Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises the value of encouraging pupils to pursue a career in healthcare. We have commissioned the Centre for Workforce Supply to develop an NHS Scotland marketing strategy to promote the NHS as an attractive employer.

We remain committed to supporting youth recruitment utilising our Developing the Young Workforce Strategy and the Young Person’s Guarantee.

We also support any initiative which encourages school pupils to consider a career in medicine. For example, Aberdeen University’s ‘Health Studies in Education’ programme which places medical students in local schools for a period of 6 weeks has been successful in establishing long term relationships between schools and the University, as well as providing a platform to introduce further activities including mentoring.

The number of district nurses working in NHS Scotland in each of the last five years can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence .

The Scottish Government does not direct NHS Boards to ensure that their district nurses and their teams undertake routine, planned visits to over 65s, however it is possible that such visits take place in some parts of the country. The roles of district nurses and their teams was described in the Transforming Roles District Nursing paper, which can be found here Supporting documents - Transforming nursing, midwifery and health professionals roles: district nursing roles - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-15497 on 16 March 2023. 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

Once the Board has committed to follow the recommendations of the NDAP, the responsibility for doing so remains solely with the Board. The NDAP action plan was agreed locally in discussion with the NDAP team and Graham Construction. A tracker was developed which was worked on with these partners in a collaborative method to agree with the NDAP team when actions were closed and with NHS Grampian’s construction partners Graham Constructions, about actions that were to be developed and closed during the Stage 4 construction phase. Internal governance of this process has been led through the Baird and ANCHOR Project Board and onwards to the Board of NHS Grampian as required.

We can confirm that build work for the Scottish 4G Infill programme masts at both Rackwick and Stronsay is now complete and activation is currently expected to take place in April 2023.

Violence towards anyone is unacceptable and the safety of our children, young people and staff at school is paramount.

We have produced guidance for local authorities and schools to promote positive relationships and manage behaviour, including de-escalation of violent behaviour. There are a number of programmes that they use to do this.

Last week I met the Teachers Panel to discuss their experiences and how we could better support schools and pupils. The fifth wave of our Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research started last month and will provide a robust national picture of current relationships and behaviour. We will use this research and engagement with stakeholders, including the Scottish Advisory Group for Relationships and Behaviour in Schools, to inform the development of further future policy, guidance and support for schools and school staff.

Through the National Strategy for Economic Transformation, the Scottish Government has committed to “establish a values-led, high-integrity market for responsible private investment in natural capital, supported by a national project pipeline for nature-based solutions”. This work is underpinned by our Interim Principles for Responsible Investment in Natural Capital, which can be found at the following link - https://www.gov.scot/publications/interim-principles-for-responsible-investment-in-natural-capital/ . These ensure investments deliver genuine benefits to the environment, support local communities and conform with the principles of a just transition.

NatureScot’s agreement with Hampden & Co, Lombard Odier and Palladium, announced on 1 March 2023, will help to deliver these commitments by creating new jobs, working with local communities and businesses, and bringing about landscape-scale restoration of natural capital. Neither NatureScot nor the Scottish Government are currently working on any other similar agreements. The Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS), launched in February this year, will also support the establishment of a values-led, high-integrity market by helping organisations that seek to develop projects that use responsible private investment and market-based mechanisms to restore Scotland’s natural environment.

In our Scottish Government procurement: annual report 2021 to 2022 we reported that 94% of our contractors are committed to paying the real Living Wage, an increase of 2% points over the previous year. The Scottish Government considers Fair Work criteria on a case-by-case basis and requires suppliers to pay the real Living Wage to workers involved in the delivery of our contracts where it is relevant to the contract, non-discriminatory and proportionate to do so. We do not hold information about the specific number of contractor staff who benefit from this commitment.

Food Standards Scotland has a dedicated Food and Feed Incident Team comprising a Head of Incidents, an Incident Manager and three incident officers. The team is also assisted by a Support Team comprising a Support Manager and Support Officer. These two individuals assist in the investigation of food- feed incidents, however, much of their time is spent on other divisional priorities.

When identifying the spend on food- feed investigations, consideration has been given to staffing costs along with other associated costs linked with carrying out the investigations. The spend is assuming the full time cost of all members of staff, including the support team.

The following table presents the annual spend on incidents for the last 3 years and the percentage of the overall Food Standards Scotland budget this reflects.

Police Scotland hold management information on recorded incidents of abandoned vehicles. Not all abandoned vehicles will relate to cars and an incident may relate to more than one abandoned vehicle. Figures are available at a Scotland level from 2019, which was the first calendar year where information was recorded consistently across all police divisions. The 2023 figure relates to a partial year (from 1st January to 10th March).