Chamber and committees

The total number of bikes issued to date is 2857. The bikes include adapted and non-standard bikes to cater for a range of needs.

In addition, fleet bikes delivered by Sustrans Scotland to participating schools, but not given to any individual child, have been used 4448 times.

All of the employees of the Scottish Government earn above the real Living Wage, with the minimum full-time salary on our pay scales being £22,182 (£11.48 per hour).

For indirectly employed staff, agency workers doing the same grade of work as Scottish Government employees receive the same rates of pay as Scottish Government employees under our pay parity rules, and so are also earning above the real Living Wage as a minimum.

As a condition of Scottish Government procurement terms, employees of contractors working in Scottish Government buildings are paid the real Living Wage and the recent increase to the real Living Wage will be paid with effect from 1 November 2022.

There have been no recent discussions between the Scottish Government and Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service regarding apprenticeships in the SPS. The Scottish Prison Service are responsible for the recruitment and development of their workforce including apprenticeships.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The Scottish Prison Service does not record this information.

Plans for the Coronation of The Monarch are traditionally led by the Royal Household. Any consideration of planning in Scotland cannot be made public until the Royal Household share their intentions.

The Scottish Government is committed to sourcing innovative solutions to address key challenges that face our NHS, that have been trialled and validated to work across the health ecosystem in Scotland.

In order to encourage and contribute to the delivery of innovation in general across the Scottish public sector, the Scottish Government have worked closely with NHS National Services Scotland to develop a new, national, business led innovation service called Scotland Innovates. The new service provides a central portal for suppliers to submit innovative solutions for assessment across the entire public sector, including Health.

The Scottish Government recently launched the Accelerated National Innovation Adoption (ANIA) Pathway. This aims to provide a once for Scotland approach to the identification, assessment and accelerated adoption of innovative health technologies, including medical devices, that could have a transformative impact on recovery, reform and sustainability within health and social care in Scotland.

It is for NHS Boards to decide whether to procure health technologies. However, Boards receive support from the Scottish Health Technologies Group (SHTG) who provide evidence and advice on the use of new and existing health technologies when they are likely to have significant implications for people’s care.

The Scottish Government has committed to undertake further work to quantify Scotland’s offshore wind potential. We will update Parliament once this work is concluded, and at that point also consider which legacy documents, including the National Strategy for Economic Transformation, may need to be updated.

We are making good progress on our commitment to increase the headcount of GPs by 800, with Scotland’s GP headcount increasing by 277 from 4,918 to 5,195 from 2017 to 2021.

The most recent estimate for whole time equivalent of GPs can be found in the General Practice Workforce Survey 2019 , published by Public Health Scotland in October 2021. This estimated that there were 3,613 GP whole time equivalents (WTE) in Scotland in 2019. This is an increase of 93 WTE from an estimated 3,520 WTE in 2017, with 8 sessions per week equating to one WTE.

The latest data on GP WTE is scheduled to be published shortly by Public Health Scotland (PHS), and they have pre-announced publication of this analysis report for Tuesday 29 November 2022. PHS has also pre-announced publication of its latest annual data on GP headcount for Monday 12 December 2022.

This question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court and Tribunals Service (SCTS) corporate body. The question has been passed to the Chief Executive of the SCTS who will reply in writing within 20 days.