Chamber and committees

I refer the member to answer to question S6W-07294 on 22 March 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

Decisions on device procurement, distribution and use of devices are taken by local authorities themselves.

The statistics in Bib number 64128 provide a total count of elective and emergency hospital activity for inpatients stays and day cases; and elective new and return outpatient appointments, for patients resident in NHS Highland, NHS Orkney, NHS Shetland and NHS Western Isles, by NHS Board of Treatment and Specialty.

Information on total spend on suicide prevention activity by individual Health Boards is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Information on net mental health expenditure by individual Health Boards is published on the Public Health Scotland website Scottish health service costs under data files mental health expenditure Excel workbook . Note, however, that expenditure data is collected by broad specialties and does not identify suicide prevention work specifically. Suicide prevention will be an aspect of work across all mental health specialities.

Cost estimates are contained in the Financial Memorandum for the Bill. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-16266 on 21 April 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

The Secretary General and I had a constructive meeting in November last year during which Mr Ferrer and his colleagues provided me with an insight on the Paradores model and the work being done to repurpose and restore historical buildings and bring commercial activity to areas of historical importance.

The subject of Scottish independence was not an agenda item in discussions. However, Scottish ministers will always be polite enough during international meetings to answer any questions put to them about the Scottish Government's stated policies, including a legal, constitutionally sound referendum, as set out in our Programme for Government.

Social Security Scotland’s Local Delivery service has teams based in every Scottish Local Authority, and in many cases are co-located with existing services to make sure that they bring support to places that people currently go. This localised approach to support also means that visibility of the service is tailored to meet the demands and demographics of each Local Authority area.

Through analysis of their data, Social Security Scotland are able to identify areas with low take-up or high rates of unsuccessful applications. This evidence can then be used to target engagement with local stakeholders to raise awareness of Scottish benefits and effectively support people to take up their entitlements.

The number of General Practices located in the most and least deprived areas in Scotland is shown in the following table, based on data published by Public Health Scotland relating to 1 January 2023.

The most recent data available for 2021-22 shows a total of £251.391 million gross expenditure on Care Homes run directly by the council for Adult Social Care. We don’t have information on whether the council’s owned these Care Homes which they ran directly.

Source: Scottish local government finance statistics (SLGFS) 2021-22: workbooks - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

A breakdown of expenditure for Council-run Care Homes is not available for previous years.

The Scottish Government receives quarterly financial reporting from IJBs which includes information on the funding received from their Local Government and NHS partners. The reports consolidate information already in the public domain as published by individual IJBs, and are published on the Scottish Government website. This exercise began in 2018 and no data collection was performed by the Scottish Government in respect of IJB funding prior to this.

The funding figures, taken from the IJB reports provided have been collated below. The totals include reported figures from all 30 IJBs and the position in respect of the NHS Highland Lead Agency arrangement. Any information regarding IJB funding prior to 2018-19 can be found in the annual accounts published by individual IJBs.

The Director and I had a constructive meeting in December last year during which we discussed language learning in Scotland.

The subject of Scottish independence was not an agenda item in discussions. However, Scottish ministers will always be polite enough during international meetings to answer any questions put to them about the Scottish Government's stated policies, including a legal, constitutionally sound referendum, as set out in our Programme for Government.