Chamber and committees

Appropriate resources are in place to support the Gluten-free Food Service which has been delivered by community pharmacies since 2014. There are no plans to change this service which provides patients with a range of staple gluten-free food products without the need to request a prescription from their GP practice.

I understand how important infusions and injections are for those patients receiving them, and that work is needed to improve care for people with chronic pain and the sustainability of our pain management services.

It is our intention that people can access safe, effective, evidence-based care and support. Therefore, as set out in the Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery – Implementation Plan which we published in July, we are taking action to develop a more consistent, nationally agreed approach to the provision of specialist medical interventions, such as infusions and injections.

This will take into account existing clinical evidence, the variation in approach between Health Boards and seek to reflect the views and needs of both the patient and clinical community.

The following table shows the number of cardholders under the Young Persons’ Free Bus Travel Scheme as of the end of the day on 21 November 2022, broken down to local authority level.

This data is supplied by the National Entitlement Card Programme Office (NECPO). NECPO support the 32 local authorities by assisting with the integration of various national and local public services on the National Entitlement Card (NEC) and are the joint controller with local authorities of this data. The table includes travel products collected from the Transport Scot Pass Collect mobile application.

The Scottish Government supports the installation of solar panels on new buildings.

The Scottish Government provides funding to homeowners, including new-builds and self-builders, through the Home Energy Scotland loan scheme.

Building regulations are not prescriptive in the technologies they require a new buildings to install. However, they do set overall emissions targets which new buildings must meet. These targets are set, in most cases, by a ‘notional building’ specification for domestic and non-domestic properties which includes PV, recognising the benefit this provides in offsetting energy demand. Following a recent review, these standards will be improved from 1 February 2023. They maintain the previous approach but include a large element of solar PV in target setting. Additionally, the new standards also identify the portion of generation which can be used at the building and exclude the benefit from power exported to the electricity grid.

Territorial NHS Boards’ 2022-23 funding from the long COVID Support Fund has been split into two tranches. The first tranche (70%) was provided to NHS Boards in June. The second tranche (30%) will be made later in the financial year following progress reporting.

This is a well-established practice for the allocation of health board funding to account for any slippage in programme delivery, and is used across a range of policy areas.

Due to Adult Disability Payment being in the early stages of delivery, we have not commenced publication of statistics relating to clients’ specific disabilities or conditions. This information will be included in future statistical publications.

As of July 2022, the number of people in receipt of Personal Independence Payment in Scotland for which COVID-19 or Long COVID is recorded as the client’s primary disability or condition was 307.

Matters relating to the procurement of new vessels for Orkney and Shetland’s internal ferry services are the responsibility of those councils. Therefore any discussions with the Clyde Catamaran Group on this topic would be for Orkney and Shetland Island Councils.

To date, there have not been any discussions between the Scottish Government and the Clyde Catamaran Group regarding it's Scottish ferry shipbuilding strategy. However, a meeting has been arranged with the Clyde Catamaran Group and I look forward to discussing their proposals on the matter.

The most robust method for reporting ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) operational performance across the current contract to-date is by presenting the average daily number of non-operational charge point units. The following table provides a monthly breakdown of this information across the entire ChargePlace Scotland network under the current contract. The transitional period immediately after the migration to the current operator focused on network stabilisation, including resolving technical issues across the network, hence the disparity in operational performance in the months of August and September.

Most faults on the network are short-lived and in the majority of cases require no physical intervention by an engineer.

The Scottish Government do not currently hold this information by Local Authority area. However, CPS has recently published a new Network Performance page on the website which will be continuously updated with detailed information on the performance of the public charging network, such as uptime by Local Authority area.

The Forestry Grant Scheme already provides an extensive package of support to help landowners improve the condition of ancient woodlands. This funding is available through the Woodland Improvement Grant Habitats and Species option. This offers capital grant support to remove invasive species such as Rhododendron, for fencing costs, felling and tree removal. Forest management and enhancement is also supported through 5 year management agreements covering habitat monitoring and deer control as well as stock management support for grazed woodland. For special sites, such as SSSI’s or Natura 2000 sites, the support available can cover 100% of the costs.

Since 2016 the Forestry Grant Scheme has supported over 210 projects to restore native woodlands with a combined value of over £12m.