Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with the steering group, made up of Disabled People’s Organisations, to co-design the new Disability Equality strategy. The group met several times in 2022 and are focused on developing responses to the challenges and obstacles disabled people face.

The group last met in April 2023 and a further meeting is planned for June 2023. It is anticipated that the strategy will be published on the conclusion of the co-design process.

Our current focus with the Disabled People’s Organisations is the development of an Immediate Priorities Plan that will respond to the negative impact of the cost of living crisis on disabled people. This plan will be published in the Summer. A publication date for the Disability Equality Strategy will be determined following the work on the Immediate Priorities Plan.

The Scottish Government has no plans to review policies in relation to placing young people in adult mental health wards.

NHS Boards use the Admission to Adult Mental Health Wards for under 18's Guidelines which were published in 2020, alongside discussions with the young person and their family, to make the most appropriate decision regarding the treatment and support that a young person requires.

The guidelines make clear that we expect children and young people who require inpatient care to be looked after in age-appropriate facilities. There may be occasions when it isn’t possible for a young person to be admitted to a specialist child and adolescent bed – for example, a crisis admission out of hours where there are concerns for the young person’s safety, or the young person and their family have a preference for an admission to a local adult ward. On occasions where young people are placed within an adult ward this will be monitored and reviewed regularly to ensure that the young person is receiving the most appropriate treatment and care.

In the unfortunate event of any employees facing redundancy, the Scottish Government will always offer and provide support through our initiative for responding to redundancy situations, Partnership Action for Continuing Employment, PACE.

Through providing skills development and employability support, PACE aims to minimise the time individuals affected by redundancy are out of work. In this instance Capricorn Energy have confirmed that they are providing bespoke support to all affected employees and will not be accessing the services provided by PACE.

Ear syringing is no longer the recommended procedure for clinicians due to concerns about uncontrolled water pressure. Instead NICE recommends that patients should be asked to self-administer with ear drops first and follow up care should be irrigation or suction.

Formerly most ear wax management procedures were carried out in GP practices. The new GP contract, introduced in 2018, committed Health Boards to set up Community Treatment and Care (CTAC) services to shift workload away from GP practices to NHS Board employed staff so that GP practices could focus on what only they can do. CTAC has been defined in GP contract regulations as including phlebotomy, chronic disease monitoring, the collection of biometric information, attending to minor injuries, changing dressings, suture removal and ear syringing. The Scottish Government has confirmed to Health Boards that CTAC services should cover ear wax management generally.

The process of transfer was underway when many practices stopped administering syringing, irrigation or suction as treatments in March 2020 amid concerns that they might be Aerosol Generating Procedures that could spread COVID-19. Despite this, and other constraints, implementation of the new GP contract continued throughout the pandemic. There are now 3,220 whole time equivalent healthcare professionals in multi-disciplinary teams supporting practices with CTAC and pharmacotherapy services as well as delivering the childhood and seasonal vaccination programmes but we are aware that gaps in delivery remain.

Scottish Government officials are now working with Health Boards to collect and review the data on the workforce and financial resources required to fully deliver these services to inform consideration of the potential for additional investment in 2023-24. We will then look to ensure that all Health Boards have appropriate communications regarding local pathways for ear wax management and other transferred services.

The Scottish Government have been working with Scottish Swimming, Education Scotland, sport scotland and Scottish Water to develop interventions and approaches to provide opportunities for children to become confident, safer and competent swimmers.

sport scotland’s investment into Scottish Swimming includes support to enable delivery of 4 school swimming pilot projects for evaluation and to develop a School Swimming Framework that can be used by partners.

The Delivery Model Pilots will take place across 2022-23 to support schools to understand and consider different approaches and models of delivery to help educate and provide opportunities for children across Scotland to experience the water in a fun, safe and inclusive approach. This reflects the many different scenarios faced by schools when deciding how best to support young people to access school swimming.

Whilst there is no eligibility criteria for primary school children to receive swimming lessons, inclusion is central to our approach and there will be a specific focus on targeting areas within quintile 1 of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.

Active Schools has a key role to play in complementing PE in schools by developing opportunities for physical activity and sport. Specific activities, such as swimming, provided through Active Schools is at the discretion of each local authority/Active Schools team.

In addition Active Schools plays a role in supporting local swimming clubs to link to schools, making pupils aware of the opportunities that exist to participate in swimming in the club setting and we would encourage local authorities to provide Active Schools activity free of charge to ensure activity is accessible to all.

The Ministerial-led working group last convened on 26 th October 2022 and the minutes of this meeting will be published within the coming weeks. The working group was formed to consider short, medium and long term actions to address anti-abortion activities which take place outside of healthcare facilities providing abortion services.

A significant proportion of the group’s work was to consider the use of Local Authority bye-laws to potentially deliver the zones. The Scottish Government was committed to supporting councils to use bye-laws to implement safe access zones, but Local Authorities concluded that national legislation would be a more appropriate route, and the work to consider bye-laws has now concluded.

We are now clear that delivering national legislation is the best and most secure route to ensure buffer zones are delivered and sustained. We are therefore fully focused on supporting the drafting and development of Gillian Mackay MSP’s national Abortion Service Safe Access Zones (Scotland) Bill. We will continue to take forward discussions with stakeholders to ensure that robust and effective legislation is introduced as soon as possible.

Although there are no plans for a final report of the working group’s findings to be published, the group agreed that the Scottish Government should commission research into the impact of protests and vigils in Scotland. This research is ongoing, and a final report on this will be published following its completion.

A number of discussions were held with those involved in the scheme in the weeks prior to the announcement including Circularity Scotland and business groups. To reach a decision on the next steps for the Deposit Return Scheme Scottish Government officials also provided advice to the First Minister and Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity.

The proposal which Common Weal submitted on Development Councils as part of the first phase of the Democracy Matters engagement process made a valuable contribution to the debate about the future of local democracy in Scotland. Further involvement from Common Weal during the next phase of the conversation will add to the wide range of voices we need to hear from to ensure that we arrive at the best possible set of arrangements for all of Scotland’s communities. Democracy Matters engagement is part of the wider Local Governance Review which we remain committed to concluding within this parliament.

As the operation, maintenance and security of Historic Environment Scotland sites are matters for Historic Environment Scotland, I have asked Historic Environment Scotland to write directly to the member with the answer to his question.

Modern Apprenticeship statistics are published on the Skills Development Scotland (SDS) website at Modern Apprenticeships | Skills Development Scotland . Year-end statistics for 2022/23 are expected to be published in May 2023.

The proportion of individuals who completed their apprenticeship, known in the published reports below as ‘achievement rate’, are published by SDS at the following links:

Foundation Apprenticeships - https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/50223/foundation-apprenticeship-report-2022-published-version.pdf

Modern Apprenticeships - https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/49237/modern-apprenticeship-statistics-quarter-4-2021-22.pdf

Graduate Apprenticeships - https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/49924/graduate-apprenticeship-annual-report-2022-final.pdf

Earlier years data can be found in older publications.