Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government plans to carry out a further Gateway Review during week commencing 13 March 2023, in line with the last Assurance of Action Plan report’s recommendations for a review to take place in February 2023, or close to that date. The Scottish Government will consider carefully the recommendations from this review, and will share these and its response with the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee in due course.

Information on the deferral rate for disabled students entering Higher Education is not held by the Scottish Government.

UCAS collect and publish information each year on the number of applicants, applications and acceptances for UK providers. As part of their releases, UCAS publish the number of acceptances who defer entry to a later year split by Domicile, Age and Gender, in their interactive dashboard. Deferral rates for those with a Disability Declared are not included.

UCAS Undergraduate end of cycle data resources 2022 | Undergraduate | UCAS

UCAS do publish the number of acceptances with a Disability Declared overall. This shows in the 2022 cycle, there were 6,535 Scottish domiciled acceptances with a Disability Declared, 17.5% of all Scottish domiciled acceptances.

The strategic assessment for NHS Lanarkshire’s National Treatment Centre was submitted to the Scottish Government Capital Investment Group (CIG) in November 2022. As with all strategic assessments, this was noted by the CIG, and NHS Lanarkshire have been asked to move to the next stage in the planning process and to develop an initial agreement for the new facility, which is now underway.

I last met with the Chair of the BMA Scotland Committee on 11 January to discuss their request for a national conversation, and met with Chair of the BMA Scottish Junior Doctors Committee on 15 December to discuss their concerns around pay for Junior Doctors.

In addition I wrote to the Chair of the BMA on 21 February offering to meet with both him and the Chair of the BMA Scottish Junior Doctors Committee to discuss further.

We recognise the importance of Junior Doctors to NHS Scotland and the important work they contribute. Their demands for an above retail price index pay increase, plus an additional ask of 23.5% – meaning a pay raise of more than 35% - are unaffordable.

We have written to the independent Doctors and Dentist Review Bodies and asked them to consider a separate and specific recommendation for Junior Doctor pay in 2023. BMA Scotland have confirmed they wish to remain within the DDRB process this year.

Junior Doctors earn a basic salary plus a pay banding on top of their salary, meaning that the majority of Junior Doctors in their first year (FY1) are earning a salary of £40,000 plus a year. Their salaries continue to rise every year, and in their second year of training the majority will be earning £49,000+ per year. They are on a career journey towards becoming a senior doctor such as a Consultant or GP, with salaries in excess of £100,000 per year.

The latest set of smoking-attributable deaths and smoking attributable hospital admissions up until 2021, will be published as a ScotPHO update on 21 March 2023. This can be accessed from

Smoking attributable deaths - ScotPHO

Smoking attributable admissions - ScotPHO

Information on smoking-attributable NHS costs is not held centrally by Public Health Scotland.

NHS Grampian is the only Health Board to trial technology ahead of the Deposit Return Scheme launch. In total NHS Scotland Assure has provided £1,000 to off-set the costs incurred by the Health Board for the trial.

The Scottish Government, through our initiative for responding to redundancy situations, Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE), has provided continuous support to assist the workforce of Stoneywood paper mill, in Aberdeen.

On 22 September 2022, PACE information was supplied to the administrator, Interpath Advisory, for distribution to the workforce immediately following the announcement of redundancies, to facilitate their self-referral to PACE services. As previously advised, a PACE support and employment event took place on 29 September, which was attended by approximately 136 individuals, followed by a Jobs Fair on 10 October, which was attended by approximately 500 individuals. Additional PACE support has also been routinely provided to the retained Arjowiggins staff, which included onsite delivery on 11, 24 and 31 January 2023. Further on site delivery may take place with retained staff, should demand be confirmed.

The Scottish Government has not carried out an analysis of the impact that citations for jury service may have on the wider economy.

Our national guidance ‘Included, engaged and involved part 1: promoting and managing school attendance’ encourages Education Authorities to consider the underlying reasons for absence, including those which arise from an additional support needs.

The guidance identifies that poor attendance can often be related to, or be an indication of, an additional support need and that schools should use their staged intervention processes to ensure that any barriers to learning are identified and appropriate support is provided.

The guidance establishes requirements regarding classifying and recording attendance and absence. It is for local authorities to record the reasons for absence for their pupils within the local authority management information system SEEMiS.