Chamber and committees

NHS National Services Division operated the Scottish Veterans Care Network between November 2020 and March 2022.

A range of stakeholders were involved in shaping the Network. The Network’s primary focus was on the Mental Health and Wellbeing Action Plan (MHWAP). The delivery of the MHWAP is now being taken forward by a veteran led Implementation Board, and as such the Network has been stood down.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13888 on‎ 27 January 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 total cost of the 2021-2022 campaign was £206,970. The 2023 campaign has been developed to have a much greater media presence and will aim to reach a broader audience than previous campaigns. With this, the projected spend for the 2023 campaign is £500,000. This also cost also includes activities on insights gathering to gain further clarity on how the campaign messaging is received and the public perceptions of a career in social care to help inform and shape future recruitment support.

In June 2020, the Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and Ethnicity was established to consider and inform the Scottish Government’s approach in relation to the impacts of COVID-19 on Minority Ethnic (ME) communities. This was in response to reports at a UK-wide and international level that some ME groups may be at risk of experiencing disproportionate effects, both in terms of adverse health outcomes and in a wider context, including economically.

Our current priorities are rooted in the delivery of the recommendations of our Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and Ethnicity (ERG). Specifically, these actions cover the ongoing work to implement the data and systemic recommendations of the Expert Reference Group (ERG) for COVID-19 and Ethnicity, as agreed to by the Scottish Government in November 2020 .

Recommendation 7 from the ERG outlined the need to establish a more effective accountability and governance infrastructure in Scotland, namely an independent Race Observatory. The Scottish Government required specific expertise to help move forward with establishing the Observatory and therefore formed a short-life working group, now known as the IGG, to provide advice and feedback to Scottish Ministers.

In February 2020, Scottish Government published the National Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Service Specification which outlines provisions young people and their families can expect from the NHS.

Following recommendations made in Mental Welfare Commission reports, Scottish Government commissioned a national review of existing provision for young people under 18 years who had needs and risks that required intensive psychiatric care. This review published its findings in June 2021 and recommended purpose-built regional units adjacent to existing inpatient services.

As a follow-up, Scottish Government is supporting the development of three regional Intensive Psychiatric Care Units (IPCUs) to be hosted within NHS Lothian, Tayside and Greater Glasgow and Clyde. The provision of intensive psychiatric care beds will expand the inpatient estate and also ease pressures on existing adolescent inpatient services, as these will ensure young people are accessing the appropriate care and treatment when required.

Scottish Government has also commissioned Foxgrove, the new CAMHS National Secure Adolescent Inpatient Service for Scotland (NSAIS) which is currently under construction. The Unit will be on the Ayrshire Central Hospital campus in Irvine, North Ayrshire and will provide secure mental health care for young people from across Scotland.

Similarly, Scottish Government is in the process of commissioning a CAMHS national inpatient service for children and young people with learning disabilities.

This work sits alongside our investment in prevention and early intervention support for children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. For example, local authorities report that over 38,000 children, young people and parents/carers benefitted from our £15 million per annum investment in community supports and services in the first six months of 2022 alone; and young people now have access to a school counsellor in every secondary school in Scotland.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Cornton Vale currently holds two distinctly separate population groups. Peebles House accommodates women who have achieved a Low Supervision category, while Ross House accommodates the women with the highest care needs.

The women currently living in Peebles House have taken part in individual discussions supported by SPS, NHS and Social work colleagues to identify the most appropriate location during the transition period. The identified locations for these women are:

• HMP & YOI Polmont
• The Lilias Centre Community Custody Unit
• The Bella Centre Community Custody unit

In order to ensure continuity of care for the women currently living in Ross House with the highest needs, special arrangements are being made to accommodate these women in HMP & YOI Polmont.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

As of Friday 20 January, 15 women had transferred from Peebles House in Cornton Vale to either HMP & YOI Polmont, The Lilias Centre or The Bella Centre.

Improving the accessibility of elections is a key element of the Scottish Government’s electoral reform agenda. It is our ambition to remove or reduce barriers that some voters face and to improve the accessibility of elections.

We have been working with RNIB Scotland and the Forth Valley Sensory Centre over several months to consider potential solutions and technology to assist people with sight loss to cast their votes, including testing audio devices. RNIB Scotland will also shortly undertake testing of a tactile ballot paper solution at the Centre. We will then consider feedback from these initial trials of the tactile ballots papers and, working in collaboration with our partners in Local Government, electoral administrators and the Electoral Commission, produce proposals for next steps. I anticipate we should be in a position to report progress and set out future proposals and plans to Parliament in the summer.

In addition, as part of the Government’s current consultation on electoral reform we are asking for views on how the accessibility of elections could be improved and what changes might be made in law. The consultation closes on 15 March - available at https://consult.gov.scot/constitution-and-cabinet/electoral-reform/ . I look forward to reading the responses which will help inform our work going forward.

The Scottish Government does not hold official data on the unregistered workforce. However we do know that there were at least 4,869 Personal Assistants (PA’s) providing social care support to adults who were in receipt of either Self-directed support option 1 or from Independent Living Fund Scotland in 2021.

This data was captured from those Personal Assistants who applied for the Scottish Government Covid-19 thankyou payment which can be found here PA Programme Board Resources - Self Directed Support Scotland | Self Directed Support Scotland (sdsscotland.org.uk) .

A PA Programme Board was established in 2021 with a membership from the public, third sector and organisation’s representing disabilities. A co-produced Work Plan was developed which includes objectives to understand, grow and support the PA workforce including developing better research of this little known workforce.

The Personal Assistant workforce are employed by the person with social care needs or their family. The employer may also use funding from a variety of public sources as well as self-funding, as such there is no locus for SG to mandate the collection of this data. However, there will be an option to count all those non family member PAs from 2024 onwards as this workforce must be PVG checked from that date.

There has been a successful application for a PHD funded by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science. This position will start in October and will research PA assistance for disabled people, changing labour markets and social care reform. The PA Programme Board will be a collaborative partner with Glasgow University.