Chamber and committees

Since 2007, the Scottish Government has invested approximately £64 million on five separate road schemes on the A77 including the recent completion of the £29m Maybole bypass which opened in January 2022.

The Scottish Government continues to invest in the A77 and its safe and efficient operation with the following minor improvement schemes planned for construction in 2023:

• Layby improvements;
• Glengall (slope stability works);
• A77 Whitletts (studs, lighting and signals);
• A77 Dutch House Roundabout and general road Improvements; and
• A77 Cairnryan drainage improvements.

Contracting letters were issued by Creative Scotland to local authority delivery partners on 21 September. Creative Scotland have also contracted successful applicants from the first round of the Access to Music Making and Strengthening Youth Music Funds and activity is beginning to take place.

Private, third sector and childminding providers are a valued part of the successful delivery of our transformational expansion of funded early learning and childcare.

The Scottish Government recognises that the payment of sustainable rates by local authorities to services in the private, third and childminding sectors is vital to supporting financial sustainability and to enabling the delivery of high quality ELC. Our funding agreement with CoSLA enables local authorities to pay sustainable rates to ELC providers. We have worked with local government and providers to strengthen rate-setting in 2022-23, and we recently committed to a thorough review of the overall process ahead of 2023-24.

The Scottish Government has made more than £35 million of dedicated support available to day care of children services since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have also committed to continuing the Nursery Rates Relief Scheme beyond the current end date of 30 June 2023.

With regard to pay, we have seen real progress since the ELC expansion began, with our 2021 Health Check indicating that 88% of private providers intended to pay the Real Living Wage to all their staff from August 2021, compared to a position in 2016 when around 80% practitioners were paid less than the Real Living Wage at the time. We want the ELC sector to be a Fair Work sector and we are working with partners to encourage further improvements in terms and conditions, including through the development of a new Childcare Workforce Strategy.

All NHS Scotland Boards are providing support for people with long COVID, delivered across the full range of services provided by our NHS. This includes assessment from local primary care teams, support from community based rehabilitation services and referrals for secondary care investigation where needed.

For children and young people with symptoms consistent with long COVID, assessment and initial investigation is being provided by local primary care teams, who can give advice and guidance about the management of symptoms and any potential treatment options for these in the first instance.

Primary care clinicians can refer to occupational therapy and/or physiotherapy for further support where appropriate. In cases where referral to secondary care is required, children and young people may be referred to general paediatric services for investigation and management. Where required, local authorities have duties to provide additional support for learning tailored to the individual needs of the child or young person.

We have allocated an initial £3 million for the financial year 2022-23 to support NHS boards and key partners to improve the care available for people, including children and young people, with long COVID across Scotland. This includes funding board recruitment of additional paediatric occupational therapist support for children, young people and their families.

The 2022-23 local government finance settlement of almost £12.7 billion represents an increase of over £1 billion or 9.2 per cent in cash terms compared with 2021-22.

It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on reducing vehicle emissions, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government provides support for lower income households and small businesses to get prepared for Low Emission Zones. The LEZ Support Fund offers financial support towards the disposal of non-LEZ compliant vehicles and offers ‘Travel Better’ grants to help households to switch to more sustainable modes of transport. Administered by Energy Saving Trust, the LEZ Support Fund provides people and micro-businesses with financial support to travel more sustainably and comply with forthcoming measures to improve air quality and protect public health. The LEZ Support Fund awarded £1.7 million in grants In 2020/21, and £3.85 million in 2021/22; with a further £5 million made available in 2022-23.

The Scottish Government has also made LEZ retrofit grants available to micro business owners (including taxi operators) which cover up to 80% of the capital costs for the retrofitting of non-compliant vehicles to the latest Euro 6 emissions standard. The fund also provides an incentive of a cash grant (up to £2,000) for the safe disposal of a non-compliant vehicle. To date, LEZ Support funding has resulted in over 2,000 non-LEZ compliant vehicles being disposed of or retrofitted with cleaner technology. Since 2019, over £4 million has been received by business operators through the fund, comprised of approximately £2 million in disposal grants for micro-businesses, and approximately £2 million for taxi retrofitting.

On rail, the Scottish Government has made a commitment to decarbonise rail passenger services by 2035, removing diesel trains that will improve the air quality across Scotland’s cities and communities.

