Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government role is to provide frameworks, policies, and resources to enable Scotland’s NHS Boards to deliver healthcare services that meet the needs of their local populations.

The treatment and care of patients is a matter for each individual NHS Board and its for them to determine how they use the resources provided by the Scottish Government to meet the needs and priorities of their local population.

There are no specific provisions for veterans with respect to the costs of dental care and treatment, and individuals must meet existing exemption criteria in order to qualify for free care. Free dental treatment is available for people who are under 26 years of age; pregnant or have given birth in the last 12 months; or in receipt of certain benefits. Veterans do have a fast-track service from General Dental Services to secondary care where referrals are made for conditions requiring secondary care, for example facial trauma requiring maxillo-facial surgery. More information on eligibility for free NHS dental treatment is available on the NHS Inform website.

NHS patients who pay for their treatment pay 80% of the treatment costs, capped at a maximum of £384 per course of treatment. Both enhanced and review NHS dental examinations are free of charge for everyone in Scotland, irrespective of exemption status, however the frequency of examinations is determined by the dentist on individual risk factors. People who are not eligible for free NHS dental treatment but still have difficulty paying NHS charges may qualify for help under the NHS Low Income Scheme. More information on Help with Health Costs can be found at: https://www.nhsinform.scot/care-support-and-rights/health-rights/access/help-with-health-costs#low-income .

Veterans do have a fast-track service from General Dental Services to secondary care when referrals are made, if they have conditions requiring secondary care, for example facial trauma requiring maxillo-facial surgery.

STPR2 (Recommendation 41) recommends that further study work to better understand the benefits, costs and challenges associated with a Sound of Harris fixed link, a Sound of Barra fixed link and a fixed link between Mull and the Scottish mainland is undertaken.

There are currently no plans to revisit any of the fixed link options that did not make it to final consideration during the STPR2 appraisal process. The reason why a particular option did not progress can be found in Appendix G of the Final Technical Report .

Funding allocations for individual universities for each academic year are managed through the SFC. Allocations are made publicly available on the SFC’s website, accessible here: University Indicative Funding Allocations 2024-25 - Scottish Funding Council (sfc.ac.uk)

On the morning of 6 May 2024 there were 192 people under the age of 21 held in the prison estate, and a further 96 aged 21. This population is broken down by index offence group, age group and legal status as defined in the question in the following table.

The age categories as defined expand the population subgroup previously analysed. We have therefore provided age groups (iii).a) the 19-20 age group and (iii).b) 21-year-olds.

The legal status categories provided differ from our normal presentation as specified in the question. The group "(a) remand" includes only untried prisoners, while group "(b) convicted" includes both those serving a sentence and those convicted awaiting sentencing (which would normally be included in the "remand" category in our statistical outputs).

Where individuals in custody are accused or convicted of multiple offences, these are summarised by index offence. This is the offence for which they have received the longest sentence or, where they are on remand, which would on average receive the longest sentence. Some offences cannot be classified in this way because the charges originate in other jurisdictions or because the data required was not available at the time the snapshot was taken.

The Scottish Government, through the Scottish Funding Council, has invested over £120mil in the University Innovation Fund since 2016 to support universities to work collaboratively to exploit their research to improve Scotland’s economy. Funding allocations for universities for each academic year are managed through the Scottish Funding Council and made publicly available on the SFC’s website, accessible here: University Indicative Funding Allocations 2024-25 - Scottish Funding Council (sfc.ac.uk)

The University Innovation Fund is one of the Scottish Funding Council’s core grants designed to support research and knowledge exchange activity across all institutions and is allocated according to a formula developed in consultation with the sector. Therefore Scotland’s 19 universities have received funding each academic year since 2016-17 through the UIF. Individual funding allocations for universities for each academic year are managed through the Scottish Funding Council and made publicly available on the SFC’s website, accessible here: University Indicative Funding Allocations 2024-25 - Scottish Funding Council (sfc.ac.uk)

Final applications to the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund (ScotZEB2) were received in January 2024. An announcement about the outcome of the applications is expected in the near future.

To date, through ScotZEB 1 and the previous two rounds of the Scottish Ultra Low Emissions Bus Scheme, the Scottish Government has provided £113 million capital funding for 548 public service zero emission buses. There are currently no plans to introduce further direct funding programmes for zero emission buses. ScotZEB 2 has been designed to support bus and coach operators, manufacturers, local authorities, financiers and the energy sector to make the market for zero-emission vehicles and infrastructure commercially self-sustaining without further funding from the government.

Unlike previous schemes, school buses, community buses, and tourist and private-hire coaches were eligible for inclusion in ScotZEB 2 in addition to public service buses. ScotZEB 2 was preceded by a market transition scheme in 2022-23 which provided financial support to SMEs to assess their options to decarbonise their vehicles, allowing them to participate in the development of consortia bidding for ScotZEB 2 funding.

The reuse of brownfield, vacant and derelict land is strongly supported through National Planning Framework 4, which was adopted in February 2023. Since then, it has been part of the statutory development plan, influencing planning authorities preparation of local development plans and their decisions on planning applications, with the intention to maximise the use of existing assets. There are no plans to incur additional costs to the public purse by creating another public body to do this work.

The Scottish Vacant and Derelict Land Survey Information Hub will be published soon. It will map out all the sites in the most recent survey, allowing users to easily source more information on vacant and derelict land in their areas.

In 2024/25, an investment of £6.8 million has been committed for projects supporting the reuse of vacant and derelict land through the Vacant and Derelict Land Investment Programme (VDLIP).

The selection of a site and the configuration of wind turbines is a matter for the wind farm developer. This process involves comprehensive analysis to ensure the most suitable placement and design for wind turbines. Developers may have to balance the benefits of a compact site, which can minimise construction cost, and the gains from maximising energy capture from greater separation distances.

Policy 11: Energy of National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) states that potential cumulative impacts are important considerations in the decision-making process. All applications are subject to site-specific assessments.