Chamber and committees

COSLA recommended that a “non-legally committed” scheme is defined, for this purpose, as a scheme that has not been notified under schedule 2 of the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009. This did not mean that current contracts should be immediately stopped but they should be paused at an appropriate time, where practicable, for example when a key project milestone is reached. Local authorities should not begin the notification process for Cycle 1 schemes if they have not already done so.

The scoping exercise referred to in S6W-04556 will help the Scottish Government to establish current service provision for miscarriage care and support that is available to women who experience unexpected pregnancy complications across all 14 Health Boards and will issue shortly. The issue of the questionnaire has been delayed due to service pressures within the NHS because of the ongoing pandemic. The first roundtable is expected to take place in March 2022 and we plan to invite health professionals and baby loss charities as well as inviting bereaved parents to share their experiences.

This information is not held centrally. A scoping exercise of NHS Boards in respect of services for miscarriage and unexpected pregnancy complications was paused in light of service pressures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Subject to sustained improvement in the pandemic we intend to issue this shortly.

This was one of the most fiscally challenging Scottish Budgets to date, with efficiencies having to be found across a number of portfolios. The budget allocation to Skills Development Scotland (SDS) should be seen in that context.

The SDS budget allocation includes Grant in-Aid for programme delivery and programme liabilities, which fluctuate depending on the numbers of people in training. The allocation also covers operational and staffing costs.

In 2021-22, the SDS budget allocation included around £8m for the continued delivery of programmes created as a response to COVID-19 which we do not expect will be continuing at the same levels in 2022/23.

We are working with SDS to finalise the details of their budget approach in 2022-23. This will ensure continued provision against Ministerial priorities and prioritise the delivery of training and learning opportunities.

We recognise that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on our NHS including diabetes services. We took the opportunity to reflect on these challenges as we determined the priorities for our Diabetes Improvement Plan refresh, which was published in February 2021.

On 25 August 2021 we launched our NHS Recovery Plan which is backed by more than £1bn of investment over the next five years. The plan takes forward our aim of increasing NHS capacity by at least 10% as quickly as possible in order to address the backlog of care and meet the ongoing healthcare needs for people across the country.

We know this is a difficult time for travel agents and we have had to make tough decisions to target funding to sectors immediately impacted by the updated public health guidance.

Since the start of the pandemic, businesses have benefitted from more than £4.4bn in support from the Scottish Government. This includes support for travel agents who benefited from sectoral grants of up to £25,000 per premises this year in addition to other support including the Strategic Framework Business Fund grants, Restart Grants, Contingency Fund, Non-Domestic Rates relief and furlough payments for staff.

We recently announced £375m of support for businesses impacted by the necessary public health measures introduced to control the spread of Omicron and have provided details on how £276 million of this will be allocated. Decisions on the allocation of the remaining funds will be confirmed following further consultation with affected sectors on how it can best be targeted.

The Scottish Government used a range of sources of evidence when determining the latest isolation policy changes including data on various key aspects of the pandemic including vaccination rates; clinical advice from senior clinicians including the Chief Medical Officer, PHS public health clinicians, the National Incident Management Team and UKHSA analysis.

In addition, the Scottish Government considered the effects on key workforces and service, including health and social care, of retaining the same isolation policy.

Operation Wingspan, a Police Scotland led partnership operation which ran from October 2020 – October 2021, was a year-long commitment to raising awareness of wildlife crime priorities, including hare coursing. Police Scotland also contributed to Operation Galileo in 2021, a UK wide hare coursing operation.

In the summer and autumn months of 2021, Police Scotland wildlife crime operations focused on hare coursing and poaching. This included a social media campaign, work with key stakeholders and awareness raising with local police stations.

Police Scotland is providing relevant training to 60 existing police officers which will enable them to undertake Wildlife Crime Officer duties on a part-time basis, ancillary to their core role.

A number of actions were taken in the Mid Scotland and Fife region including information on hare coursing being distributed to the farming community encouraging members to report incidents of hare coursing and advising them how to note key evidence in a safe manner. Wildlife crime officers and roads policing officers also conducted intelligence-led stops of vehicles and proactive patrols of hare coursing hot spots.

The Scottish Government provides a range of centrally funded procurement best practice tools that are continually updated to reflect changes in legislation (such as VAT), introduction of new policy outcomes (such as Climate Change, Fair Work, Innovation and Prompt Payment) and improvements across procurement processes and procedures (such as Contract and Supplier management). Both the Procurement Journey and the Supplier Journey have been refreshed after wide consultation with public sector buyers and suppliers and are extensively used, not only by public sector buyers and suppliers across Scotland, but across the rest of the UK and internationally. The Procurement and Commercial Improvement Plan (PCIP), which assesses public sector bodies procurement capability and capacity, has been through an extensive review phase, with public sector buyers, to ensure that it includes enhanced support and guidance that promotes best practice procurement standards.