Chamber and committees

Significant work has been done by COPFS, toxicologists and pathologists to address this issue. Since the beginning of 2021, there has been no backlog of toxicology reports. In some cases, the toxicology analysis requires to be supplemented by further scientific testing to assist the pathologist in establishing the cause of death. The dedicated team established by COPFS in November 2021 continues to manage the submission of the final post mortem reports which then require to be considered by Procurators Fiscal.

In this reporting year, over 90% of final post mortem reports have been received within 12 weeks of the date of post mortem and the number of reports still to be processed by COPFS has been substantially reduced from a peak figure of almost 2200 in December 2021 to 356 the week commencing 20 October 2022.

The Scottish Government are developing an expert group that will be reporting on smoking cessation services early next year. We are also committed to working with our NHS cessation coordinators and pharmacy colleagues across Scotland to refocus and remobilise these services to ensure we are reaching those in our communities who are in most need of support to quit.

In addition, next year we will publish a refreshed Tobacco Action Plan which will include a range of evidence-based interventions with an emphasis on reducing smoking and vaping among children and young people.

Provisions within Part 1 of the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022, introduce a temporary cap on in-tenancy rent increases, which is set at 0% until at least 31 March 2023.

The following tenancies are not covered by the rent cap:

• some assured tenancies where rent increases are controlled by the contract - if a tenant has an assured tenancy where the way their rent will increase is set out in their contract - and the emergency legislation is still legally in force - then rent will be able to increase in the way agreed in the contract;
• regulated tenancies under the Rent (Scotland) Act 1984 - these tenancies already have strong protections in place, and rents for these tenancies can only increase once every three years;
• common law tenancies - this includes arrangements like agricultural tenancies and lodger agreements (where a tenant lives with a landlord in their home), with the exception of student tenancy agreements; and new tenancies.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that NHS Scotland has a skilled and sustainable workforce, we work in partnership with NHS Boards who are responsible for taking decisions about the configuration of midwifery services, commensurate with their local population needs.

We have taken a range of measures to support midwifery workforce supply, having grown the number of funded places on undergraduate midwifery programmes in Scotland by 20% over the last decade, to 301 funded places in 2022. Additionally, we offer a comprehensive and competitive package of student support, which is the best in the UK. In January 2022, we welcomed students from across Scotland on to a new, shortened midwifery training pathway at Edinburgh Napier University. These students will qualify as midwives in 20 months whilst continuing to work in their home regions, including in Scotland's remote and rural health boards.

In addition to our investment in education and training, we are providing direct recruitment support to all health boards across Scotland, through coordinated national marketing activity and support for ongoing international recruitment, including £8m to support the recruitment of up to 750 nurses, midwives and AHPs announced on 04 October 2022. We continue to look for opportunities to increase levels of recruitment and retention of healthcare staff in rural areas and have committed to undertaking further activity on remote and rural recruitment and retention, under the auspices of the National Health and Social Care Workforce Strategy.

We held a public consultation for the new cancer strategy from 12th April – 7th June. Anyone who wished to submit a response was welcome to through Citizens Space, this includes members of the public, professionals working with cancer services, and organisations. The results of the consultation will be published shortly and will feed into the development of the next cancer strategy.

Early insights from the initial consultation report show that organisations in the cancer sector welcome a long-term strategy with broad overarching aims to help achieve structural changes in the delivery of cancer care.

The Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act 2022 was passed by the Scottish Parliament in June of this year and received Royal Assent on 10 August.

Work is underway to implement the measures within the Act. Firework licensing, Part 2 of the Act, requires secondary legislation and the development of an appropriate licensing system as part of implementation. The licensing system will therefore not be in place until late 2023/early 2024 at the earliest.

Since the Level of Service Case Management Inventory (LS/CMI) IT errors were identified three forms of review have been underway:

• Open cases review
• Risk Management Authority review
• IT review

Letters have been submitted to the Criminal Justice Committee on 3 March 2022, 12 May 2022, 28 June 2022, and 27 September 2022, providing updates on these three review elements.

The Risk Management Authority review is not looking at “failed assessments”. They are exploring impact from the known system error in relation to risk and scoring. Part of that review is an assessment of possible material impact, as it is a feature of risk assessment that much more than one IT system output goes into the risk assessment process.

With the caveat that the review work has to be led by what is found at each phase, it is currently anticipated that phase 3 of this work will conclude in November 2022 and report thereafter.

Scottish Ministers are committed to developing a Scottish school milk scheme to replace current subsidy arrangements. We are working with stakeholders and local authority partners to develop a fully funded universal school milk scheme for primary and special schools, and a pilot in secondary schools within the current parliamentary term.

Data showing the percentage of pre-registration students who were in the "inactive" training state on a three-year pre-registration midwifery programme over the last five years for which complete figures are available is found in the table below. “Inactive” refers to students who are neither in training nor have completed their programme – many students will return to their studies and go on to complete their programme.

The Scottish Government has awarded the Scottish Council on Global Affairs (SCGA) grant funding of £120,295.17 for the financial year 2022-2023.

We will continue to support the SCGA as they develop throughout 2022-2023, and look forward to seeing the SCGA provide a Scotland-based, independent, and non-partisan forum for meaningful debate on international affairs.