Chamber and committees

As the Scottish Government has not provided any funding directly to Fife Alcohol Support Service from 2019, no objectives have been set.

However, since 2021, the Corra Foundation has administered the National Drugs Mission Funds to over 300 third sector and grassroots organisations on behalf of the Scottish Government. Fife Alcohol Support Service is a recipient of these funds and details of the projects are available at: Grant holder data - Corra Foundation

The Central Scotland Regional Equality Council (CSREC) is based in Falkirk and is focussed on promoting equality and diversity and fostering good relations amongst ethnic minorities and other communities in Central Scotland. The CSREC was awarded funding in 2020 under the Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) for their ‘One Planet Communities’ project (CCF-6544).

The objectives were as follows:

• Providing Carbon Conversations to 150 people in their community to increase their awareness and understanding of Climate Change and enable them to make informed choices in their buying habits and change to more sustainable consumer behaviour.
• 800 members of the community will develop more sustainable consumer behaviour and save 67.33 tCO2e by participating in 20 monthly pop-up swap shops over the duration of the Project.
• 420 people will save 5.65 tCO2e by diverting clothing and textiles from landfill by learning how to sew and upcycle them into new items.
• 80 people will upcycle 1680 kg of furniture into new pieces and save 3.4 tCO2e.
• 600 people will use the One Planet Communities online hub to learn about sustainable consumption, the effects of textiles and waste on the environment, upcycling skills and where to go for more information and workshops locally in the Forth Valley.
• 1440 people will divert 4.32 tonnes of waste from landfill, and save 15.81 tCO2e via a Community Fridge.

The Scottish Government regularly makes evidence-based representations to the UK Government on reserved tax issues. Alcohol sales are already subject to VAT, whilst any profits made by retailers selling alcohol will be already be subject to Corporation Tax. The Scottish Government, as set out in December’s budget announcement, is exploring the reintroduction of a Public Healthy levy using devolved powers.

The Scottish Government has invested over £34 million since 2018 and this has supported the recruitment and retention of an additional 216.16 whole time equivalent school nurses.

This investment has meant that all Health Boards in Scotland have been able to recruit additional school nurses. Workforce numbers are published quarterly by NHS Education Scotland (NES) in the National NHS Workforce Statistics.

We continue to work with Health Boards to monitor school nursing recruitment and retention and the implementation of the transformed role.

The most recent bulletin on Criminal Proceedings in Scotland covers cases that concluded in court up to the end of March 2022. There are no convictions under Section 56 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 up to this point.

The range of sexual offences that fall under the proposed jurisdiction of the Sexual Offences Court is set out at Schedule 3 of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. This list includes offences such as rape, sexual assault as well as disclosure or threatened disclosure of an intimate photograph or film.

Provided at least one of those offences is included on the indictment, the decision on whether to indict a case to the Sexual Offences Court is for independent prosecutors acting with the delegated authority of the Lord Advocate.

The Court will transform how sexual offence cases are managed within our court system, delivering meaningful and lasting improvements to the experience of victims in these cases.

The Scottish Government regularly makes evidence-based representations to the UK Government on reserved tax issues. Alcohol sales are already subject to VAT, whilst any profits made by retailers selling alcohol will be already be subject to Corporation Tax. The Scottish Government, as set out in December’s budget announcement, is exploring the reintroduction of a Public Healthy levy using devolved powers.

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring funding is distributed equitably across the country as set out in the 2021-22 Programme for Government. The existing National Resource Allocation Formula (NRAC) is updated on an ongoing basis for a range of factors including population demographics, relative health needs and remote and rural factors. We will continue to assess the need for a more detailed review of the formula, in line with developments in National Care Service funding and Integration reform.

The formula is inherently complex and the review will take time. However, work to determine how the review should be taken forward is underway, with initial meetings of the Technical Advisory Group on Resource Allocation (TAGRA) having taken place, considering the next steps to determine scope and timing of the review.

Further work is required prior to confirmation of a timeline for the publication of the updated formula.

Undertaking a health capital investment project is an iterative process and estimating the cost and completion date is a complex exercise and we did not identify individual budgets and completion dates when the programme of investment was originally announced.

Since then, additional projects have been added to the programme and we have experienced unprecedented levels of inflation in the construction sector which makes comparison of costs and completion dates difficult.

The latest position for all projects is noted in the following table:

While we work with Boards through planning to make best use of existing NHS resources and capacity, we will continue to use the private sector in a structured and prioritised manner. As we deliver new, better and more sustainable ways of delivering services to improve access for patients, we expect the need for private sector capacity to lessen. It is for local NHS Health Boards to determine how they use the private sector and to agree any contractual arrangements.

In 2022/23, total spend on use of the private sector in NHS Scotland represented just 0.7% (£116m) of the total frontline health budget, while in England, it was 6.5% (£11.5bn) of the Department of Health Budget.

Public Health Scotland’s Annual Acute hospital activity and NHS beds information provides information on non-NHS providers; NHS patients treated in non-NHS locations such as private hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, care homes etc. PHS's latest publication, covering 2022-23 shows that there were 2,958 consultant-led outpatient appointments performed by non-NHS providers in 2022-23, or 0.08% of the total that year (3,928,597) Table 1 – Outpatient Activity. During this period figures for new outpatient appointments are 1,988 by non-NHS providers out of 1,273,588 in total (0.16%), involving 1,943 new patients out of a total of 964,316 new patients. There were also 4,962 Continuous Inpatient Stays in non-NHS hospitals out of a total of 1,092,413 (0.45%). This involved 4,779 patients out of a total of 631,731 patients (0.76%) Table 2 – Inpatient and day case activity .