Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government did not request that any Covid-19-related funding be returned by Health Boards to Scottish Government in the financial year 2022-23. All funding available across the Health and Social Care Sector was used to support the Covid-19 efforts and move Covid-19 funding to business as usual to support the recovery from the pandemic.

No analysis has been carried out in respect of housing or other specific future land uses for unquantifiable potential surplus land and estate disposals. The Scottish Government is required by the Scottish Public Finance Manual to demonstrate best value. In doing so, it continually keeps its estate requirements under review to ensure that staff have the right places to work delivering services to the people of Scotland. Where any Scottish Government owned land or estate is released all options for demonstrating best value in doing so are considered on a case-by case basis.

This information is not held centrally. We do not hold the information that would allow us to identify the reason for an ophthalmology patient to receive treatment in Glasgow.

The table below provides information on the number of inpatient and daycase hospital admissions to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde for patients residents in NHS Lothian, NHS Borders and NHS Fife and for the specialty of ophthalmology only, for the past three financial years.

Table 1: Number of inpatient and daycase hospital admissions to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde for patients residents in NHS Lothian, NHS Borders and NHS Fife and for the specialty of ophthalmology only, from April 2020 to March 2023.

We will set out our approach in the Housing Bill when this is published, which will be according to the vision and principles set out in our New Deal for Tenants consultation published in December 2021.

The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 sets out that upon the ending of the emergency rent cap, we will introduce temporary measures to support an appropriate transition in order to prevent tenants potentially facing unmanageable rent increases from 1 April 2024.

Over and above this, it is important to bear in mind that prior to the introduction of the emergency measures, private tenants in Scotland already benefitted from some of the strongest protections in the UK. This included landlords only being able to increase rents once in a 12 month period, and the requirement that tenants’ be provided with at least three months’ advance notice of that increase, giving them time to prepare and make necessary arrangements where appropriate.

It is vitally important that tenants are made aware of both the temporary transitional measures that will be put in place, and existing rights afforded to them by the Private Residential Tenancy. Therefore, a key part of our work in advance of the emergency Act coming to an end, will be to raise awareness of those rights with private tenants as we support a transition away from the temporary rent cap and look towards the introduction of long-term rent control via the next Housing Bill.

The Scottish Government does not collect data on the number of people who have applied for free personal care packages but have not received it.

However, numbers of people who have received a personal care package are published as part of the latest statistical release on Free Personal and Nursing Care (2022-23) and are broken down by local authority area here: Supporting documents - Free Personal and Nursing Care, Scotland, 2022-23 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

We recognise in the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and the Workforce Action Plan that counsellors and psychotherapists are part of the core mental health and wellbeing workforce and that they have a critical role in delivering the Strategy.

The Strategy, Delivery Plan and Workforce Action Plan were developed in consultation with a large number of stakeholders including representatives of counselling and psychotherapy such as British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), Counselling and Psychotherapy in Scotland (COSCA) and the British Psychological Society.

Throughout the implementation of the Strategy’s Delivery and Workforce Action Plans, officials will continue to liaise with key stakeholders and consider relevant frameworks to ensure best practices are shared.

Recruitment and training of registered mental health professionals is a matter for employers such as NHS boards and Local Authorities. These bodies make informed decisions about recruiting counsellors and psychotherapists or training new mental health practitioners, according to the needs of local service providers and working with relevant professional bodies. The Scottish Government expects employers to apply standards and frameworks which are appropriate to the specialism being recruited for.

South Lanarkshire Council was last directly contacted on 25 October, in regards to their road assessment for 20 mph speed limits. In addition a representative from South Lanarkshire Council was present at the 20 mph task group meeting, held on 2 November. They were updated by email on 11 December on the most effective route to implement national 20 mph speed limits by 2025.

No decision on the procurement route for the Small Vessel Replacement Programme has been taken as work on the Outline Business Case is ongoing. Ministers will update the Scottish Parliament once this work is complete and a decision has been taken.

Our Programme for Government published in September 2023 recommitted to the introduction of a Housing Bill this parliamentary year, to include the introduction of long-term rent controls for the Private Rented Sector.