Chamber and committees

In the period October to December 2020:

• There were 3,502 eligible referrals for the 62-day standard, an increase of 14.9%.
• There were 5,697 eligible referrals within the 31-day standard, an increase of 14.7% from the previous quarter.

The below tables outline Eligible Referrals broken down by central region.

Eligible referrals for the 31-day standard (rate per 100,000 of population):

The Scottish Government’s Suicide Prevention Action Plan was published in 2018. Many of the key actions in the Plan have been delivered, including the launch of Scotland’s social movement: ‘United to Prevent Suicide’; production of learning resources to support suicide prevention; and guidance to encourage, inform, and support local suicide prevention approaches. Pilot services to support those bereaved by suicide will go live this summer and work continues to develop processes for reviews of all deaths by suicide.

Our Mental Health Transition and Recovery Plan sets out our commitment to work with COSLA and stakeholders to produce a new long-term suicide prevention strategy for Scotland. The new strategy will be outcomes-focussed, and its development will be directed by the voices of lived experience. It will be informed by data and evidence, and adopt a cross-government approach to ensure the Government continues to take all actions it can to reduce the number of people who die by suicide. The new strategy will be published in September 2022, supported by a full delivery plan.

In the meantime, continued focus, pace and evaluation on suicide prevention will be achieved by extending activities under the current Action Plan for a further year, up to the point the successor strategy is published. This approach has full backing from partners, including COSLA and the National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group. This approach will be backed by additional spending on suicide prevention in 2021-22, through our £120 million Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund.

I want to thank our health and care staff for their magnificent work to date. The last few months have been enormously challenging, with the expansion of our vaccination programme and the on-going demands of continuing to provide vital services to those requiring care.

While we have made great strides forward in dealing with the challenges that the pandemic has brought, the spread and impact of Covid continues to urge the need for caution in protecting the capacity of the NHS. Case numbers have continued to increase slowly over the last few weeks and our vaccination and Test and Trace resources have had to flex in response to emerging issues. All of this is taking place while our NHS continues to recover and so I want to continue with a measured and consistent approach to remobilising and renewing the vital services that we all rely upon. Additionally, we continue to be mindful of the impact on health and care staff, many of whom have been on the frontline of the Covid response for a considerable period.

It is clear that we need to continue to balance the capacity of the NHS to deal with Covid as well as the demands of emergency, urgent and planned care. With this in mind, I have decided that the NHS will remain on an emergency footing until at least 30 September 2021.

As announced in March, the recommendations from the Review will be taken forward by an Implementation Group which I am pleased to announce will be Co-Chaired by Dennis Robertson and a clinical lead that will be confirmed shortly.

I am also pleased to announce today that we are providing £5 million of funding to respond to the recommendations from the Review in this financial year. The majority of this funding will be provided to NHS Boards to support them respond to the increase in eating disorder presentations due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which is Recommendation 1 from the Review. This funding is being provided from the £120 million Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund.

In addition, in response to Recommendation 6 (Self-help Resources) and Recommendation 13 (Families and Carers) from the Review, we are also providing funding to Beat, the UK’s Eating Disorder Charity, to provide a wide range of support options such as support to families and carers of those with an eating disorder, support for children, young people and adults who are currently waiting to be seen by services and peer support services. We will shortly announce further details of this package of support.

Following a delay due to Covid-19, officials are continuing work with Local Authorities to develop both the secondary legislation required to allow them to enforce the National pavement parking prohibition as well as the Parking Standards Guidance which will underpin the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019. Additionally we will need to consult with the public on some areas contained within those secondary legislations and Local Authorities will need around 12 months to undertake an assessment to consider whether they wish to exempt, subject to certain criteria, any areas of pavement from the prohibition.

As such, the majority of the secondary legislation is likely to be in place by 2022. Some aspects however, such as the appeals process for those who wish to appeal a ticket issued for pavement parking, may not be in place until 2023. It is therefore envisaged that local authorities will be in a position to enforce the National pavement parking prohibition by summer 2023.

We are committed to ensuring that all children and young people get the additional support that they need to reach their full learning potential.

We published our joint response to the independently chaired review of implementation of additional support for learning in October 2020. Angela Morgan’s report sets a clear direction in how we can continue to build on progress in this area. The joint action plan sets out the measures we will take to implement her recommendations. The action plan and governance arrangements for this work are available from Additional support for learning: action plan - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The Scottish Government provided a response to the 65 recommendations included in the Salmon Farming in Scotland Report in January 2019. That response set out a range of actions already underway to support the sustainability of the sector. The response is available to view here; 20190129_Cab_Sec_RE_-_SG_response_to_Cttee_report_on_salmon_farming_in_Scotland.pdf (parliament.scot) .

The Regional Transport Partnerships (RTPs) are required, by the Transport (Scotland) Act 2005, to produce a transport strategy for their area. The Act sets out what the strategy should cover, including the future needs of the region and what can be achieved taking account of funding and practicability. The Act also requires regional transport strategies to have regard to the National Transport Strategy produced by the Scottish Ministers.

Scotland’s second National Transport Strategy was published in February 2020 and sets out an ambitious vision for or Scotland’s transport system for the next 20 years. The Strategy sets out the Sustainable Investment Hierarchy to inform future investment decisions and ensure transport options that focus on reducing inequalities and the need to travel unsustainably are prioritised. The Strategy also embeds the Sustainable Travel Hierarchy into decision making, by promoting walking, wheeling, cycling, public transport and shared options in preference to single occupancy private car use. We are aware that the RTPs are at varying stages of development in producing new strategies for their region. The regional transport strategies are approved by the Scottish Ministers before they can come into effect.

Regional Transport Partnerships work with Local Authorities and others stakeholders across their areas to input into infrastructure investment plans, for example through Growth Deals. They are also engaged in the Scottish Government’s second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) through Regional Transport Working Groups. They have provided valuable input and evidence to the Review which will to help inform strategic transport investment in Scotland for the next 20 years.

We continue to analyse a number of options around signalisation and prohibition of movements in order to understand the wider impacts of this on the surrounding local and trunk road network. This is a complex task, which aims to balance the need to reduce conflict at this location along with minimising any reduction in operational performance of the A702 corridor.

We have commissioned specialist traffic modelling consultants to carry out a detailed modelling exercise to assess the effectiveness of different junction option scenarios including road closures/banned turning movements in conjunction with new traffic signal arrangements. This detailed modelling exercise is currently ongoing and is expected that this work will be concluded in summer 2021.

Transport Scotland’s Operating Company, BEAR Scotland, and its specialist suppliers are finalising the design for a system of optical and infra-red cameras to be installed on the tower tops. This equipment will assist in providing a better understanding of the mechanism for ice accreting and falling off the cable stays and towers. Installation is scheduled for August. Options currently under consideration to prevent or reduce ice formation include coatings and de-icing compounds applied to the stay cables and towers and cleaning of the stay cables to remove deposited air borne particulates from the external surface of the stay cables. These options are being considered for laboratory testing and possible site trials.