To support bus and coach operators with the financial costs associated with engine and exhaust retrofitting to meet LEZ standards, the Bus Emission Abatement Retrofit (BEAR) grant funding has been offered by Scottish Government since 2018. BEAR Phases 1, 2, 3 and 4 provided £18.4 million funding to support the costs of retrofitting of 1143 buses and coaches to Euro VI standard in Scottish Air Quality Management Areas from 2018 to 2022. An additional £2.65 million has been made available for BEAR 5 in 2022/23, with further funding also currently under consideration.

On 10 August 2022, the Scottish Government opened the Zero Emission Bus Market Transition Scheme, which makes funding available to transport providers and local authorities to develop new business models for a rapid decarbonisation of bus transport. This fund – worth £500,000 – is open for applications until 09 December, or until all funding has been awarded, whichever occurs first.

Further details of these, and other recent schemes designed to enable local authorities and transport operators to reduce emissions is available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. Number 63670)

The Scottish Government last provided funding to support a FAST campaign in 2018.

We receive many requests to run awareness campaigns, and we assess these carefully.

Where there is not an active public campaign relating to a specific condition, the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland refer the public to the NHS Inform website for further information in the first instance. The NHS inform stroke page provides the public with information relating to the FAST test and the importance of seeking medical attention.

As set out by the Deputy First Minister on 7 September 2022, there is a finite budget and, as a result of inflation eroding the purchasing power of available funding, the Scottish Government budget is now worth £1.7 billion less than it was in December 2021. As a result, health funding is worth £650 million less and the Scottish Government continues to work with Health Boards to mitigate the impact of financial pressures across services, including those supporting the needs of people living with long COVID.

£3 million of the £10 million long COVID Support Fund has been made available to NHS Boards and key partners over 2022-23. We engage with NHS Boards on a regular basis regarding their capacity needs, and will continue to do so in order to inform the allocation of the fund.

NHS Highland has now received all five reports from the Independent Review Panel (IRP) of the Healing Process and the work of the IRP is now concluded.

The Board has made significant progress against the majority of the recommendations included in both the Independent Review Panel (IRP) of the Healing Process and the Sturrock reports. As part of this work, the board have ensured that systems and processes are in place which would allow colleagues to speak up and be heard.

A decision has been taken by Scottish Government Health and Social Care Management Board to de-escalate NHS Highland from Stage 3 to Stage 2 of the NHS Board performance escalation framework in relation to Governance, Leadership and Culture.

NHS Highland will remain at Stage 3 for Financial Management and Mental Health Performance until further progress is made in the provision of mental health services, and a national review of NHS Scotland’s financial position is complete. Measures are in place to support NHS Highland will continue for these areas.

You can find out more about the NHS Board performance escalation framework here: NHS healthcare standards: Board performance escalation framework - gov.scot ( www.gov.scot )

The Hon. Lord Brailsford replaces the Hon. Lady Poole as Chair of the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry today. The amended terms of reference also come into effect from today to further emphasise the expectation that the Inquiry will take a human rights-based approach, and that it will demonstrate how that approach has informed and improved the recommendations it makes. Specifically, this change will require the Inquiry when reporting, “To demonstrate how a human rights based approach by the inquiry has contributed to the inquiry’s findings in fact and recommendations”.

The amended Terms of Reference can be found in full here: COVID-19 Inquiry - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government is committed to making Scotland's businesses, industries, regions, communities and public services more productive and innovative. Productivity growth is the means by which we will build a better society, through higher incomes and living standards, and a fairer, more resilient, wellbeing economy for Scotland. Scotland’s longer term productivity growth has already been outperforming the UK as a whole since the financial crisis, and the Scottish Government is already taking direct action and investing in key policy areas to promote productivity growth and support a wellbeing economy.

Our National Strategy for Economic Transformation’s third programme focuses on making Scotland’s businesses, industries, regions, communities and public services more productive and innovative. We will stimulate business growth by investing in innovation, expanding opportunities internationally and supporting businesses to benefit from the transformational opportunities of digitalisation. Productivity Clubs were launched in 2019 to establish informal networks supporting peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and learning, and nurturing opportunities for collaboration, and have since been expanded.

The 2022-23 Programme for Government commits to undertaking research and advice to improve workplace productivity and wellbeing, including on the delivery of a four-day working week pilot, and to ensure that digital and technological innovation is used as a key driver for improved productivity and work standards/conditions.