Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is making arrangements to publish the requisite Impact Statements for the Student Mental Health Action Plan very shortly.

This is an operational matter for Skills Development Scotland. I have asked the Chief Executive of SDS, Damien Yeates to write to you outlining these costs.

The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 ("the Act") requires Scottish Ministers to publish a national Good Food Nation Plan. Work on the first iteration of the plan is currently underway. The Scottish Government published a draft of the national Good Food Nation Plan for consultation earlier this year. The analysis of consultation responses has now been published and officials are currently revising the Plan with regard to the consultation responses. The revised Plan will be laid in Scottish Parliament for consideration and comment before final publication.

The Act also requires that relevant authorities (currently defined as health boards and local authorities) must produce their own Good Food Nation Plans and these must be published within 12 months of commencement of section 10 of the Act. Relevant authorities are required to have regard to the content of the national Plan when preparing their own Plans. The Scottish Government's intention is that commencement of section 10 takes place around the time of the publication of the national Good Food Nation Plan.

The Scottish Government’s Public Service Reform (PSR) Programme sets out Scottish Government’s approach to driving efficiency and effectiveness, and to delivering service change to prioritise prevention.

An update on the PSR programme was shared with the Finance and Public Administration Committee in December 2023 and a subsequent update was shared in September 2024. The most recent update sets out the plans for the Public Bodies Programme and details of savings realised and projected from efficiency programmes within Scottish Government such as Single Scottish Estate and the Intelligent Automation Centre of Excellence.

Our Single Scottish Estate, National Collaborative Procurement, Commercial Value for Money and digital programmes are securing cost avoiding and cash releasing savings, expected to reach up to £280 million over a two-year period by the end of 2024-25, with further projected savings of nearly £300 million over the following two financial years to the end of 2026-27. The Scottish Government’s total workforce reduced in both the 2022-23 and 2023-24 financial years by 0.4% and 3.0% respectively, with ongoing monitoring to ensure the workforce is delivering as effectively and efficiently as possible.

In November we have published data on corporate costs from public bodies. This data will support Government and public bodies to work together to drive efficiencies and release resources to the frontline.

The latest Scottish Government labour productivity statistics for Scotland for 2023 show output per hour worked for Government services. The recent Scottish Government publication Public Sector: Economic Overview presents a range of public sector statistics including labour productivity statistics for relevant sectors.

Scottish Government analysts are also stakeholders in the ONS led Public Services Productivity Review. The first phase will look at measurement improvements for England but will also work with devolved administrations to share best practice and identify what data sources would be required to make improvements, with a view to how UK-wide measurement improvements will be incorporated into the national accounts in future. The latest ONS update can be found here.

The Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games will deliver a programme of 10 sports hosted within 4 venues in Glasgow. The programme and location of those sports are still to be finalised but Commonwealth Games Scotland anticipate that approximately 500,000 tickets will be available for sale.

The 2014 Commonwealth Games incorporated a programme of 17 sports across 14 venues in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Carnoustie. A number of those sports were outdoors and free to attend for spectators. Approximately 1.3 million tickets were sold, representing 98% of all tickets available for sale.

The Scottish Government supports the Commonwealth Games Federation’s strategy and the work undertaken by Commonwealth Games Scotland to create a new sustainable model for 2026, which opens up future hosting opportunities to a more diverse range of Commonwealth nations.

NatureScot and Scottish Forestry are currently putting together a project plan to build on the existing Ancient Woodland Inventory to develop the new National Register of Ancient Woodlands. The new National Register of Ancient Woodlands will be an important element of the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy and associated Delivery plan, which was recently published.

The Energy Transition Fund provided £45.3m of funding to the end of financial year 2023-24. A further £8.7m is expected to be provided over financial year 2024-25.

The following table provides a breakdown of the funding provided across the four projects, which are all based in Aberdeen and the North East, supported by the Fund:

The first cohort of 52 ScotGEM students graduated in summer 2022 after completing the four year course. Of these, 45 undertook Foundation training in Scotland with 42 completing their required foundation year 2 (FY2) in August 2024; a small number opted to go less than full time. Of those 42 individuals, 10 have chosen GP training and have taken up GPST 1 posts in Scotland, with two of these in the North which contains the areas denoted by the question, as follows:

a) Highland - 2 trainees

b) Western Isle – 0 trainees

c) Orkney – 0 trainees

d) Shetland – 0 trainees

e) Grampian – 0 trainees

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with partners including Higher Education Institutions, Health Boards, Skills Development Scotland, and the Scottish Funding Council on skills development, employability and widening access to NHS Scotland careers. As part of this work part time, distance learning and earn as you learn models of education, which may benefit rural and island areas, are currently being explored by the Allied Health Professions (AHP) advisory group that oversees the implementation of the AHP Education and Workforce Policy Review recommendations.

The Scottish Government, in collaboration with the Centre for Workforce Supply and the National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care is developing a model of sustained ongoing direct support for employers across health, social care, social work and children’s services in rural and island areas to overcome barriers to recruitment and retention The direct support model will consist of three key elements including a Rural and Island Recruitment Forum, a Living Library and a Recruitment Toolkit.

The 2018 GP contract included a programme of service redesign to ensure that arrangements for GP services better met the needs of the whole system and the needs of communities; it makes no new requirements of remote and rural GP practices. The 2018 GP contract is intended to reduce current risks to practice stability and sustainability by addressing some of the key risk factors relating to rising workload, premises and employment of staff. This in turn intended to make the partnership model more attractive to newer generations of GPs.

The Scottish Government established the Remote & Rural Working Group chaired by Professor Sir Lewis Ritchie in response to the concerns of rural GPs about the 2018 contract. The group produced the Shaping the Future Together report in January 2020 and various actions were undertaken as a result.