Chamber and committees

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) has a dedicated website, Apprenticeships | Apprenticeships.scot: Work, Learn & Earn , where Training Providers and/or employers can advertise their Apprenticeship opportunities. SDS holds data on the vacancies posted there including; total number of vacancies posted, number of applicants and employer location. SDS can provide specific information upon request.

It is worth noting that this information only relates to new vacancies advertised on Apprenticeships.scot and does not capture uptake of Apprenticeships by employers looking to upskill existing members of staff.

Some adverts on Apprenticeships.scot do not have a direct application route, as some employers post a link to their own recruitment portal for applicants. SDS are unable to track information of applications on websites other than their own. In addition, some employers may not advertise vacancies on Apprenticeships.scot and choose to advertise via their own websites, so SDS do not hold this information.

It is disappointing to see an overall increase in households becoming homeless from the private rented sector. However, there was a notable decrease between the first and last six months of the year. This is likely due to the cost of living legislation that was introduced in October 2022.

The cost of living crisis continues to place people across Scotland in a precarious position. On 1 June we laid regulations which would – subject to the approval of Parliament – extend emergency measures to cap in-tenancy rents and give additional eviction protections for a further, and final six months, to 31 March 2024, provided they remain necessary and proportionate.

If approved by Parliament, these measures will continue to help stabilise housing costs for private tenants and ensure that the enforcement of evictions will continue to be paused for up to six months across all tenures except in a limited number of circumstances. This provides tenants with additional protection where an eviction order/decree is granted - giving them more time to access the support they need and to find alternative accommodation.

We know that the best way to end homelessness is to prevent it from happening in the first place. As stated in this year’s Programme for Government (published 5 September 2023), in the coming year we will introduce a Housing Bill which will include new duties aimed at the prevention of homelessness.

Through local authorities we have provided over £8.8 million to support more than 6,620 households in rent arrears through the Tenant Grant Fund.

Discretionary Housing Payments play a vital role in safeguarding tenancies. In 2023-24, we are making £83.7 million available to local authorities to spend on Discretionary Housing Payments:

• £69.7 million to fully mitigate the bedroom tax, helping over 92,000 households in Scotland sustain their tenancies
• £6.2 million to mitigate the benefit cap as fully as possible within devolved powers
• £7.9 million to mitigate against the damaging impact of other UK Government welfare cuts, including the ongoing freeze to Local Housing Allowance rates

The appearance of synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, in the Scottish drug supply has been a concern for some time. At the end of 2022 PHS flagged a small number of deaths related to nitazenes, a new synthetic opioid and issued a public health alert as a result in January 2023. Following recent deaths linked to these substances in England and Wales, the UK Government issued their own alert in June 2023. Changes in the production of heroin, particularly in areas such as Afghanistan, are also raising concerns amongst stakeholders of a likely rise in the supply of synthetic opioids and the danger this will pose to the UK drug supply.

The ability to know what is in the drug supply and when substances of concern, such as synthetic opioids appear, is vital. Recognising the need to understand changes in the substances people are taking, alongside being able to identify potential threats, has meant that through our National Mission we have invested in developing our surveillance abilities. Public Health Scotland now operate their Rapid Action Drug Alerts and Response (RADAR) system which issues quarterly reports, but they have also released two health alerts relating to specific substances to raise awareness to individuals and to enable service providers to deliver vital harm reduction services, including provision of Naloxone. The use of fentanyl testing strips is also currently under consideration. In addition, we are continuing to progress the establishment of drug checking facilities in Scotland through proposed pilot sites in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee. These facilities will be able to provide real-time information about the substances in circulation, issue alerts about anything of concern and provide essential harm-reduction information to individuals using the service.

Scottish Government officials met with UK Government officials recently to discuss the Global Coalition on Synthetic Drugs and are contributing to the sub-working groups on this.

Planning is also underway to host a meeting of national and international partners to discuss this issue and learn from the experience of other countries. A lot of the harm reduction interventions we already have in place are what is recommended to counter the dangers of these new substances.

Public Health Scotland Publish information on the number of GPs and patients nationally and by Health Board and this is available at:

General Practice - GP Workforce and practice list sizes 2012 - 2022 - General Practice - GP workforce and practice list sizes - Publications - Public Health Scotland

Table 2 sets out the number of GPs nationally and in each board area and Table 4 shows the registered number of patients nationally and in each Health Board, over the past 10 years.

