Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is contacted by a wide range of organisations and individuals on various policy issues, and we are committed to ensuring everyone in our society can live with dignity and enjoy their rights in full. Within mental health, we work closely with a range of human rights and equalities bodies through the Mental Health Equality and Human Rights Forum. This meets monthly and provides a space for human rights organisations to discuss and influence the development of mental health.

In addition, we have recently committed to establishing a Mental Health and Capacity Reform Programme following on from the recommendations of the Scottish Mental Health Law Review, which considered how we could give further effect to human rights within mental health. The Programme will drive action to improve the way human rights are put into practice across mental health and incapacity law and policy, including care and treatment.

Infrasound was considered within the UK Government commissioned WSP report . The ETSU steering group comprising the four Governments of the UK is considering, under the lead of the UK Government, how best to take forward the recommendations of the report.

The Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) fully recognise the need to ensure prison infrastructure is fit for purpose for those that live and work in prisons, and supports the rehabilitation of people living there.

As set out in the Programme for Government 2023-24 we continue to invest in the prison estate, working towards replacing prisons in Inverness and Glasgow to ensure modern facilities that promote rehabilitation into communities and reduced reoffending. Given the current significant financial and operational pressures, we are having to prioritise capital investment based on risks and pressures across the estate.

The Scottish Government is making available funding of £3 million over this financial year to support NHS Boards to increase the capacity of existing services providing support to people with long COVID, develop these in to more clearly defined pathways and to provide a more co-ordinated experience for those accessing support.

The individual delivery models being utilised and progressed by NHS Boards will vary, as they are tailored to local circumstances and needs. For example, some NHS Boards have developed single points of access for assessment and co-ordinated support from services including physiotherapy and occupational therapy. In other areas, the co-ordination role will be fulfilled by the primary care team based in the person’s local GP surgery.

The Scottish Government have delivered the largest financial increase to date for community pharmacy funding, increasing both the remuneration Global Sum by 6% (£12.3 million) and an increase in the Guaranteed Minimum Income of 15.9% (£15.9 million). This delivers a guaranteed minimum funding package of £399.955 million for the financial year 2023-24.

The Scottish Government will commence discussions on the 2024-25 settlement with the representative body, Community Pharmacy Scotland, in the coming weeks. Preliminary discussions have begun on setting out agreed negotiation principles which continue the partnership working between the Scottish Government and Community Pharmacy Scotland to deliver settlement which is fair to community pharmacy providers and is an affordable offer in the current fiscal position.

This commitment within the Programme for Government 2023-24 will be delivered through additional investment in the delivery of the existing actions within ‘A Framework to Grow Scotland’s Renewables Exports’, which was published by the Scottish Government in March 2023.

Inspiring Scotland through the ‘Support in the Right Direction’ (SiRDS) programme, provides access to independent advice and advocacy in 31 local authorities, with a forthcoming scoping project tasked with identifying a SiRD partner to offer services in the Moray area from FY 2023-2024. SiRDS is supporting over 9,000 people and families.

The Scottish Government funds the Personal Assistant Network Scotland (PANS) , which is a Personal Assistant (PA) national membership organisation offering a free photo ID card as well as advice. PANS has also helped to promote the first ever online PA handbook which provides valuable information for PAs.

A new Earlier Cancer Diagnosis Vision was developed as part of the new ‘Cancer Strategy for Scotland’ (published June 2023). The vision is to reduce later stage disease by 18 percentage points in 10 years’ time with a focus on reducing the health inequality gap.

As reflected in the Strategy’s accompanying 3 year action plan, following an extensive review of available evidence with key partners, lung, head and neck and colorectal cancers have been identified as initial national priority areas. However, a number of actions will be delivered and have a halo affect across multiple cancer types including delivering Detect Cancer Earlier (DCE) campaigns and procuring a new primary care cancer education platform for NHS Scotland.

The costs and associated contractual matters related to the SFRS Command and Control Mobilising System are operational matters for the Service, who would be the appropriate source for this information. SFRS has provided assurances that it has had appropriate governance arrangements in place throughout the project. Throughout implementation, SFRS has worked within budgets with key targets built in and milestone payments only paid if satisfactorily reached. All public sector bodies in Scotland are expected to adhere to the public sector finance manual to ensure that value for money is applied to each spending decision. Public safety is paramount and SFRS has existing software and back-up systems in place at all times to ensure an effective service.

Although Pupil Equity Funding is allocated directly to schools on the basis of the estimated number of children and young people in P1-S3 registered for free school meals, headteachers can use their professional judgement to identify any children in their school who may benefit from the targeted interventions and approaches, with the aim of closing the poverty-related attainment gap. Pupils who speak English as a second language are therefore already eligible to benefit from Pupil Equity Funding under the existing allocation criteria, with headteachers having discretion to make decisions about which children and young people would benefit most from any particular intervention or approach, whilst keeping a clear focus on delivering equity through improving outcomes for learners impacted by poverty.