Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is investing over £2.5 million in 2024-25 to support the mental health and wellbeing of health and care staff, reaffirming its commitment to their invaluable work. These resources include confidential mental health treatment through the Workforce Specialist Service and access to psychological therapies and interventions. Prioritising these treatment and therapeutic programmes reflects our commitment to offer care and support to those staff suffering from burnout, stress, anxiety and other conditions.

To ensure wellbeing support and advice is accessible to staff across Scotland, the National Wellbeing Hub offers a range of self-care wellbeing resources and signposting to relevant mental health and support services. Further, the National Wellbeing Helpline delivered by NHS 24 provides a 24/7 compassionate listening service which is available to all health and social care staff.

Specifically for healthcare workers in rural regions, Scottish Government are supporting the delivery of a pilot of online monthly reflective groups aimed at supporting GPs working in rural communities. These groups will provide participating GPs with a facilitated, confidential environment to connect with peers, to explore and receive support on any of the challenges they face in their work as a GP. To support the sustainability of this career enhancing activity, Scottish Government is also supporting the delivery of reflective practice groups facilitator training due to start in early 2025.

The Scottish Government supports the Healthy Working Lives (HWL) initiative, hosted by Public Health Scotland, which offers a range of materials to support employers on all aspects of work-related health promotion and ill health prevention, return to work and workplace safety.

The Scottish Government, in partnership with Public Health Scotland and See Me, also delivers the Supporting a Mentally Healthy Workplace: National Learning Network for Employers. The network brings together employers of all sizes and across all sectors to share learning and experiences of supporting mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. Over 800 individuals are now engaged with the network.

The Scottish Government also fund Paths for All, a Scottish charity which promotes everyday walking. Paths for All run two national challenges a year in the spring and autumn. The Step Count Challenge (SCC) is a walking challenge for Scottish workplaces, which aims to encourage business to support employees to walk more to improve mental and physical health. In 2023-24, 325 workplaces took part in the spring, autumn and bespoke challenges.

The SPCB strongly advises that all Members and their staff, whether paid or voluntary, complete GDPR training. Each Member, as the data controller, is ultimately responsible for their staff's compliance with UK GDPR and the SPCB provide a variety of resources to help ensure Members are well placed to meet their responsibilities.

The current Acceptable Use of IT Policy does not explicitly apply to Members and their staff, though all Parliament IT account holders are bound by the SPCB's Use of Resources Policy which states that resources, including IT resources, are provided to support parliamentary duties and must not be used to any significant extent for any other purposes.  A revised Acceptable Use of IT policy which will apply to Members and their staff is currently being developed for approval by the SPCB.

Ensuring resilience and capacity to be able to respond effectively to adverse events, including weather, are operational matters for our emergency services.

We continue our commitment to support the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) to deliver the high standard of services required to keep Scotland safe. The draft budget for 2025-26 provides SFRS with an additional £18.8 million in support of front line services, which will bring the total budget to £412.1 million.

It is for the Chief Constable, working with the working with the Scottish Police Authority, to determine how to allocate its budget to meet policing priorities including how adverse events are managed. In 2025-26, the Scottish Government will increase police funding to £1.62 billion to support police capacity and capability. This includes almost £57 million in additional resource funding – an increase of 4% compared to 2024-25 published budget.

In terms of the Scottish Ambulance Service, costs involved in ensuring this resilience and capacity will be covered through the existing operational budget. In 2025-26 NHS Boards will receive record funding of £21 billion. This includes an increase to the Service of more than £88 million, which takes the Scottish Ambulance Service’s overall funding for 2025-26 to £437.2 million.

Information on Ministerial engagements is routinely published on the Scottish Government website and can be found at: Ministerial engagements, travel and gifts - gov.scot

Visits are not recorded by parliamentary region.

Remote and rural communities can be hugely impacted by wildfire incidents, which can cause significant environmental and economic damage. SFRS works closely with a number of key partners to establish a common understanding of the risk, prevention measures, and response procedures to wildfire in Scotland. The Service works closely with land managers, communities and other safety partners to prevent these incidents ever occurring.

