Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government works closely with the SFC and Scottish Universities on an annual basis to review and deliver sustainable funding for universities and the whole tertiary sector when setting the budget allocation. This flexibility allows the numbers of funded places for eligible students to respond to university and student demands, so that in 2022-23 there are 121,917 full-time equivalent funded places, compared to 115,987 for 2019-20, the last academic year prior to the pandemic.

Scottish Universities are autonomous institutions and as such, with the exception of controlled subjects, the Scottish Government and Government Ministers do not direct individual universities on the number of funded places made available for specific subjects for eligible Scottish and EU domicile students. Universities are allocated a finite amount of money and it is then for the universities themselves to decide: how to distribute these places between faculties; the courses they offer; and how many of the total funded places will be available on each course. To give universities additional flexibility in student recruitment, the Scottish Funding Council allows universities to recruit up to 10% above the number of funded places awarded.

The Scottish Government firmly believes that access to university should be based on the ability to learn and not the ability to pay, however there is a need to exert a level of control over the higher education budget, which means that the number of students able to access a funded place is not unlimited. Our commitment to free tuition means that, unlike elsewhere in the UK, Scottish students studying in Scotland do not incur additional debt of up to £27,750, and average student loan debt for Scottish students is the lowest in the UK.

The Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery – Implementation Plan was published in July 2022 and sets out the actions the Scottish Government are taking to improve care and services for people with chronic pain.

The Implementation Plan acknowledges the importance of specialist pain management services and includes a number of specific actions to improve access and quality of care provided by these services. This includes convening an expert working group to review pathways into specialist care and identify opportunities to share and promote best practice as well as piloting new digital pathways to improve how people access specialist services.

As part of this work it is expected that challenges around staffing of specialist services will also be explored. This activity will also be informed by a new national pain service managers network which will help to identify and prioritise key issues affecting the resilience and quality of specialist pain services, including workforce. In addition, the Scottish Government will publish, for the first time, projections of required workforce growth across health and social care as part of the National Workforce Strategy. Once generated these will be reviewed annually.

There were 2,467 cases of exclusion (temporary or permanent) from publicly funded schools in Scotland during 2020-21 where the reason recorded was either physical assault using improvised weapon, physical assault using weapon or physical assault with no weapon (against either a pupil or staff member). This is down from 4,458 in 2018-19 and 5,374 in 2016-17.

It is not possible for the Scottish Government to mandate the provision of community benefits through energy regulation because the relevant powers are reserved to the UK Government. However, we continue to encourage renewable energy businesses to offer community benefit packages in line with our Good Practice Principles; promoting a national level equivalent to £5,000 per installed megawatt per annum for onshore renewable developments, index linked for the operational lifetime of the project.

Local Energy Scotland, who deliver our Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES), administer a voluntary register of community benefits payments and a community benefits map. This indicates a community benefit commitment of around £24 million will have been paid out from renewable energy projects in Scotland over the past year (from November 2021 to November 2022).

All developers of renewable energy developments and local communities in receipt of community benefit payments are encouraged to use and input to the register. The register and map can be viewed here: https://localenergy.scot/community-benefits-map/

Work is underway to review the Good Practice Principles for Community Benefits from Offshore Renewable Energy Developments.

We have undertaken an external audit of the climate justice fund and an impact assessment to ensure policy coherence for sustainable development for the overall approach in order to better understand the needs for loss and damage support. As agreed following the evaluation, all Climate Justice Fund money for the £5m pledge will be allocated on the basis of an independent needs assessment with stakeholders and those communities impacted. Once conducted, we will respond accordingly and deliver a participatory, co-designed programme that fully meets the needs of the communities that it seeks to serve. In line with funds already delivered to loss and damage, all sums granted will be monitored and evaluated.

The Scottish Government does not hold Cytosponge diagnostic service data broken down by individual Health Board, however the following press release provides detail on the national total delivered by NHS Scotland as at 15 November 2022: https://www.gov.scot/news/innovative-health-technology-helping-patients/ .

In accordance with Scottish Ministers franchising policy statement, appropriate assessment of a direct award to Serco Caledonian Sleepers Ltd. is being made and Ministers will inform Parliament when this assessment is concluded.

Ayr Station Hotel is owned by an absentee landlord who has remained unresponsive to any approach regarding the future of the Station Hotel building. Network Rail’s sole responsibility, due to the proximity of the railway to the hotel building and the rail infrastructure, is to ensure the safety of the rail infrastructure.

Transport Scotland continues to engage with ScotRail, Network Rail and South Ayrshire Council through the Ayr Station Strategic Governance Group, to review the long-term options for the Station Hotel building. The Group last met on 14 November 2022.

Transport Scotland has provided significant investment to this project including fully funding the erection of the scaffolding and encapsulation, and the ongoing maintenance costs up to March 2020. Transport Scotland continued to fund 50% of the ongoing maintenance costs from April 2020 until May 2022 and has also fully funded the feasibility study and subsequent options review.

The Ayr Station Strategic Governance Group continues to lead the preparation and publication of the Ayr Station Hotel Option Review under the leadership of South Ayrshire Council. I met with the Leader of and Chief Executive South Ayrshire Council in May 2022.

I had expected this report would have been published by the new administration before now. I am advised that it is now expected to be published before the end of the year. While I of course recognise the good progress made; it has been 6 months since my last meeting with South Ayrshire Council and I would urge the Strategic Governance group to work together bring this process to the earliest possible conclusion.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-12369 on‎ 2 December 2022. 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

As set out in the Emergency Budget Review (EBR), published on 2 November, the Scottish Government’s mental health programme budget has been revised to £252 million. This has resulted in revisions to this year’s Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund budget line, which now stands at £104,754,000.

Actual expenditure will not be available until after the end of the financial year.

Following the EBR publication, we are engaging with those organisations which have been incurring spend in order to formally confirm the remainder of the 2022-23 funding allocations.