Chamber and committees

This information is not collected in the High Rise Inventory.

Establishing an Inner Sound Management Advisory Group was one of the recommendations from a report of 26 February 2020 regarding a pilot scheme proposal for the Inner Sound of Skye.

The landscape surrounding inshore fisheries management has however changed significantly over this two year period, with the publication of a new fisheries management strategy and the marine elements of the Bute House agreement.

Development of inshore fisheries management in Scotland will continue to be channelled through our Regional Inshore Fisheries Groups (RIFGs), including for the waters around Skye. The RIFG network brings fishers together to work with Government, and in partnership, help deliver management that protects the marine environment and supports a strong, sustainable, and resilient fishing industry.

We require projects funded as part of our fuel poverty schemes including Local Authority Area Based Schemes, Warmer Homes Scotland and the Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund to comply with all relevant building regulations, retrofit standards and guarantee requirements. The PAS 2035 standard has applied since July 2021 and retrofit installers must now work to this specification.

PAS 2035 standardises the fabric first approach to retrofit and installation of measures by installers, not the quality or effectiveness of the energy efficiency product measures themselves. As for audits and inspections then these are carried out by TrustMark which is the approval scheme for PAS 2035 and involves 10% desktop audits and 10% onsite audits. The work completed in a property is lodged into the TrustMark Data Warehouse where records of the improvement works are held identifying all aspects of the design and installation with all supporting warranties required for the work. In the event that the standards have not been met then TrustMark working with the Scheme Providers will take the necessary steps to address this through their Operating Framework and deliver remediation and redress where required.. This is also underpinned by access to the Dispute Resolution Ombudsman where disputes need to be escalated.

I have asked SQA to respond:

SQA has not entered into any non-disclosure agreements in the past 5 years. In accordance with the Scottish Public Finance Manual, SQA has entered into settlement agreements and COT3 agreements both of which include a confidentiality clause. A COT3 is a form of settlement agreement which is reached with the assistance of ACAS, usually before a tribunal takes place. The agreements do not under any circumstances prevent an employee from making a protected disclosure under whistleblowing legislation.

Please find below the numbers of settlement agreements and COT3 agreements over the last 5 years.

Looking ahead, we don’t yet know all the products or technologies that will be needed to achieve our climate change targets. However, we are clear that we want a Just Transition, where Scottish-based businesses, their wider supply chains and our local communities understand and benefit from the deliberate shift needed. We want SMEs to be at the heart of this transition, making green products for both the domestic and export markets.

To help facilitate this, the Scottish Government has committed over £2 billion of capital funding over the next parliament to deliver low carbon and natural infrastructure. This includes a number of funds supporting businesses in both making the transition to net zero, as well as supporting them to innovate and improve their green products and services and related research and development. We are already ensuring Scottish SME’s are instrumental in the Scottish Business base. In 2019-2020 the total Scottish public body procurement spend with SMEs was £5.4 billion. This amounts to 46.2% of all spend. 58 pence in every pound spent with suppliers in Scotland in 2019 to 2020 went to an SME.

Looking to the future, the recent ScotWind announcement is one example of ensuring the future investment in our supply chains, that will provide a scale of opportunity for Scotland that will be transformational.

Since May 2020, the Scottish Government has invested over £48 million in our Connecting Scotland programme, which provides people on low incomes with a device, connection with unlimited data for two years, as well as training and support. Since programme launch 60,000 digitally excluded people in total have been brought online. We are now working to scope out an extension to the programme to reach 300,000 people by the end of this Parliament.

The programme is part of our wider package of support to help everyone in Scotland benefit fully from the advantages of the digital world – from broadband connectivity to digital skills training and support for schools and business.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-05400 on 24 January 2022. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Each year since 2010-11, and as demonstrated through the Budget publications, the Scottish Government has delivered its commitment to pass on frontline health consequentials to the Health Portfolio. This refers to resource consequentials arising from increases in funding allocated by HM Treasury to the Department of Health and Social Care.

As the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy has made clear in Parliament, there are some areas of required spend where Covid consequentials have fallen short of expectation. In addition, there are some timing differences between spend in England and equivalent spend in Scotland .

In this context, the Scottish Government has taken steps to align funding from the UK Government with actual spending profiles in Scotland. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy highlighted in her letter to the convenor of the Finance and Public Administration Committee, Covid 19 Financial support Scottish Government update | Scottish Parliament Website , that the Scottish Government has required to repurpose some health consequentials to specifically support wider public health measures. Further detail will be provided in the Spring Budget Revision.

The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people is an absolute priority for the Scottish Government.

Education authorities and schools have a wide range of approaches in place to support pupils’ mental health and wellbeing.

Our refreshed Scottish Attainment Challenge, backed by record investment of £1bn in this Parliament, empowers schools and local authorities to drive education recovery and accelerate progress in tackling the poverty-related attainment gap.

We continue to support our local authority partners with £16 million in funding to ensure that every secondary school has access to counselling services.

The Mental Health in Schools Working Group, established in 2019, has overseen the development of a professional learning resource for school staff, published in June, and guidance to support whole school approaches to mental health, published in August. These resources help school staff respond to the range of mental health and wellbeing concerns that young people may experience.

The Scottish Government also published the Mind yer time and Aye Feel resources which provide sources of support and information for children and young people.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving Mental Health services and the Programme for Government commits to ensuring that by the end of this Parliament, a minimum 10% of frontline NHS spend goes towards mental health, with at least 1% going towards child and adolescent mental health services.

We also remain committed to meet the standard that 90% of children and young people begin treatment within 18 weeks of referral. We have allocated nearly £40m additional funding in 2021-22 to NHS Boards to improve CAMHS from our £120m Recovery and Renewal fund. £4.25m of that allocation is directly focussed on offering treatment to those already on CAMHS waiting lists, with a view to clearing all backlogs by March 2023.

We are closely monitoring those NHS Boards with significant performance challenges and supporting the continuous development of their detailed local improvement plans. The creation of these plans is further supported with direct enhanced support from subject matter experts and the sharing of best practice. This support is centred around and supported by the implementation of the CAMHS national service specification which outlines the expectations of the quality of care that families can expect.

NHS Boards who are receiving this enhanced support have provided trajectories to meet the 90% waiting times standard and we are using these to monitor and drive improvements within CAMHS.