Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has participated in UK government schemes and donated medical supplies to Ukraine. No recent requests have been made to the Scottish Government.

Should further requests be received the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland are ready to play our part and will consider requests to contribute to any such scheme.

As set out in answer S6W-26209 on 19 April 2024, the information requested on how many cancer nurses have been employed in each year since 2011-12, broken down by NHS board area is not centrally available. 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 .

It is for each individual NHS Board to determine how they plan to meet the needs and priorities of their local populations. The Scottish Government is committed to increasing access to diabetes technologies. We are continuing to work with key stakeholders to determine the best way to do this and how to fund it.

Skills Development Scotland provided funding for the delivery of Modern Apprenticeships of £57,133,317 to Independent Learning Providers in 2022-23.

For delivery of Foundation Apprenticeships, Skills Development Scotland provided funding of £1,565,251 to Independent Learning Providers in 2022-23.

In 2022-23 Skills Development Scotland provided Colleges with funding of £11,927,213 for the delivery of Modern Apprenticeships.

In addition, Colleges utilise credits to support the delivery of Modern Apprenticeships. Any credits used by colleges must comply with the Credit Guidance issued by the Scottish Funding Council.

In 2022-23 the Scottish Funding Council and Skills Development Scotland provided Colleges £10,501,763 for the delivery of Foundation Apprenticeships.

In 2023, SG published its Vision for Scotland’s Public Electric Vehicle Charging Network , highlighting the need for a transition towards a public charging network that is largely financed and delivered by the private sector. In late 2024 we will publish an Implementation Plan identifying the key actions be taken to deliver our Vision in response to the UK CCC recommendation.

This Implementation Plan will include a route map for delivering approximately 24,000 additional public charge points by 2030 and will be developed in partnership with key stakeholders who share collective responsibility for delivering public EV charging across Scotland and outline an agreed set of actions to meet Scotland’s needs, including the needs of rural and island communities.

Transport Scotland is not the procuring authority for the Ardrossan Harbour Re-Development Project, this is the responsibility of Peel Ports Group as the statutory harbour authority. Transport Scotland has as part of the design and planning stage; and as part of the business case cost exercise review appointed external consultants to undertake work.

Since 2016 Transport Scotland has appointed Peter Brett Associates for the 2016/2017 STAG report, MacWilliams Consulting for a project gateway review process; Turner and Townsend in 2023 for the cost estimate review and Morton Fraser MacRoberts (previously MacRoberts Solicitors) in relation to the work on the legal and commercial agreements which are ongoing.

In the last three years, the Scottish Government has invested £19.6 million of additional funding specifically to increase the provision of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors. This funding consisted of £5.1 million in 2020 to 2021 and £14.5 million in 2021 to 2022. It was allocated based on the percentage of patients with Type 1 diabetes within each given NHS Board area relative to the Scottish population. This data was taken from the Scottish Diabetes Survey 2020, which can be found here: https://www.diabetesinscotland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Diabetes-Scottish-Diabetes-Survey-2020.pdf .

The £5.1 million of additional funding in 2020 to 2021 was allocated as per the breakdown below:

The final Scottish Government response will take into account the views provided by stakeholders in their written consultation responses on the main issues of the report, including an environment court, which reflects the evidence that was provided to the Net Zero, Energy, and Transport Committee. The Scottish Government will continue to engage with stakeholders on environmental governance and environmental justice.

This relates to indicative figures provided by universities at the start of the academic session. The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) will publish the 2023-24 academic year Official Statistics data in 2025. These will provide the most accurate figures on enrolments into modern language Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes.

This information is informing the work of Strategic Board for Teacher Education, which is considering issues around the recruitment and retention of teachers in Scotland in detail together with work to improving the promotion of teaching as a valued career.

Both the Scottish Government and Scottish Funding Council have offered to work with universities to develop alternative routes into subjects which have traditionally been difficult to recruit to.

Our Teaching Bursary Scheme is offering a £20,000 payment to career changers who are looking to undertake teacher training in hard to fill STEM subjects – physics, maths, technical education, computing science, chemistry and home economics. The scheme was also extended to include Gaelic as a secondary subject, and Gaelic medium across all secondary subjects and in primary.