SFRS will always maintain fire cover and ensure it continues to attend at every emergency. As a national service, SFRS also has the capacity and flexibility to operate as a network. SFRS has strategically placed wildfire resource capability within the following tiered locations, and these resources can be deployed as a network to support rural areas where required.

Tier 2 Stations

New Galloway, Langholm, Fort Augustus, Kingussie, Aviemore, Kyle of Lochalsh, Fortrose, Gairloch, Dunbeath, Insch, Alyth, Callander, Coldstream, Lauder, Lybster, Balintore, Cromarty, Carrbridge, Newtonmore and Spean Bridge.

Tier 2 Wildfire Stations with 4x4 Support Vans

Alford, Oban, Galashiels and Dornoch.

Tier 3 Stations

Helensburgh, Kilwinning, Ballater, Elgin, Invergordon, Ullapool, Dunblane, Pitlochry, Stornoway and Musselburgh.

Efficient and effective dissemination of wildfire prevention information to the public is key to preventing wildfires. Before igniting any flames in a rural or outdoor setting, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) encourage everyone to check which area of Scotland may be at threat of wildfires. If a threat is in place, the key prevention advice from SFRS is that people should refrain from igniting any flames.

When Scotland is at a high threat of wildfires, SFRS works in partnership with the Scottish Wildfire Forum (SWF), to alert the public and partners to the threat of wildfires by issuing Wildfire Danger Assessments. SFRS issues alerts through its social media channels, its website and local media outlets, and requests assistance from Local Authorities across Scotland to share safety messaging to seek engagement with as many members of public as possible. These warnings detail which areas across Scotland are most likely to be affected. SFRS also alerts the Scottish Government who proactively re-issue these warnings across digital and social media platforms.

The Scottish Government’s Ready Scotland marketing campaign can be activated at any time, using geographically targeted digital and local radio channels to inform the public about forecast extreme weather. In 2023, digital assets were developed for the campaign so that it can also be deployed in any area of Scotland at times of heightened risk of wildfires.

When areas are at risk from severe weather or severe wildfires, the Scottish Government, responder organisations and other resilience partners all work closely to share public safety advice through a variety of channels. Well-established processes are in place to consider the most appropriate methods of communication based on the specific circumstances.

I can confirm that I have written to the Chief Constable to draw the attention of her and her colleagues to the recent range of questions lodged on the use of e-bikes and e-scooters.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s (SFRS) wildfire strategy was created with partnership at its heart. The strategy was launched in 2023 and is supported by a planned spend of around £1.6 million over the course of three years. The strategy considers the increased risk of wildfire and changing climate in Scotland; the latest developments in wildfire management; training and operational procedures; and the advances in technology that have been made in PPE and equipment.

SFRS responds to wildfires using a tiered system that includes latest technology and techniques, such as those in use in new Mediterranean-style specialist wildfire units, to safely bring an incident to a conclusion. The Service’s approach uses 4 Tiers:

• Tier 1 Stations: General first responder firefighting, hose, beaters, water backpacks;
• Tier 2 Stations: Sprinter vans with wildfire suppression and management equipment. This includes leaf blowers, excavation tools, beaters and lighting;
• Tier 3 Stations: Ford Ranger with Polaris All-Terrain Vehicles with fogging lance unit on trailer; and
• Tier 4: Wildfire Tactical Advisors.

In terms of training, all staff are trained to Tier 1. New equipment, PPE and vehicles are being rolled out on a phased and risk assessed basis and while much work in this area has already been delivered, SFRS intends to have fully implemented its wildfire strategy during the course of 2025.

Wildfires in rural communities can burn for days and often involve hundreds of staff and many resources, a large proportion of which are provided by SFRS’s on-call staff in rural communities, to bring these incidents to safe conclusions. This is why SFRS has bolstered its response to these incidents with more specialised equipment located at its network of dedicated fire stations strategically placed to safeguard the public.