Chamber and committees

Skills Development Scotland(SDS), the Scottish Government’s Skills agency, works closely with the Career Transition Partnership who have responsibility for delivering the career and employment support as part of the transition for those leaving military service.

SDS have delivered sessions on My World of Work (MyWOW) and all SDS advisers are aware of the wide range of training and education options available at all levels across Scotland. A dedicated page on the SDS MyWOW website acts as a signpost for a range of advice and support. This has also been included as part of SDS’ presentations to serving military as part of the personal resilience days.

In addition and to assist service leavers and veterans in understanding their transferable skills and to help plan their future learning journey, the Scottish Government has funded the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) to develop a Discovery Tool to help them align their skills and qualifications gained in service with comparable Scottish level qualifications. This is available through the SCQF or SDS MyWOW websites.

Work on developing the tool further to link to the college and universities sectors continues. The MOD's Enhanced Learning Credits (ELCAS) Scheme promotes lifelong learning amongst members of the Armed Forces, the scheme enables higher level learning of a nationally recognised qualification with an approved Learning Provider. We continue to work to improve the ELCAS offering and are making progress in understanding the institutional issues.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) continue to facilitate work with the Armed Forces and Veterans Community Group (AFVCG) and the Ministry of Defence’s Training, Educations, Skills, Resettlement and Recruitment (TESRR) and Careers Transition Partnership (CTP) with a proposal to have dedicated educational opportunities briefing sessions at CTP online workshops being approved. In Academic Year 2021-22 three online sessions were delivered and one face to face session. For Academic Year 2022-23 three CTP online sessions and two face to face sessions have been arranged.

The SFC on behalf of the Scottish Government have a dedicated web page with information and advice for people leaving military service. The web page is regularly reviewed and maintained, with updates when necessary. SFC Communications Teams uses social media channels to promote events linked to and relevant for veterans, service leavers, the armed forces and their families.

The Centre for Military Research, Education and Public Engagement (CMREPE) based at Edinburgh Napier University, has a focus for ‘developing a strong network of significant partnerships to enhance opportunities for military personnel active, transitioning and veterans in education and research activity.

No One Left behind and Fair Start Scotland are integral parts of the employability support landscape in Scotland and aim to support individuals, including veterans and their partners, to overcome barriers through person-centred tailored support, enabling them to access and sustain fair employment.

No One Left Behind supports those transitioning out of military service, to deliver local place based approach to facilitate easier alignment of employability support with existing local level support services including housing, health, justice and advice services to ensure that individuals can access the holistic packages of support that they need to move towards, into and to sustain employment.

Fair Start Scotland, our national employment support service, offers 12 to 18 months of tailored, person-centred pre-employment support, along with up to 12 months of in-work support available for individuals and their employers. Support includes access to workshops and guidance utilising the transferrable skills that people leave military services with.

In addition, The Veterans Employability Strategic Group brings together members from the UK and Scottish Government, agencies, Local Authority employability representatives, third sector organisations supporting veterans and employers with a specific aim to work together to enable smoother transition for those leaving military service and settling in Scotland. The need to ensure smoother transitions has been a focus of successive Scottish Veterans Commissioners and thus a priority for the Scottish Government and its agencies.

Greater partnership working between UK , Scottish and regional local partners has led to greater collaboration. For example, Skills Development Scotland (SDS) works closely with colleagues in the Career Transition Partnership (CTP) who are the Ministry of Defence’s official resettlement provider and are responsible for delivering the career and employment support as part of the transition from military service.

They have a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Defence, and CTP colleagues are aware of SDS as a referral route for clients requiring impartial career guidance. SDS Veterans leads have also delivered sessions to SDS colleagues and armed forces champions that inform colleagues of the CTP offer and the support available to service leavers from CTP for up to 2 years post discharge.

The Scottish Government does not hold the required level of information to assess levels of income that Scottish Universities derive from the enrolment of Chinese students.

In 2021-2022 Academic Year, the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) paid a total of £219.6m in higher education tuition fee awards for eligible Scottish domiciled students. In addition, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) allocated approximately £694m in block teaching grants to universities in respect of funded places.

Scottish universities are autonomous institutions and as such are responsible for their own entry requirements and admissions policies. As independent institutions, it is vital universities continue to develop their own mitigating strategies to minimise negative impacts on their short, medium and long-term financial sustainability.

