Chamber and committees

The total funding provided to the University of Stirling to fund the Overdose Alert and Response Technologies: State-of-the-art Review is £59,978.

To support the ongoing delivery of Multi-Disciplinary Teams in 2022-23, including pharmacists, mental health workers and physiotherapists, we made available £170 million through the Primary Care Improvement Fund for Health and Social Care Partnerships. This was allocated in accordance with local need, with due consideration to implementation plans and Agenda for Change uplifts.

Analysis undertaken as part of the analysis underpinning the draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan does not show any significant negative impacts from the closure of Hunterston B and Torness nuclear power stations on Scotland’s CO2 emissions.

Under this modelling, the reduction in electricity generation from nuclear power plants in Scotland will be compensated for by the vast expansion of low-cost renewables and flexible technologies such as storage, not by fossil fuel plants which would increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Modelling undertaken as part of the evidence base underpinning our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan, estimated electricity generation capacity and demand in Scotland in 2030 according to a range of scenarios.

Across all three scenarios electricity generation capacity ranged between 20-41 GW (47-119 TWh) and electricity demand ranged from 48-55 TWh.

For refence, this analysis can be found at the following web address: https://www.climatexchange.org.uk/media/5419/cxc-scottish-whole-energy-system-scenarios-may-2022.pdf

A range of digital mental health therapies are available to support people to self-refer. These include treatments for: Insomnia, Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Stress, Resilience, Space from COVID, Supporting An Anxious Child, Supporting An Anxious Teen.

These treatments are open to anyone through self-referral across all areas of Scotland. In addition to this we have about 12 treatments open to self-referral for Health and Care staff, this including depression, a range of anxiety disorders. Table 1 provides more detail on what is currently available.

Table 1: Digital Therapies - Available treatments

The recently released Data Strategy for Health and Social Care details a set of ethical principles for the use of data across our health and care sector. These principles are applicable to the use of AI as well as the broader use of data.

Furthermore, the Data Strategy sets out our intent to work towards the safe adoption of AI tools, working to international best practice. We have also committed to developing a policy framework for adoption of AI across health and by Spring 2024.

The Scottish Government supports a range of organisations which help preserve our culture and heritage in communities across Scotland.

Creative Scotland support community-run venues and assets through funds such as their Open Fund and partner funds like Awards for All. The Creative Scotland Regular Funding Network includes support for community-run venues including Lyra, Stove Network and WHALE arts.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on cultural venues that have been taken into community ownership.

Yes. The Transforming Local Systems programme concluded in May 2023. Work continues to ensure the key benefits of the programme can now be realised across health and care with Healthcare Improvement Scotland now taking ownership of the service design resources. While it is still being developed, the online resource is available now for organisations to learn from the programme’s experience - Designing person-centred services for housing, social care and health - Designing person-centred services for housing, social care and health v.6 (ihub.scot)

The final evaluation report for Transforming Local Systems is going through final governance sign off though we expect to publish at www.tec.scot before the end of June.

All 17 Scottish Government owned buildings, although not fully accessible, have recently (late 2022 to mid-2023) undergone a round of accessibility audits that have graded each as a B (satisfactory, minor works required). These audits will feed into the Scottish Government Asset Planning work which follows on from our Estate Strategy. The Plan will prioritise where investment will be targeted and subsequently where the recommendations of minor works can be taken forward to further improve accessibility where required.