Chamber and committees

Public Health Scotland's weekly respiratory report indicates that up to week 42 (week ending 24th October 2021) a total of 944,989 individuals, among different eligible cohorts, have received influenza vaccine. This season a combination of data recording systems has been used to generate the influenza vaccine uptake data as part of the Vaccine Transformation Programme (VTP) and the adoption of new systems for the scheduling, booking and recording of influenza vaccination. Thus, the data presented for season 2021-22 are not directly comparable to influenza vaccine uptake in previous seasons.

Although it is not possible to directly compare with previous seasons, the data indicated that the overall influenza vaccine uptake for Scotland in 2020-21 was higher than 2019-20 season in most eligible cohorts; notably for those aged 65 years and over with an overall uptake of 79.7 % compared to 74 % in the 2019-20.

The cost of funding a Scottish domiciled student from entry to university through to graduation is set out in the first table. The cost of funding a student from the Rest of the UK (RUK) from entry to university through to graduation is set out in the second table.

The COVID-19 booster will be administered by both Health Boards and GP practices. Health Boards will seek to make best use of their locally available resources when planning delivery whilst being mindful of the need to protect core GP services.

The Scottish Government aim to respond to all ministerial correspondence within 20 working days. Correspondence from MSPs to Scottish Ministers is routinely answered by a Cabinet Secretary or Minister.

Correspondence from MSPs should routinely be answered by Scottish Government Cabinet Secretaries and Ministers. The Health and Social Care portfolio has experienced a huge and unprecedented increase in correspondence over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has impacted particularly on the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport. The pandemic saw a 2700% increase in volume of correspondence for these portfolios and the two portfolios combined currently deal with 49% of all correspondence across the Scottish Government.

To enable MSPs to receive timely responses in these exceptional circumstances, much of the correspondence previously signed by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport is being reviewed on their behalf by Scottish Government Deputy Directors. This arrangement is under continuous review and Ministerial Responses will resume as soon as volume and circumstances allow. The Scottish Government will keep MSPs informed of any further changes to this process.

On the week commencing 25 October we launched booster campaign activity to support those aged between 60 and 69 and those 16+ with an ongoing health condition who have started to receive their COVID-19 Vaccine Booster appointments.

The main element of the media campaign which includes TV, Radio, Press, Digital and PR activity started 1 November with a generic call to action.

From 15 November, all media activity will direct target audiences to the appointment booking portal. This campaign is covering 91% of the adult population with an average opportunity to see/hear of 21.

The campaign was supported by a wide range of other communications and engagement activity to raise awareness and encourage uptake in the general population as well as specific groups.

The Scottish Government is working closely with colleagues within the Northern Ireland Executive to establish data feeds that will allow for the automatic exchange of vaccination information between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

People can request proof of the dose or doses received from Northern Ireland. Work is underway to enable people to upload evidence of their doses to NHS Inform and access a vaccine certificate. This upload was completed on 30 September 2021.

People can now update their record of vaccination in Scotland with Covid-19 vaccinations received out-with Scotland, but within the Common Travel Area. More information on how to do this can be found at Request an update to your coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination record | The coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine (nhsinform.scot) .

For the purpose of vaccine certification, we accept proof of vaccination from Northern Ireland.

There is no formal right to request an appeal under the Rural Payments (Appeals) (Scotland) Regulation 2015 as these do not apply to the rejection of an application for a contract. If applicants query the reason for the rejection of an application then local staff will consider this informally but numbers of these are not recorded. The number of applications recorded as rejected in each Scheme year for the Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme is provided in the following table for information.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a globally respected organisation and the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the world’s most comprehensive data resource on the status of species. The List does not however, include all Scottish species and for most of those that are included, assessments are for Great Britain as a whole.

In addition to Red List accounts, NatureScot also considers other factors when providing advice on priority setting, including information on species’ status in Scotland, as well as social and economic factors. This enables the inclusion of species for which there are not yet IUCN assessments available, and allows the Scottish Government to respond to new threats that may not yet be recognised in the Red Lists, which are typically updated every 10 years.

We have reviewed the border health measures closely over the last 28 days and have assessed that there continues to be a requirement for the regulations to remain in place to reduce the risk of imported transmission and safeguard public health in Scotland. The regulations continue to be an important and proportionate part of the Scottish Government response to managing the pandemic. As we have done throughout the pandemic, we will continue discussions with UK Government and the other devolved administrations and continue to seek to take a four-nations approach to future changes to regulations and the travel regime.