The Scottish Government along with the Scottish Funding Council continue to explore options in conjunction with the university and colleges sectors, to ensure institutions across the whole tertiary sector are sustainable in the longer-term. We currently have record numbers of enrolments and full-time first degree entrants from Scotland, International students and those from other parts of the UK are not eligible to access funded places.

To further support universities we have increased higher education resource funding by £20 million in cash terms as part of the 2023-24 Budget. This ensures that our universities continue to deliver a high standard of education for all students against the backdrop of the cost-of-living crisis.

The Scottish Government welcomes the contribution that international students make to our society, culture and economy. International students add to the diversity of our communities, enrich the learning experience and support local businesses and jobs.

Data published on 19 January 2023 by the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows record numbers of non-EU international students (65,300), and we welcome that these numbers are diversifying with noticeable increases in students from India, Nigeria and Pakistan.

Any decision about dredging the River is for the local authority to take forward. In relation to dredging, there are circumstances in which this can be an appropriate measure to reduce the risk of flooding. However, it is important to avoid inappropriate dredging. This is partly to avoid damaging the river environment, but also because dredging and other river engineering work can often prove ineffective, or in some cases counter-productive, as a tool for managing flood risk. The scale of these risks depends on the river characteristics and the design of the works, which is why large scale dredging operations require an authorisation from SEPA under the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2005.

In Scotland, the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) appraises the clinical and cost-effectiveness of newly-licensed medicines. Making decisions about whether or not to recommend routine access to new medicines is a complex task and the SMC bases its decisions on the best available evidence provided to it. Following a full submission from the submitting company, Aimmune Therapeutics, on 10 October 2022, the SMC published “not recommended” advice for Health Boards on the routine use of Palforzia ® in NHS Scotland. The submission received did not present a sufficiently robust economic analysis to gain acceptance by the SMC.

By way of an update, Aimmune Therapeutics has indicated its intention to make a resubmission to the SMC.If they do, information on the specific timelines for the reassessment will be available via the search facility available on the home page of the SMC’s website here . There is a fast-track resubmission option, which reduces the normal assessment timeline.

In the meantime, Health Boards have procedures in place using the Peer Approved Clinical System “PACS Tier Two” process, for clinicians to request the use of licensed medicines on a ‘case-by-case’ basis for individual patients, when the treating clinician considers that there would be significant clinical benefit for a patient.

The Scottish Government has provided £80,000 of funding for Talk Lipoedema over financial years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 to develop the Scoping Report on Lipoedema Care in Scotland, providing a welcome insight into Lipoedema services and to enhance their important work supporting people across Scotland with this condition.

This funding has also enabled the organisation to raise awareness through their website with updated information for both the public and professionals including a video on the diagnosis of lipoedema. Additionally, the funding has been used by the organisation to facilitate a pilot in NHS Lanarkshire ‘Living Well with Lipoedema’ exploring innovative, person-centred self-management programmes and developing online self-management resources.

The Women’s Health Plan focusses on a specific set of priorities and whilst lipoedema is not specifically mentioned in the priorities for this iteration of the Plan we do recognise that many women are significantly affected by the condition.

The Plan acknowledges the need to improve access to information for women about their health and to support this we launched the NHS Inform Women’s Health Platform. We are currently finalising content on Lipoedema which will be included on the platform shortly.

CFL will open up all routes for the whole summer timetable period by Friday 20 January – with the exception of Mallaig-Armadale, Mallaig-Small Isles and Mallaig-Lochboisdale, (which will open by 31 January).

For the Mallaig routes, CFL are still working through tidal amendments for the whole summer timetables. CFL will engage with those communities directly. However, each community are already aware of their core timetables.

An ICIA was not carried out on the delay. The delay was not a policy choice but was due to the necessary detailed consideration and discussions required at all levels of Government in order to find a way to mitigate the impact on fares of an unprecedented level of CPI of 9.1%.

CalMac Ferries Ltd (CFL) issued communications to stakeholders on 17 January confirming it will open up all routes for the whole summer timetable period by Friday 20 January – with the exception of Mallaig-Armadale, Mallaig-Small Isles and Mallaig-Lochboisdale (which will open by 31 January).

For the Mallaig routes, CFL are still working through tidal amendments for the whole summer timetables and that work will not be complete by 20 January. CFL will engage with those communities directly and explain the reasons for the delay. However, each community are already aware of their core timetables.