Chamber and committees

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Act 2010 prohibits the display of tobacco related products inside retailer premises. No advertising of branded tobacco products is permitted either inside or outside a premise but stores are allowed to have generic, unbranded signs stating they sell tobacco on in-store gantries, and outside of buildings, however the latter is actively discouraged.

Any concerns around the compliance of a particular premises with Scottish law should be directed to the local authority. The Scottish Government provide funding of £1.34 million annually to councils for the enforcement of the legislation around the sale and purchase of tobacco and NVP’s. Local authority trading standards services treat the enforcement of legislation as a high priority issue.

The 2022-23 Scottish Budget delivers record funding of £18 billion for the health portfolio to support our vital health and care services, including those services that are supporting the needs of people living with long COVID, chronic fatigue syndromes and chronic pain.

We have published ‘Scotland's long COVID service’, which sets out our approach and 16 commitments to improve care and support for people with long COVID in Scotland.

In addition, our £10million ‘long COVID Support Fund’ will provide NHS Boards with additional resource to respond in a flexible and tailored manner to the needs of people with long COVID.

In light of the final National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome ME/CFS being published, we are pleased to confirm that a formal stakeholder consultation project will begin in early 2022. The main focus of this is to work collaboratively with key stakeholders towards implementing the recommendations within these guidelines, in Scotland.

We are continuing to work with Health Boards to ensure the remobilisation of appropriate pain management support as quickly and as safely as possible. As part of this we providing funding to enhance the capacity of pain management care through the Chronic Pain Winter Support Fund. We will shortly announce the outcome of this funding call. The projects we fund will boost the support available for people with chronic pain at the national and local level to help them maintain their health and wellbeing over the months ahead.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has carried out a case note review in regards to the care of Andrew Slorance.

NHS Lothian have subsequently been commissioned to undertake an independent external peer review into the care of Andrew Slorance, which will be facilitated by 7 clinicians and published once key individuals have been informed.

A key component to freeing up bed capacity in our hospitals this winter is to reduce the level of delayed discharge and strengthen community services to help avoid acute admissions and maximise capacity. To support this, we are providing £300 million to bolster the workforce and help get people the care they need as quickly as possible this winter. Controlling Covid admissions will also be vital to freeing up hospital beds and helping those who are working so hard in the NHS and social care to keep us safe

We continue to work with NHS Boards and their partners to implement their winter plans which includes increasing the number of staffed beds available. Recruitment for this is underway across acute and community services to ensure best use of available resource.

In November I announced additional winter funding of £10 million for Health Boards to ensure resilience over winter. This funding will be targeted towards enhancing local teams. For example, the deployment of expert physio and occupational therapy staff at A&E units to help triage people best treated elsewhere.

Additionally, as part of our winter plan we’re providing boards with £10 million for two new specialist programmes which will speed up the hospital discharge process or provide an alternative to hospital care altogether.

A list of the NatureScot Better Places Fund recipients can be found on its website using the link below. It includes both recipients of the first round of the Better Places Fund in 2020-21, a NatureScot initiative, and a second round of funding in 2021-22.

Better Places Green Recovery Fund - Closed for applications | NatureScot

This second round of funding was provided by the Scottish Government specifically to support communities, local authorities and public bodies as they prepared for the 2021 season.

In total the £3.2m fund has supported 125 projects including 75 ranger posts, 54 visitor operatives and infrastructure such as advisory signage, recycling litter bins, temporary toilets, over-flow parking areas, car park upgrades and other developments.

Projects have covered a variety of locations across the majority of the country.

The Scottish Government currently forecasts a balanced resource budget position by the end of 2021-22.

The £200 million of additional Covid support for Business’s and for Self Isolation Support Grants announced by the First Minister on 14 December 2021 has been reprioritised from existing budgets.

The 2022-23 Scottish Budget assumes £179 million of capital and financial transactions will be made available for carry-forward in 2021-22 through the Scotland Reserve.

There is no legislative or other provisions which specifies timescales within which inspections must take place. The HM Chief Inspector of Education agrees on an annual basis with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills the scale and priorities of the inspection programme.

Schools are selected for inspection each year on a proportionate basis, using a sampling approach and predetermined set criteria rather than a cyclical approach. Therefore there is no set time between full inspections.

The criteria for selecting a school for inspection takes account of the context and characteristics of the school, the type of school, deprivation and balance across local authorities. Other factors include local circumstances as well as the length of time since the last inspection.

Education Scotland has strengthened its scrutiny functions and prior to COVID-19 had increased the number of school inspections carried out in each academic year. Routine inspections of early learning and childcare settings and schools have been paused since March 2020 as a result of the impact of COVID-19. On 3 December 2021, the HM Chief Inspector of Education announced that taking stakeholder views into account, along with the ongoing challenges settings and schools face dealing with COVID-19, HM Inspectors of Education will not resume routine early learning and childcare and school inspections in January 2022 as originally planned.

HM Inspectors of Education will continue to keep plans to resume the routine programme of inspections under review to changing circumstances linked to the pandemic.

Routine inspections of early learning and childcare settings and schools have been paused since March 2020 as a result of the impact of COVID-19. HM Inspectors of Education are aware of the ongoing challenges faced by local authority staff, education staff, learners and communities resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Scottish Ministers requested HM Inspectors conduct an inspection of Spark of Genius Harbour Point School in accordance with section 66 (1) of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980. This inspection was carried out in May 2021.

Between January and March 2021, to support and improve the delivery of high-quality and effective remote learning, HM Inspectors of Education developed a national overview of practice of remote learning. During this period HM Inspectors of Education engaged with all 32 local authorities and 474 schools. They also reached 12,105 parents and 2,667 learners through surveys. This resulted in 12 weekly National Overview of Practice Reports publishing between January and April 2021.

In March to April 2021 HM Inspectors of Education undertook a national review of local authority approaches to quality assurance as part of the Alternative Certification Model. This review was to ensure that the range of measures being undertaken by local authorities ensured that the approach to certification delivered for young people across Scotland. As part of this review, HM Inspectors of Education engaged with all 32 local authorities, headteachers, SQA co-ordinators, teachers and representatives of professional associations. This national review was published on the Education Scotland website.

On 3 December 2021, the HM Chief Inspector of Education announced that taking stakeholder views into account, along with the ongoing challenges settings and schools face dealing with COVID-19, HM Inspectors of Education will not resume routine early learning and childcare and school inspections in January 2022 as originally planned.

Between September and December 2021, HM Inspectors of Education visited over 200 schools and services. This included visits to establishments and services that were due to have a further inspection or as part of national thematic inspections.

For visits, HM Inspectors of Education will follow public health and local authority guidance complying with the COVID-19 mitigations for each establishment. Plans are continually reviewed and are linked with public health guidance and local circumstances.

From February 2022, if COVID-19 conditions have improved, HM Inspectors of Education will carry out ‘recovery focus’ visits to engage with a selection of early learning and childcare settings and schools to support the education sector as it continues to respond to the impact of the current pandemic. HM Inspectors of Education will continue to keep plans under review to changing circumstances linked to the pandemic.