Chamber and committees

In the 2023-24 Programme for Government we have committed, as part of developing an approach to fairer funding for the third sector, to deliver improvements in grant-making arrangements, including providing greater clarity and consistency of practice.

We understand that organisations need timely grant decisions and payments in order to reduce financial uncertainty and effectively resource delivery.

In line with the commitment given by the First Minister, we are working, within the context of the Scottish Budget process, to issue notifications of funding arrangements to third sector organisations, as soon as is practicably possible and no later than end of March for funding beginning on 1 April.

There has been 1 fatality as a result of road accidents on the A90 between Dundee (Emmock Roundabout) to Stonehaven, where Slug Road crosses the A90 since 1 April 2021.

Over the past three years, 2020 to 2022, the monthly average sales income per Scottish fishing vessel ranged from £3,000 during 2020 in the under 10 metre fleet, and £295,000 during 2022 in the over 24 metre fleet.

Table 1: Average fishing income per vessel (£’000), Scotland, 2020-2022

Source: Economics of the UK Fishing Fleet 2021 — Seafish and Economics of the Fishing Fleet 2022 — Seafish.

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 2013 broken down by operational area. A map showing these operational areas can be found here . Data between 2007 and 2013 is not available.

The Scottish Government continues to make good progress towards our target of securing 2GW of community and locally owned energy by 2030.

Our Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) has supported communities across Scotland looking to develop local community energy projects.

To date, CARES has advised over 1,000 organisations, offered funding of over £61 million to over 800 projects, and helped support the direct installation of 58.6 MW of renewable energy. This has included supporting a wide range of projects such as community owned wind and hydro, decarbonising community buildings, installing solar PV on faith buildings, developing community action plans, innovation studies, and helping local communities invest in commercial renewable energy projects.

Notably, the CARES Off-Electricity Grid Communities Fund, which will run until March 2024, has supported remote communities to decarbonise and future-proof their existing local independent electrical grids that are not connected to the national electricity grid. Through this fund, we have awarded significant funding to support the Isle of Eigg to increase its renewable energy generation and capacity through the installation of additional solar panels and storage batteries; and Knoydart to support its Network Enhancement project.

I have Ministerial portfolio responsibility for access to new medicines in Scotland. Accordingly, as you know, I met with you on 6 December 2023 together with representatives of Scottish cystic fibrosis (CF) families to listen to their concerns directly.

In addition, the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer (CPO) engages with representatives of Quest for a Cure, a patient group who represent Scottish CF families, and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

The Scottish Government uses a range of measures and sources to consider and report on the impact of the Care Experienced Children and Young People Fund.

Nationally published data, such as the annual Educational Outcomes for Looked after Children is used to consider the impact of this fund. It is encouraging that the latest statistics show an improving position for care experienced children and young people. Whilst real progress has been made, there remains a sizeable gap between the educational outcomes of care experienced children and young people and all pupils. It’s within that context that Scottish Government officials are currently working with local government to develop a long-term approach to improving these outcomes in response to the Promise.

The impact of the Care Experienced Children and Young People Fund is also considered as part of the Evaluation Strategy for the Attainment Scotland Fund 2022 – 2026 . The first annual evaluation plan for 2022-23 , published in February 2023 and, most recently, the SAC Leads Survey Report published 22 September 2023. Evidence from the latter of those shows the Care Experienced Children and Young People Fund is viewed to have supported strategic decision-making to improve attainment or outcomes for care experienced children and young people within respondent local authorities. Dedicated postholders such as Virtual Headteachers were also highlighted for their positive contribution towards joint working and capacity building.

Existing local authority Education Standards and Quality reports (or local equivalent reports) are also used to report on the progress being made with the support of all Attainment Scotland Funding, including the Care Experienced Children and Young People Funding. Within these reports each local authority presents a clear narrative on the extent to which this funding has influenced and supported local approaches to making progress towards identified stretch aims and achieving the mission of the Scottish Attainment Challenge. Many local authorities have also set specific targets for care experienced children and young people in their stretch aims and these are published as part of the aggregated measures .

The National Improvement Framework and Improvement Plan is designed to help us deliver the twin aims of excellence and equity; galvanising efforts and aligning our collective improvement activities across all partners in the education system to address our key priorities. At national level, this Improvement Plan summarises the key evidence and identifies both ongoing and new improvement activity that we will be taking forward or supporting at national level. These plans also play a role in measuring ongoing activity and the impact of this fund.

The Scottish Government remains committed to introducing Land Reform legislation to further improve transparency of land ownership, help ensure large scale land holdings deliver in the public interest, and empower communities by providing more opportunities to own land and have more say in how land in their area is used.

It is important that the proposals in the Bill are robust to address the problems identified and to ensure this we are giving further consideration to measures in the Bill. Land reform is complex, and we are taking time to ensure that we have fully considered all responses to the consultation and subsequent comments from stakeholders.

To allow time for this further consideration and ensure we get the proposals right for introduction, we are planning a slight delay to the introduction of the Bill but it remains a Programme for Government commitment for 2023-24.

The Scottish Government also remains fully committed to ensuring that tenant farmers and small landholders are given equality of opportunity to access the new agricultural support framework. We will ensure that the future four tier agricultural support framework is able to work for all types of land tenure.

The Health and Social Care system continues to face a number of pressures across finance, performance and workforce coming out of the pandemic and meeting high levels of demand across all parts of the system.

The NHS Scotland Support and Intervention Framework is one of the key elements of evidence-based approach to monitoring performance and managing risk across the NHS in Scotland .

All NHS Boards have recently been reviewed against the framework for finance purposes. Four of the 22 NHS Boards now sit at level three of this framework which is the first formal escalation stage. Those Boards are NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Borders, NHS Highland and NHS Orkney.

We will discuss the specific support required for these Boards, as well as across all NHS Boards to support financial sustainability across the system.

We continue to prioritise investment in frontline services, supporting services in the immediate and the essential reform required to deliver sustainable services, providing an increase of £730m (6%) for NHS Boards in 2023-24.

The NHS Scotland National Access Policy states that Health Boards should review reasons why patients may DNA or cancel appointments in order to take necessary steps to address issues and barriers as necessary including what support can be provided by Health Boards to reduce non-attendance. The policy can be found at The NHSScotland National Access Policy - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Public Health Scotland data up to 30 September 2023 showed the Did Not Attend (DNA) rates for New Outpatients has reduced by 1% over the last year - from 7.7% on 30 September 2023 to 6.7% in the most recent quarter. While DNA rates for inpatient and day-cases has been consistently at 0.7% in each quarter over the same period.

We recognise the importance of transparent and regular communication with patients, which is why we have included a standard package of communications that all Health Boards should be providing in the revised Waiting Times Guidance . This includes what patients should expect and their responsibilities while they are waiting for their appointment, test or treatment.