Chamber and committees

The vast majority of spending on mental health is delivered through NHS board budgets – and this is not directly affected by the Path to Balance reprioritisation. Between the Scottish Government and NHS boards we expect spending on Mental Health to be well in excess of £1.3 billion in financial year 2023-24.

The 2023-24 direct mental health budget of £260.3 million is still more than double the 2020-21 mental health budget of £117.1 million and will support delivery of the new ten-year Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and recently published delivery plan. The Delivery Plan has been produced with affordability and deliverability within that financial envelope as a primary consideration.

The 25-year contract for HMP Kilmarnock under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) for a privately constructed and operationally managed prison expires on 16 March 2024. The decision to bring HMP Kilmarnock into public management and ownership and not to tender for a new private contract was taken in 2021. This is in line with Scottish Government policy that prisons should be owned and managed by the public sector, which has been in place since 2007.

The cost of private sector prison contracts depend on the market conditions at that particular point in time and in order to establish the cost of a new private sector contract for HMP Kilmarnock from 2024 this would have to be put out to tender. In line with Government’s long-running policy on private prisons the decision was made not to put it out to tender.

SPS is working to agree proposals for a transitional operating model, and a target operating model, which is to be adopted within the first year of the prison transferring to the public sector.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) provides advice to NHS Scotland on a ‘once for Scotland’ basis about the value for patients of newly licensed medicines, including innovative cell and gene therapies such as one-off gene-edited treatments for debilitating inherited conditions.

For example, in 2021, the SMC was the first health technology appraisal body in the UK to accept a gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy. This ensures that NHS patients have equal access to innovative medicines that are clinically and cost-effective. The SMC has a transparent and robust process that is fully described on its website.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-22774 on 21 November 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

The other two medicines alluded to in that answer are Orkambi ® , and Symkevi ® .

If any cystic fibrosis medicine is not recommended in the final multiple technology appraisal (MTA) guidance, clinicians in Scotland will be able to request the use of that medicine on a case-by-case basis for individual patients using the Peer Approved Clinical System (PACS) Tier Two process. National guidance explicitly states that Health Boards should not take account of the cost of medicines when considering applications using the PACS Tier Two system.

The 2022 teacher census total was 54,193 teachers, which indicates an increase of 1,946 from the baseline, as measured by the 2019 census.

To inform decisions on future education workforce planning I have commissioned an external modelling and research exercise which will allow all of the issues around workforce planning to be considered holistically and will help ensure we will have an education workforce in place that enables us to progress our commitments to reducing teachers’ class contact time, raising attainment overall, closing the poverty related attainment gap and improving additional support for learning, while delivering maximum value for money during an era where budgets continue to be under pressure as a result of UK Government austerity measures.

Agreed budget savings were announced as part of the Deputy First Minister’s Statement to the Scottish Parliament on 21 November 2023. Further details of savings were included in the ‘Update on 2023-24 In-Year Budget Changes - Letter of 21 November 2023,’ sent to the Finance and Public Administration Committee convenor Kenneth Gibson MSP. A copy of this letter can be found here

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Introduced on 1 July 2020 during the COVID-19 global pandemic, restricted prison issue mobile phones provided those in our care with the ability to maintain contact with family and friends during an extremely difficult and challenging period.

SPS purchased 15,317 mobile phone handsets before the provision was withdrawn on 31 July 2023.

The following table provides the number of SPS issued mobile phone handsets that were confiscated at HMP & YOI Grampian, each month, from when mobile phones were introduced on 1 July 2020 to when the provision was withdrawn on 31 July 2023:

Since 2021, the Scottish Government have provided three permanent CT scanners to support core capacity within Boards, including a mobile CT pod currently stationed in NHS Lothian, which is deployed flexibly to support Boards that require additional capacity. In addition, one further mobile CT and seven mobile MRI scanners are being used across multiple NHS Boards to provide additional capacity during 2023-24.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran has had a mobile MRI scanner throughout 2023-24 to help reduce their waiting lists.

At the end of April 2021, 61.6% patients having an MRI in NHS Ayrshire and Arran were scanned within 6 weeks; in September 2023 this had risen to 86.2% within 6 weeks.

Sheriff Jack Brown is subject to ongoing Fitness for Judicial Office Tribunal proceedings. Under Section 23(6) of the Court Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, Scottish Ministers are obliged to pay such expenses as they consider are reasonably required to be incurred to enable a tribunal to carry out its functions. The Scottish Government will publish costs of the tribunal at the conclusion of the proceedings.

a) The Scottish Government collect data on police recorded crimes. In 2020-21 the police recorded 30,344 crimes of drugs possession, in 2021-22 they recorded 23,747 crimes of drugs possession and in 2022-23 they recorded 22,356 crimes of drugs possession. Scottish Government also publish additional information on Drugs Seizures and Offender Characteristics . The most recent publication contains data relating to the 2020-21 and 2021-22 financial years. Table 4b of this publication (copied below) provides estimated numbers of drug possession crimes by drug classification. The data presented in this table is based on a random sample of cases recorded by the police. As this analysis is based on a sample of police records (rather than all records), the counts presented in the table are estimates. The true value may differ slightly from the findings presented below due to sampling error.

Estimated number of drug possession crimes by drug classification, 2020-21 to 2021-22