In mitigating the impacts of the cost of living crisis, the Scottish Government has taken action to reduce costs, including through our Emergency Budget Review (EBR) in autumn 2022. This responded to the new pressures arising from the crisis, and set out unprecedented reductions in planned spending totalling £1.2 billion, to ensure the Scottish Government was able to manage the annual budget prudently in the face of rising inflation and economic uncertainty.

The significant savings taken in the EBR were applied across government, the full list of which can be found here - Emergency Budget Review published - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Through this reprioritisation in the EBR, we were able to provide further help to those most impacted by the cost of living crisis. The Scottish Government recognises the pressure on household budgets which is why, both last year and this, we have allocated almost £3bn to support policies which tackle poverty and to protect people as far as possible during the ongoing cost of living crisis. This includes increasing the Scottish Child Payment to £25, emergency legislation to put in place a rent freeze, and a range of support for energy bills such as delivering energy efficiency and heating improvements.

The 2023-24 Budget built upon work in the EBR and involved taking difficult savings decisions to allocate around £700 million extra to fund enhanced pay deals.

The on-going cost of living crisis continues to present financial challenges to the Scottish Government. We are reviewing opportunities for more effective targeting of spend through the 2024-25 Budget, whilst prioritising programmes of work which have the greatest impact on the delivery of our core missions.

The Scottish Government have purchased the following laptops since 1st March 2020 for use on the SCOTS network.

The Scottish Government released a statement responding to and welcoming Lord Etherton’s LGBT Veterans Independent Review on the day it was published. We said that the report made clear that from the many personal accounts within the review, that a grave injustice was done. Lord Etherton’s recommendations and suggestions will go some way to addressing that.

While the Armed Forces are a reserved matter, and the recommendations within the independent review are all for the UK Government to deliver, it did contain two suggestions for Scotland. These were around diversity and inclusivity policies and training for healthcare and housing providers, to ensure that veterans do not face any repeat of the homophobic policies they suffered whilst in the Armed Forces. The Scottish Government is committed to supporting LGBT veterans and is considering how to deliver on these suggestions.

The Scottish Government made an additional funding guarantee to Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership, which was in addition to the HSCP’s share of the Primary Care Improvement Fund, which funds the majority of general practice Link Worker posts across Scotland. The guarantee of additional funding, should the HSCP require this, was to protect 26 existing posts.

Minimum unit price (MUP) is one of a range of population and individual level interventions set out in the Scottish Government Alcohol Framework that together are intended to improve the prevention and treatment of alcohol related harm in Scotland. MUP is a whole population policy with a particular focus on hazardous and harmful drinkers. People with alcohol dependency are a diverse group with complex needs, who fall within the extreme end of the harmful drinking category.

Given the clinical needs of people with alcohol dependence, MUP is not intended to be the key intervention for this cohort – treatment and care services are critical for this group. In 2022-23, £106.8 million was made available to support local and national initiatives overseen by Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships - ensuring that local services can respond to local needs. This includes activities like signposting those receiving treatment for alcohol dependence to local services to meet wider social and financial needs where they arise.

The Scottish Government published new guidance on the provision of equipment and adaptations in January 2023, this includes advice on the use of Technology Enabled Care (TEC) and assistive technology. The guidance recommends that Health and Social Care partners, with their Housing colleagues, work together to maximise the opportunities provided by TEC, developing local strategy and policies, which help people to choose their own digital solutions as part of self-management and earlier intervention approaches, as well as utilising technology to address issues of isolation and frailty.

Officials are now in the process of setting up a guidance Implementation Group, with the aim of working with the sector to ensure the guidance is fully embedded across Scotland. This will include making use of the new Baseline Assessment Tool to benchmark services against the Key Actions within the guidance. We expect the evaluation work to commence in the Spring of 2024, once we are through the pressures of winter.

Scotland’s Digital Health and Care Strategy also outlines how technology will be used to reshape and improve services, support person-centered care, and improve outcomes.

Furthermore, the procurement and funding of our Connect Me digital platform has enabled access to this remote monitoring system for all Territorial Health Boards and Partnerships. The Connect Me programme provides the opportunity for IJBs to consider redesign of care pathways to incorporate digital solutions thus releasing resource capacity in their delivery services.

Running parallel to the Connect Me programme is the Digital Health and Care Directorate’s programmes for Social Care and Telecare. Both programmes work to support the social care sector (from IJBs and local authorities, to support and care provider organisation) in embedding the use of digital solutions for citizens.