish Parliament showing solidarity with anti-racism in June 2020, funding was provided to Museums Galleries Scotland for the Empire, Slavery and Scotland's Museums project, which was run by an independent steering group, and included the largest ever national consultation on attitudes to Scotland’s museums and racism.

The Scottish Government is carefully considering the response to the steering group's recommendations, including the one which focused on establishing a new organisation to create a dedicated space to address the legacy of colonialism in Scotland. This is an important agenda and we will continue to seek ways of raising awareness of the role Scotland played in slavery and empire and how our museums and galleries can play their part in portraying an accurate story of Scotland's history.

As part of our ongoing joint programme for delivery, following the launch of the Winter Heating Payment, Scottish Government officials have been working with counterparts at the Department of Work and Pensions to develop a revised timeframe that will allow payments to be issued earlier in Winter 2023-24 and subsequent years. I will provide a more detailed update to the Social Justice and Social Security Committee on this work in due course.