Chamber and committees

Information on the number of Clinical Nurse Specialists by specialist cancer fields is not held centrally.

However, we recognise the scale of the challenge facing Health Boards across Scotland. We are working closely with partners to accelerate domestic and international recruitment to Scotland. New investment of £300m has helped services deal with system pressures over winter and the NHS Recovery Plan, backed by over £1bn, has introduced a range of direct workforce investments and new measures to support Boards’ capacity for both domestic and international recruitment.

Overall NHS staff and nursing staff levels are currently at a record high, following ten consecutive years of NHS Scotland workforce growth. We are investing £11m over the next five years in new national and international recruitment campaigns and have established a national Centre for Workforce Supply to provide labour market intelligence. We are also recruiting at least 200 registered nurses from overseas, with funding of £4.5m available to Health Boards to take this forward.

Our latest DCE lung cancer campaign entitled - ‘Settling In’ – was launched in May 2021 with the aim of increasing awareness of the early signs of lung cancer and encouraging people with possible symptoms to contact their GP practice. Almost two-thirds (64%) of those who saw the campaign did something as a result, including looking out for symptoms and deciding to go to their GP practice with possible signs. As committed to in our NHS Recovery Plan, a new early cancer diagnosis vision for Scotland is also being developed to direct early diagnosis efforts over the coming years, including that of lung.

NatureScot’s investment in Abernethy over the past 3 years has principally been support through the Peatland Action Fund that is delivering SG objectives to tackle the twin crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss. A further project supported a number of seasonal rangers, helping to ensure responsible use of the NNR. They have also provided support for RSPB staff posts for their work on Capercaillie.

The following tables below show the funding allocation from both NatureScot and the Forestry Grant Scheme to Abernethy National Nature Reserve, this funding may have been for a range of purposes, and funding may have been allocated indirectly via other partners so a complete breakdown is not available. It is important to note that the Capercaillie officer funding is mainly for the wider co-ordination of Capercaillie, and not specific to Abernethy.

NatureScot Abernethy Funding Allocation

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

As I outlined in my response to S6W-07615 on 25 April 2022, funding allocated to Abernethy is for a range of purposes and is our assessment that this has been of value for money despite the decline in capercaillie numbers.

While the status of the capercaillie population in Scotland remains vulnerable, without the investment that has been made to the likes of Abernethy it is likely that we would have lost capercaillie from Scotland.

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 Scottish Government, it’s partners and agencies have funded actions to support capercaillie conservation across Scotland through a range of schemes. Funding has been awarded to estates as well as eNGO’s and individuals and we expect this to continue.

Funding is awarded to projects that would benefit capercaillie conservation but are not specifically for this purpose. This could include supporting new pine wood planting in capercaillie areas, the management and improvement of existing habitat as well as it's extension through actions such as controlling deer numbers, fence marking or removal, and thinning to improve light levels.

An evaluation report was written in 2017 which reviewed the pilot Access to Elected Office Fund (Scotland) (AEOFS) programme and made recommendations for the future of such a scheme. Thereafter, operational funding was maintained for the Fund until October 2021, and further funding was provided through the Equality and Human Rights Fund to run the programme for a further 3 years.

Various changes were made to improve the programme in its second iteration, including opening the new fund for applications well in advance of the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections, leaving a longer lead in time to support those running for selection and as a candidate; and committing to funding AEOFS awards with no upper limit, ensuring that as many candidates as possible can apply for selection and be secure in the knowledge that funding will not be a barrier to their success. Further consideration was also given to addressing the particular barriers faced by BSL users, and the fund supported the first BSL user to be elected to a Scottish Local Authority in a by-election in 2019.

In addition, an ‘Access to Politics Charter’ was developed with disabled activists to support political parties to be more inclusive and promote disabled people as potential candidates. The Charter addressed a range of issues raised in the evaluation report. All of the five parliamentary political parties have signed up to the ‘Access to Politics Charter’ and each now has a disabled members’ group following charter principles.

The information you have requested is publically available at the Scottish Energy Statistics Hub (shinyapps.io) taken originally from National Grid - : https://carbonintensity.org.uk/ .

In addition to that, the recent announcement of ScotWind has seen aspirations from consortia to develop up to 25GW of offshore wind capacity. This will allow us to make huge progress in further decarbonising our energy supply while securing commitments from ScotWind developers to invest at least £1bn in Scotland’s supply chain for every gigawatt of power.

The Scottish Government is clear that nuclear energy represents a bad deal for consumers and our priority continues to be to support energy efficiency, develop Scotland’s huge renewable resource and to promote storage and flexibility.

We estimate that Child Winter Heating Assistance will provide assistance to over 19,000 children and young people who are in receipt of disability assistance in Scotland in 2021-22 at a cost of around £4 million. This type of assistance is not available anywhere else in the UK.

Through our £290 million Cost of Living support package, we will give 1.85 million (73%) of Scottish households £150 of extra support via the Council Tax. We have also allocated a further £10 million to continue our Fuel Insecurity Fund, which is aimed at those in greatest need.

The Fuel Insecurity Fund is delivered through trusted third sector partner organisations, providing direct support to people, including disabled people, who are at risk of severely self-rationing their energy use, or self-disconnecting entirely, due to the cost of their fuel bills. Assistance can be accessed by households on any tariff type and using any fuel source.

As outlined in my response on 22 February 2022, Crown Estate Scotland is responsible for the ScotWind leasing and selection process.

We expect Crown Estate Scotland to undertake appropriate due diligence on companies, including their human rights record, in line with the Guidance on due diligence: human rights. As the guidance states, “The detail of what is checked is ultimately a matter of judgement by whomever has initiated the relationship and/or responded to a proposition from a third party and will depend on the circumstances of each case.” The due diligence carried out by Crown Estate Scotland was outlined in my answer to question S6W-06064.

All children in Scotland are offered child health reviews at 13-15 months, 27-30 months and 4-5 years. These reviews are typically carried out by a Health Visitor. They allow monitoring and promotion of a child’s health and collect data on child development. The latest Early Child Development Statistics cover 2019/20 and are available here - https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/early-child-development/early-child-development-scotland-201920/ .

The 2019/20 statistics show that the proportion of review records containing meaningful information for every developmental domain was lower for children from certain minority ethnic groups. However, the differences between ethnic groups, in the proportion of records with meaningful information in 2019/20, are the smallest observed to date (since 2013/14).

We remain committed to improving outcomes for all children and that is why we have commissioned an evaluation into the Universal Health Visiting Pathway. Findings from the evaluation will support Health Visitors in continuing to support all young families across Scotland.

In addition, to address gaps in Scotland’s equality evidence base, we launched the Equality Data Improvement Programme (EDIP) in April 2021. The EDIP is aligned with our wider Mainstreaming Equality and Human Rights Strategy.