Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government works collaboratively with Justice and other stakeholders in taking forward a significant programme of legislative, policy and delivery commitments, consistent with the Vision for Justice in Scotland.

There are currently 13 active working groups which fall under the remit of (a) Justice and (b) Community Safety.

For completeness, there are further boards, taskforces and advisory panels that fall under the remit of justice and community safety which have also been included in the following table.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the mental health and wellbeing of Scotland’s population and to ensuring everyone receives the best possible care and support from our health and care services. Delivering this can only be achieved with the right workforce capacity and capability. This is why we have committed to developing a long-term Mental Health Workforce Plan in the first half of this Parliament.

While each NHS Board rightly has individual responsibility for staffing and recruitment, we recognise the scale of the challenge and seek to provide support at a national level as appropriate. Under this Government, CAMHS staffing has almost doubled (+572.9 WTE) and we are taking several steps to grow the mental health workforce further.

NHS Education for Scotland CAMHS Workforce data, published 6 December 2022, showed there were 124 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) CAMHS workforce staff in post In NHS Lanarkshire as at September 2022 compared to 96 WTE as at September 2021, an increase of 29% [1] This CAMHS workforce data includes Neurodevelopmental staffing.

We are working with all NHS Boards to support them to implement the National Neurodevelopmental Specification: Principles and Standards of Care , including working with NHS Lanarkshire through regular Board engagement meetings to discuss ongoing challenges and pressures. This engagement captures ongoing developments around workforce capacity with the most recent update confirming that NHS Lanarkshire have successfully recruited for this area, with only a few posts still to be filled. This activity will continue into early 2023.

[1] Dashboards | Turas Data Intelligence (nhs.scot)

Scottish Water is currently progressing over £23 million of investment in the Highlands and Islands to improve wastewater treatment, enable growth and to maintain its wastewater assets throughout the area. This is primarily to upgrade and improve existing assets as previous investment periods were focused on building new treatment works in many areas across this region to ensure a high standard of treatment and improve environmental water quality.

Scottish Water continues to work with developers that require new sewerage infrastructure in order to extend the public sewer network, with Scottish Water making a financial contribution to a reasonable contribution level established in regulatory guidance.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-12950 on 21 December 2022. 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
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Energy pricing and the powers to create local tariffs are reserved to the UK Government. However, we will continue to engage with BEIS about its Energy Price Guarantee review for April 2024 and the consideration of social tariffs for domestic consumers, especially for those in or at risk of fuel poverty.

The First Minister has also chaired two energy summits since August. These have discussed the impact of UK Government measures in response to the energy crisis and agreed that these should be more support targeted towards vulnerable households and businesses, including those living in rural communities.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13195 on 21 December 2022. 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 information requested is not held centrally. Information on the number of pupils with additional support needs, planning approaches and types of need are collected and published within national statistics. This is available from Schools in Scotland 2022: summary statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Thank you for your question. Emergency service workers who have been killed in the line of duty can be nominated by the emergency services through the First Minister’s Brave@Heart bravery awards which includes the St. Andrew’s Award. Brave@Heart and St Andrew’s Awards recipients are selected by an independent panel.

All local authorities are under a statutory duty to have regard to any guidance, such as ‘Better Eating, Better Learning’, issued by Scottish Ministers on the application of the principles of sustainable development when providing food or drink or catering services in schools. Local authorities, supported by Scotland Excel, remain committed to using local and sustainable produce in school catering wherever possible. It is up to each local authority to decide what produce, including organic, to use in their catering services, taking into account local needs, priorities and circumstances.

The NHS Scotland National Medical Equipment Management System (NMEMS), which aims to provide national oversight and visibility of medical equipment in NHS Boards, is being delivered in 2 phases.

Phase 1, commenced in October 2022 and has a provisional completion date of Spring 2023, has cost £28,000 to date which includes licences, data migration costs and post implementation support.

Costs for Phase 2 are currently being scoped and are expected to be finalised in early 2023.

For more information on the NMEMS delivery phases I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-12907 on 21 December 2022. 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