Chamber and committees

The Clyde Marine Planning Partnership (CMPP) are currently undertaking a governance review including the make-up of the CMPP Board. This process is ongoing and is yet to conclude. When and if changes are agreed and adopted by the partnership, they will notify Scottish Ministers of these as soon as reasonably practicable and without delay as per Schedule 1 of the Delegation of Functions (Regional Marine Plan for the Scottish Marine Region for the Clyde) Direction 2017. As previously communicated, the CMPP's governance is primarily a matter for the CMPP itself as part of delegated powers and function under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. Current membership is published on the CMPP website: www.clydemarineplan.scot 

Transport Scotland, through its four Trunk Road Operating Companies and five Design Build Finance Operate (DBFO) Concessionaires, is responsible for the management and maintenance of the strategic trunk road network, including motorways.? The repair of potholes on all other roads is the responsibility of the local authorities.

Category 1 potholes are defined within the term maintenance contract as those that present, or could present, an immediate hazard to trunk road users. They are typically detected during driven safety related inspections. The following table shows the number of Category 1 potholes recorded since 2019 for each section of network requested.

We are committed to listening to the needs of people with chronic pain as we deliver the actions in the recently published Pain management service delivery framework: implementation plan update - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . The updated plan includes details on the governance structure for delivery including how we will involve those with lived experience most effectively.

We recognise there is a need to ensure that people with chronic pain themselves are in involved in decision making on services. We will be recruiting additional lived experience representatives to the Pain Management Task Force which oversees implementation of the actions in the plan, including work involving the Scottish National Residential Pain Management Programme.

We are engaging with the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and other stakeholders, to ensure that the issues identified and recommendations made in the recent ‘State of Nation: the Psychiatric Workforce in Scotland’ report are considered as part of our ongoing work to implement the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan.

As part of work already underway, we have established a Psychiatry Working Group to consider how we can better support the recruitment and retention of psychiatrists in NHS Scotland. This Working Group are actively considering the issues raised in this report.

In addition to this, in 2022-23 we increased the number of Core Psychiatry training places by a further ten. This year we will fund another 15 Core Psychiatry training places. We also continue to work with NES and the Royal College of Psychiatry to encourage medical students to consider a long-term career as a psychiatrist.

The most recent publication of Mental Health Workforce data (5 December) shows that under this Government and since 2007, the number of Psychiatric Consultants across All Specialities in NHS Scotland has increased by 18.6% to 535.5 whole time equivalent posts.

From Academic Year 2023-24 all students who meet the following criteria will be eligible for home fees status and student financial support in Further Education and Higher Education:

Ordinarily resident in the UK for three years prior to the relevant date;

Ordinarily resident in Scotland on the relevant date; and

Granted a form of leave to enter or remain in the UK, where that leave has not expired.

In the case where a student is instead ordinarily resident in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, but satisfies the remaining criteria, they would be expected to qualify for the “rest of UK” tuition fee rate of up to £9,250 per year. As the British National (Overseas) visa would be considered a form of leave to enter or remain in the UK, I would consider a student in the situation described likely to be eligible for the “rest of UK” tuition fee rate.

It is, however, the responsibility for each university and college, as autonomous bodies, to make a determination regarding a student’s fee status based on the available evidence and their interpretation of student support regulations.

The Scottish Government provides over £2m of our Equality and Human Rights Fund to older people’s organisations to deliver work focused on tackling inequality and enable older people to live independent and fulfilling lives. These organisations deliver work to highlight abuse and neglect of older people, offering advice and help.

The concept of elder abuse is very broad. The World Health Organisation has defined it as ‘a single or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person' ( Elder abuse (who.int) ). The Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007 is designed to protect people; aged 16 years and over who are unable to safeguard their own well-being, property, rights or other interests; are at risk of harm; and, because they are affected by disability, mental disorder, illness or physical or mental infirmity, are more vulnerable to being harmed than adults who are not so affected.

While the Scottish Government doesn’t hold information on elder abuse, specifically, it does hold information on adults at risk of harm (or who have been harmed) by age; where an Adult Support and Protection investigation commenced. The figures, along with many data quality issues explained, were published on our website on 9 May 2023. The release indicated that, in 2021-22, about 40% of those subject to an ASP investigation were over the age of 75 (15% were men and 25% were women). These figures are national estimates due to differing local processes.

In addition, there are a number of data developments aimed at strengthening the information available, including:

• The Scottish Government has developed an improvement plan for adult support and protection which includes reviewing current ASP data to develop more robust, meaningful and comparable data. The review and development of an ASP minimum dataset is being taken forward by The Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (IRISS). The minimum dataset will provide a clearer picture of Adult Support and Protection in Scotland.
• The Official Statistics on police recorded crime and criminal proceedings do not include details on whether the victim was an older person, or their relationship to the perpetrator. However, the new crime system will allow crime stats by victim age, therefore a measure of recorded crimes against older people.
• The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey are developing a new Fraud and Computer Misuse module. This module will help estimate the prevalence of victimisation from these crimes in Scotland for the first time and will allow for a breakdown by age.
• The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 requires information about police recorded hate crime and convictions data to be published annually, and with greater detail where known. When the Act comes into force it will, for the first time, introduce new protections against offences aggravated by prejudice towards a person’s age.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council’s mid-year registration data report covers a six-month period and reflects those with a Scottish address who have registered, it does not indicate actual employment in Scotland’s health sector. The report itself therefore cannot be used as a true reflection of recruitment in Scotland.

Whilst the report shows a 22% increase in registration in Scotland compared to a 27.7% increase in registration across the UK in the last six months relative to the same period last year, nursing and midwifery levels per head of population show that we have 8.4 qualified Nurses and Midwives per 1,000 population, compared to 6.3 in England, 8.2 in Wales and 9.1 in Northern Island. This means nursing and midwifery levels are 32% higher, per head of population in Scotland than in England. Overall Nursing and Midwifery staffing in Scotland is at a record high and remains the best paid across the UK.

The Scottish Government announced the delay to the next Climate Change Plan on 7 November 2023 and confirmed their commitment to bringing forward a draft plan in line with statutory deadlines which require a final version of the next Climate Change Plan to be laid in Parliament in March 2025. Parliamentary scrutiny of the draft plan, lasting 120 days, will be built into this timeline with public consultation planned to take place in parallel.

The Scottish Government commissioned NHS Education Scotland (NES) to develop and run the National Digital Platform. The following table details spend incurred by NES by financial year on the design, development, and support for the National Digital Platform (NDP) since the initial commission in 2018.

We recognise the significant impact on people, businesses and communities in areas affected by storm Babet. The Scottish Government is committed to playing its part in helping them through this horrible experience which has destroyed so many people’s property and belongings and established the Storm Babet Ministerial Taskforce to co-ordinate its support for local recovery efforts.

The package of support Scottish Government is providing includes Flood Recovery Grants to assist people whose homes and businesses have been flooded; initiating the Bellwin Scheme to help all Councils cover eligible expenditure for urgent repairs; grants for farmers affected by severe flooding in parts of Scotland to help repair man-made flood banks; and an additional £100,000 for Angus Council’s homelessness prevention efforts to help those families who have lost everything to resettle and rebuild their lives.

Letters offering additional funding have been supplied to each Storm Babet local authority within the red warning area for rain. Residents and businesses impacted can claim grants of £1,500 for damage to their homes and property, businesses can claim £3,000, and should contact their Local Authority for advice.

Details on the Flood Recovery Grants were posted on social media and published on the Scottish Government website on 30 November 2023. The grants and information on how to apply were also publicised on Local Authority websites.