Chamber and committees

Throughout Storms Arwen and Barra the Scottish Government’s Resilience Division maintained daily contact with the power companies and close engagement continues.

It must be noted that resilience of the electricity networks is reserved and is the responsibility of the UK Government. The Scottish Government will be engaging with both the upcoming Ofgem and UK Government Storm Arwen reviews.

In addition, the Deputy First Minister requested that the Scottish Government’s Resilience Division begin work on the scope and terms of a review into the Storm Arwen response on 30 November 2021, and on 14 December 2021 he formally commissioned the Scottish Resilience Partnership to collate evidence from local resilience partnerships to inform the findings of the review.

The Scottish Government will also gather evidence from other relevant groups, for example the voluntary sector and utilities companies, including power companies.

‎This work is already well underway and we aim to publish a review paper with recommendations in mid-January.

Information on the amount of people living with dystonia in each NHS board area is not held centrally by the Scottish Government or Public Health Scotland (PHS).

The Scottish Government has submitted a request through NHS Scotland’s Scottish Primary Care Information Request (SPIRE), which holds information from GP patient records, to better understand prevalence amongst neurological conditions including dystonia. We expect this data to be collected in 2022.

The Scottish Government recognises the negative impact that long COVID can have on the health and wellbeing of those affected. We are already taking action to ensure that people are supported in the most appropriate way possible, and are committed to do more.

We have published our approach paper which sets out 16 commitments to improve care and support for people with long COVID in Scotland.

Our approach outlines the work we are doing, with partners, to strengthen the key elements of care for people with long COVID - accessed through; supported self-management, assessment provided within primary and community care, rehabilitation support and; secondary care investigation and support where required.

Our commitments are backed by a £10 million ‘Long COVID Support Fund’, which will provide additional resource to strengthen services for people with long COVID across Scotland, by bolstering the capacity of existing NHS services, enabling improved care co-ordination and supporting staff education and training needs.

We are continuing to support clinicians to access evidence based information and advice on long COVID, to inform assessments, investigations and referrals for patients.

We are also funding nine Scottish-led research projects with a total funding commitment of £2.5m to improve understanding of the long-term effects of COVID-19 on physical and mental health, and help with developing effective clinical interventions to support recovery and rehabilitation.

Local authorities were issued with non-statutory guidance to support them in their administration of the Tenant Grant Fund on 17 September 2021. A copy of this guidance can be found here .

We know some local authorities are already delivering Tenant Grant Fund payments at pace. For example, Dundee City Council has already paid out over £36,000 in grants, providing vital support to tenants in financial need caused by the pandemic.

All 32 local authorities are required to submit their first quarterly report by the end of December 2021, which will set out the number and level of grants issued (broken down by tenure); how many of these grants paid off the rent arrears in full or partially; and how many tenancies were sustained, at that time, as a direct result of the grant being paid.

Since the announcement on 17 March 2021 that ScotRail services will be provided through the Scottish Government’s Operator of Last Resort arrangements on expiry of the current franchise agreement, no costs have been charged for legal work in connection with those arrangements undertaken by solicitors of the Scottish Government Legal Directorate.

In terms of external solicitor costs, works to the value of £157,763 have been charged for to date. At this rate, Transport Scotland would estimate legal expenditure to be under £500,000 by the commencement of ScotRail Trains Ltd services on 1 April. It should be noted that this is a substantially lower amount than might have been expected in support of a rail franchise procurement competition.

No leasing, uniform provision and rolling stock maintenance agreements are expected to remain in place with Abellio once the current franchise ends. A number of existing contracts between Abellio ScotRail Ltd and its suppliers will transfer from Abellio ScotRail Ltd to the new operator, ScotRail Trains Limited, on 1 April 2022.

An agreement has been entered into with Abellio Transport Holdings for the retention of the Abellio Shared Services Centre based in Glasgow. This will retain jobs in Glasgow handling all customer service calls and correspondence, payroll services and payment processing facilities.

We recognise the incredible contribution that Scotland’s unpaid carers make to our communities and know that the pandemic has added significant additional pressures. We are committed to giving a strong voice to unpaid carers, listening to their needs and acting on what they tell us.

We will develop and publish a stand-alone Carers Strategy with a focus on recovery and improving carer support in a meaningful and sustainable way. The strategy will focus on carers and their needs, setting out how policies across the Scottish Government can work together with other public bodies to support carers as we recover from the pandemic and beyond.

We will engage with unpaid carers about the strategy’s scope and purpose in the coming months, and this will inform its development. Our approach to the development of the strategy will be both a collaborative and an iterative one which will draw on the knowledge and lived experience of unpaid carers so that the strategy is shaped by those who best understand the many challenges faced. We will seek to publish the strategy as soon as possible to provide a clear vision for how we will respond to the challenges faced by so many carers.

Following observations on a small number of patients with long COVID symptoms who received an experimental drug called BC 007 at the Universittsklinikum Erlangen in Germany, a trial of this drug as a potential therapy for long COVID is reportedly being planned by this research institute.

Applications from the Scottish clinical research community for research projects on possible treatments for long COVID can be submitted to the independent research funding committees operated by the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office ( Response Mode Funding Schemes – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk) ). Applications are assessed through independent expert peer review and funded based on the recommendations of the funding committees. No applications to trial BC 007 have been received for consideration.

The Forestry Grant Scheme, delivered through the Scottish Rural Development Programme and Scottish Forestry, will provide £307,759 of support specifically for capercaillie between 2016 and 2025. Prior to this, the Scottish Government paid out £781,452 through the Rural Priority (RP) Scheme’s Capercaillie Package between 2008 and 2019.

NatureScot, (formerly Scottish Natural Heritage), made payments of £544,705 towards the research and conservation of capercaillie in Scotland during the period December 2011 – December 2021.

Other Scottish Government funding in support of habitat management is likely to have benefited capercaillie but where not specifically provided for this species no breakdown is available.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04874 on
‎ 20 December 2021. 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