Chamber and committees

Public bodies have a duty to manage public finances appropriately and this includes ensuring that procedures for administering relief are suitably robust.

Most reliefs generally require an application to be made to the local authority except for universally available reliefs. This is because applications help local authorities determine whether a property is eligible for a particular relief.

The Scottish Government, through the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care, has set out a number of short, medium and longer term actions that seek to progressively improve the quality of our health and social care workforce data, and its analysis. Further detail is set out in Part III of the strategy, 'Action', which can be found at: National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care in Scotland (www.gov.scot)

The figure of £1.3 billion was included in the 2021 Green Finance Institute (GFI) report on the finance gap for nature related outcomes, and was for estimated woodland creation and maintenance costs up to 2031. Costs are calculated by multiplying the total target area of woodland to be created (as specified by the Climate Change Plan 2018 – 2032) with a unit cost per area for planting and, separately, subsequent maintenance. This figure is in line with estimates by Scottish Forestry, who were also represented on the project board for the GFI report. It should be noted that nature restoration costs can vary significantly between individual sites (the type and size of intervention, location and existing condition all being factors) and that a cost estimate for the whole of Scotland gives only a partial representation of restoration needs. The next Climate Change Plan will set out the costs and benefits of the policies it contains and will include details on financial costs of policies, including those in the forestry sector.

The Scottish Government welcomes the publication and recommendations of The Nursing Workforce in Scotland report by RCN Scotland.

NHS Boards are responsible for ensuring they have local policies in place to recruit effectively and retain their staff. They are supported in this through the Scottish Government’s National Workforce Strategy, which sets out the actions it will take in partnership with Boards to plan, attract, train, employ and nurture the health and social care workforce.

This has included completing a review of career pathways for healthcare support workers and publishing a national education and development framework, in November 2022, which provides information on how to progress into a registered practitioner role.

Our recently established Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce will also build on efforts to make Scotland the best place for nurses and midwives to work by developing plans for recruitment and retention. The Nursing Workforce in Scotland Report, and its recommendations, will be considered by the taskforce as a part of its work.

Over the summer we will continue to work with stakeholders, including the Royal College of Nursing, to develop a Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan.

As at the end of the day 30 April 2023, there were 40,969 cardholders under the Young Persons’ Free Bus Travel Scheme in six local authority areas across the Highlands and Islands Region. Uptake against the estimated eligible population in each local authority area is as follows.

Argyll & Bute: 54.3%

Comhairle nan Eilean Siar: 46.6%

Highland: 46.4%

Moray: 54.9%

Orkney: 49.5%

Shetland: 66.7%

Cardholder data is supplied by the National Entitlement Card Programme Office (NECPO). NECPO supports the 32 local authorities by assisting with the integration of various national and local public services on the National Entitlement Card (NEC) and are the joint controller with local authorities of this data. The figure includes travel products collected from the Transport Scot Pass Collect mobile app.

The Scottish Government expects all NHS Boards in Scotland to take note of the Scottish Health Technologies Group recommendations, published on 23 March 2023, and take steps to ensure that any woman who requires access to placental growth factor (PlGF) based tests as part of her maternity care can do so. We will continue to work with the Scottish Perinatal Network and will write to NHS Boards again in June to assess how implementation of PlGF testing is progressing.

Our Equally Safe strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls (VAWG) emphasises the importance of challenging the underpinning attitudes which enable such violence to take place.

The Equally Safe at School (ESAS) project, developed by Rape Crisis Scotland and Zero Tolerance, applies a whole school approach to inequality and gender-based violence in schools. Every secondary school in Scotland is eligible for ESAS. Rape Crisis Scotland have reported that currently 77 schools are registered with an ESAS account. Rape Crisis Scotland is continuing to work with local authority education leads, VAWG partnerships and other third sector partners across Scotland to encourage and support schools to engage with ESAS.

We also fund and support other education-based programmes and initiatives aimed at tackling violence against women and girls and the attitudes which perpetuate it such as; the Mentors in Violence peer education programme, the Gender Equality Taskforce in Education and Learning, the Gender-Based Violence in Schools Working Group and Rape Crisis Scotland’s national sexual violence programme for secondary schools.

Arrangements are being made to hold the next meeting of the Orkney Islands Council Ferry Replacement Task Force soon. The minutes will be published on the Transport Scotland website in due course. I also plan to visit Orkney during summer recess where I will discuss the council's plans for its fleet replacement.

The Women’s Health Plan: A plan for 2021 – 2024 aims to reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes for women and girls. This iteration of the Plan focusses on a specific set of priorities where there is particular evidence of inequalities (heart health) and where women have told us improvements are needed (menopause and menstrual health including endometriosis).

The priorities for any future Women’s Health Plan are not yet determined. Future aims and priorities will be developed in collaboration with women and girls, including our lived experience stakeholder group, clinical experts and relevant stakeholders alongside the most up-to-date evidence base.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with the Scottish Perinatal Network and will write to NHS Boards again in June to assess how implementation of PlGF testing is progressing.

Scottish Government expenditure is allocated across portfolios to various sectors, including the third sector, to improve a wide range of outcomes. Some Scottish Government funding will be issued through third sector intermediary organisations. Spending is not all specifically classified as to whether or not it is allocated to third-sector organisations to deliver services. Consequently the figures requested are not available.