Chamber and committees

Violence against women and girls is a devastating violation of human rights and any increase in reports of these types of crimes is concerning.

The Scottish Government has taken robust action to help justice agencies tackle sexual offending by improving and making much clearer the operation of our sexual offence laws, providing the necessary funding to support law enforcement efforts to deal with sexual offending and encouraging more victims of recent and historical cases to come forward so that justice can be achieved.

Our Programme for Government committed to legislating for a statutory right to lifelong anonymity for complainers in sexual offence cases, and a Scottish Government led Governance Group has now been established, comprising key stakeholder interests, to enable progress and detailed consideration of the recommendations within Lord Justice Clerk’s Review Group report on improving the management of sexual offence cases.

Our £100 million three-year commitment to tackling violence against women and girls includes a new Delivering Equally Safe Fund which will direct £38 million to frontline services over the next two years.

This information is not held centrally. Where such services are currently available they are provided at a local level. As set out in the answer to S6W-06718 on 2 March 2022, we are working closely with stakeholders to deliver the Restorative Justice Action Plan, with the aim of making restorative justice services available across Scotland by 2023.

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

We are fully committed to taking action to prevent deaths from non-communicable disease. Work is underway to deliver a range of measures to target harmful health behaviours such as smoking, unhealthy diet and obesity and alcohol misuse.

• We published our out of home action plan in September last year.
• On 03 Feb 2022 we launched our consultation to introduce regulations on the domestic advertising of e-cigarettes.
• We are taking a range of actions to reduce alcohol-related harms including consulting on potential restrictions on alcohol advertising this year, reviewing the level of the minimum unit price and improving health information on product labels.
• Our Programme for Government committed to introduce a Public Health Bill that includes restrictions on unhealthier food and drink promotions during the course of this parliament. Government officials are working on this and other policy proposals for the Bill and will be consulting on them throughout 2022. We will continue to engage stakeholders as proposals develop.
• We are undertaking a range of work to ensure that weight management, alcohol treatment, and smoking cessation services can be accessed when needed.

Where national guidance, including in the form of Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN), does not exist, as in this case, NHS Boards develop guidance using up to date evidence, including NICE guidelines through their existing Board governance structures.

We would expect the information in the updated NICE guideline, NG207, to be used by NHS Boards to assist pregnant women when making decisions about induction of labour.

The Scottish Government published the Initial Plan Framework, the next step in the Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind for Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas Decarbonisation (INTOG) process on 22 February 2022. This document includes the consultation analysis. Individual responses to the consultation, where permitted, will be published on the Scottish Government website.

We absolutely remain committed to our policy position, which remains that public bodies should work with their staff representatives to negotiate no compulsory agreements for 2022-23 where it is practical to do so.

For a new body like ScotRail Trains Ltd, which does not have an existing agreement on no compulsory redundancies, I would expect there to be negotiations on this as part of the Public Sector Pay Policy discussions, which are crucial to the change that is needed as ScotRail comes under Scottish Government control on 1 April 2022.

As set out in the Restorative Justice Action Plan, we have committed to make restorative justice services available across Scotland by 2023 to all those who wish to access it. We are working with stakeholders on creating a ‘hub and spoke’ model for service delivery. This will consist of a National Hub that will have a strategic, oversight role, with services delivered locally via Regional Hubs. The location where facilitated meetings will take place will be determined by the needs of those looking to access the service.

The latest available statistics on NHS Waiting Times published up to 31 December 2021 can be accessed using the link below: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/nhs-waiting-times-stage-of-treatment/

The information requested is not held centrally. We expect all NHS Boards to follow all relevant guidelines in order to avoid unnecessary wastage in medication.

The Scottish Government recognises that inappropriate inhaler technique can lead to medicine wastage and impaired control of a person’s asthma. Review of inhaler technique should form part of a medication review between the individual and their medical professional. This is an important recommendation in the current Scottish Government Quality Prescribing for Respiratory guide and the planned update to this guidance will continue to reinforce this message. As part of the medication review, the appropriateness of the inhalers should be reviewed, which has been shown to reduce wastage and improved treatment.

A search of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Research Database (CaRD) carried out by NCRI at the request of the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) showed the following allocation for CSO funded site-specific brain tumour research by Common Scientific Outline category

Category 1. Biology - total 4.1% /£22,275

Sub-category 1.5: Resources and Infrastructure - £22,275

Category 2. Aetiology

0

Category 3. Prevention

0

Category 4. Early Detection, Diagnosis and Prognosis - total 59.9% /£325,022

Sub-category 4.1: Technology Development and/or Marker Discovery - £67,767

Sub-category 4.2: Technology and/or Marker Evaluation - £134,305

Sub-category 4.4: Resources and Infrastructure Related to Detection, Diagnosis, or Prognosis - £122,950

Category 5. Treatment - total 35.6% / £192,875

Sub-category 5.3: Systemic Therapies - Discovery and Development - £13,928

Sub-category 5.4: Systemic Therapies - Clinical Applications - £48,685

Sub-category 5.7: Resources and Infrastructure Related to Treatment and the Prevention of Recurrence £130,262

Category 6. Cancer Control, Survivorship, and Outcomes Research - total 0.4% / £2,195

Sub-category 6.2: Surveillance - £2,195

In the June 2021 round of the CSO Translational Clinical Studies Committee, the following research project was funded:

Developing representative models of the blood-tumour barrier to enhance drug development for Glioblastoma

Lead Investigator: Prof. Anthony Chalmers / Univeristy of Glasgow / £296,864 TCS2105.pdf (scot.nhs.uk)

This project will be categorised at the next update of the NCRI CaRD (scheduled Summer 2022)