Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is reviewing options in relation to collecting data on secondary breast cancer in Scotland. This includes consideration of the NHS England audit, data available in Scotland, clinical time required, other cancer data priorities and how it can be used to improve services.

The Scottish Government has followed the publication of the National Audit of Metastatic Breast Cancer for England and Wales with interest. We are working with Public Health Scotland to determine our options for future data collection on metastatic breast cancer and its publication.

In 2023-2024 a total of £83.146 million was spent and a total of 1,498 affordable homes were delivered through the National Acquisition Programme (NAP). The following table provides a breakdown of these figures by local authority area.

Due to the nature of the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP), projects may draw down grant across multiple financial years. Spend, therefore, does not necessarily directly correlate to the number of homes delivered in the same financial year, as homes are only recorded as complete once a project record has fully completed.

Of the £83.146 million spent a total of £9.587 million was spent on projects to be initially used by Ukrainian displaced persons and later returned to be used within the wider social housing supply after a period of up to 3 years.

The Scottish Government believes that the Post Office Horizon scandal is a unique situation requiring urgent action to ensure those wrongly convicted can finally access justice. Whilst the determination of innocence or guilt in criminal cases is usually rightly a matter for the judiciary, the situation arising is unprecedented in its scale and nature.

The Scottish Government can confirm that a Bill is currently going through the usual parliamentary process and will be introduced shortly.

The Scottish Bill will need to be passed after the UK Bill has been passed, to take account of any amendments made during passage at Westminster. This is to ensure full compatibility with UK legislation and the UK compensation scheme, in which the Scottish parliament has no locus, as we do not want to see anything that could lead to sub-postmasters not being treated on and equal and fair basis.

While we know many public services are facing increasing pressures, long waits for neurodevelopmental support are unacceptable. We expect that those with ADHD should receive appropriate treatment and support as soon as possible. However, we are aware there has been a significant increase in people seeking a diagnosis and requiring support for their neurodivergence and this is creating challenges for a range of services.

We are working closely with NHS Health Boards and Local Authorities to improve services and support for children and young people and their families, including by providing over £1 million to support five pilots to implement targeted aspects of the National Neurodevelopmental Specification and £55.5 million to Health Boards in 2023-24 to improve the quality and delivery of mental health and psychological services for all, including neurodevelopmental services.

For adult support, the Scottish Government commissioned a feasibility study into a National Clinical ADHD Pathway. The final report of this study was published in 2021 and found that a multi-disciplinary neurodevelopmental approach, inclusive of ADHD, was needed. In response to this finding the Scottish Government provided funding for adult neurodevelopmental pathway trials.

Following the adult neurodevelopmental pilots, a final report was published in March 2023 outlining what is required to provide a multi-disciplinary neurodevelopmental approach across Scotland. The Scottish Government has accepted the recommendations and we are working with the National Autism Implementation Team on implementation.

The Scottish Government has commissioned work through NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and the National Autism Implementation Team to provide a range of professional learning about ADHD and neurodevelopmental conditions at informed, enhanced, specialist and expert levels (according to the NES framework). These can be found on the Turas page (NHS Education for Scotland’s unified training platform) and accessed by the workforce in the future.

All training opportunities have been very popular, and where places have been limited have been oversubscribed. NES have worked closely with colleagues in health boards to identify the most appropriate staff to attend training in these instances. These opportunities have included training in specific assessment tools, webinars on ADHD assessment and support and workshops for clinical teams to support putting new learning into practice. There has also been professional learning about steps towards becoming a neuro-affirming practitioner and sharing learning and examples of practice developments across disciplines and across the country through networks and events.

The following table shows the resource funding allocated by SG to ILF Scotland annually over the last five years. Resource budget for ILF in 2024-25 is £62,241k. Funding for 2025-26 will be agreed through the annual budget process.

The Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) sets out the Scottish Government’s strategy for delivering fiscal sustainability, the economic and fiscal outlooks for the next five years and key fiscal risks over the medium term.

The MTFS was due to be published on Thursday 30 May. The MTFS was due to published as part of a suite of publications including the draft Tax Strategy, and the Infrastructure Investment Plan Annual report, which will include the reset of the pipeline. However, as a result of the resignation of the previous First Minister these will need to be postponed. This decision was based on several factors, with key policy decisions unable to take place to meet agreed deadlines with the Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC), who were due to provide updated fiscal and economic forecasts alongside the MTFS on 30 May.

We recognise the vital role these documents play in allowing this Parliament to conduct pre-Budget scrutiny and will communicate a new date for publication as soon as possible. We have also asked the SFC to pause work on developing its forecasts, with this recommencing once a new date has been agreed.

There is a known and growing gap when it comes to active travel modes to travel to school between primary and secondary school pupils in Scotland. Sustrans’ Hands Up Scotland Survey, that looks at how pupils travel to school and nursery, shows that in the past 15 years walking and cycling to school are declining when it comes to secondary school pupils, with cycling to school only accounting for around 1% of the total trips and skating/scooting stagnating at around 0.1%.

Whilst walking levels are also declining for primary school children, it is still at a higher level than for secondary school pupils, and cycling and skating/scooting has been increasing with much higher levels than for secondary school pupils (cycling stands at 5-6% of all trips for primary school age pupils).

Since 2021, Cycling Scotland have conducted a cross sectional evaluation of Bikeability Scotland. This evaluation shows that Bikeability Level 2 training has a positive impact on cycling behaviours, knowledge and skills, and that pupils who receive Bikeability training in primary school have higher rates of bike ownership and cycling frequency in Secondary school compared with those who did not receive training.

Maintenance of junction road markings is typically the responsibility of the authority whose road connects with the trunk road. In most cases on the A9 this is the local authority. The exception is acceleration and decelerations lanes, which Transport Scotland maintains. Notwithstanding this, since January 2023, Transport Scotland has collaborated with local authorities to improve junction markings on the A9.

Recent road marking improvements have included:

• A9 Killiecrankie to Faskally Duals,
• A9/B9006 Culloden Road – Inverness,
• A9 Killiecrankie to Drumochter,
• A9 Drumochter to Crubenmore,
• A9 Luncarty Junction Slips.

Bollards are included in an annual cyclic maintenance programme. Our records show maintenance was undertaken between May and September 2023. More recently maintenance commenced in April 2024 with more planned in the coming months.