Chamber and committees

Local Authorities undertake tobacco control through tobacco sales enforcement and tobacco and electronic cigarette control.

The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on tobacco control, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government has increased local government funding by over £1 billion in 2022-23, a real terms increase of 6.3 per cent, despite a 5.2 per cent real terms reduction in the overall Scottish Budget.

I am pleased to confirm the publication today of the independent analysis report of responses to the consultation on police complaints, investigation and misconduct - legislation. The full report is available here: www.gov.scot/isbn/9781805251668 . A summary report is also available here: www.gov.scot/isbn/9781805251651

The consultation received 55 responses, 33 of which came from individuals and 22 on behalf of organisations. The responses will be published today where we have permission to do so at https://consult.gov.scot/safer-communities/police-legislative-reforms/ .

The Scottish Government is giving careful consideration to the range of views received. The findings from the consultation analysis, along with our continuing engagement with stakeholders will help inform how the changes that Dame Elish recommended can be implemented as preparations for introducing a Police Complaints and Misconduct Handling Bill in this Parliamentary session continue.

Delivering Scotland’s Blue Economy Approach s ets out the first phase of delivery towards our Blue Economy Vision, as well as a commitment for subsequent next steps in our work.

It includes an overview of Scotland's Blue Economy against the six outcomes presented in the Vision, a review of existing actions to identify how they contribute towards the Blue Economy outcomes and an initial evaluation of the type of "Enablers" (tools, interventions and levers) that will be required to deliver the outcomes. These Enablers have been identified from stakeholder feedback and a review of other international Blue Economy approaches.

Over the next 12 months, the Scottish Government will establish a governance structure for our blue economy agenda and seek to promote collective ownership of the activity needed to deliver Scotland’s Blue Economy Vision.

The establishment of a National Care Service (NCS) is the most ambitious reform of public services since the creation of the National Health Service (NHS). It is necessary to deliver the consistency and quality of care and support across Scotland that people deserve, and reinforce our commitment to Scotland’s people to take long term action to change our society and make it a fairer place to live.

The Financial Memorandum set out the range of possible costs for the NCS. Estimates are being constantly monitored and reviewed as new information becomes available.

We recognise that there is an urgent need to make improvements to social care now, and we are not waiting for the NCS to start that process.

We are taking the action we can now to address challenges in social care. We have committed to increase spend in social care by 25% by the end of parliament, helping to lay the groundwork for the NCS.

Our 2022-23 budget confirmed more than £1.6bn for social care and integration to lay the groundwork for the NCS. Any spending decisions made on the NCS service will be backed by rigorous, evidence based decisions.

In April this year the minimum hourly rate for those providing direct adult social care increased to £10.50 an hour.

The Scottish Government transferred £200 million to Local Government to support investment in social care, including to deliver this uplift.

This represents an increase of 4.8% from the £10.02 pay rate that was introduced in December 2021. This is also an increase of 10.5% for these workers in the course of a year – with pay rising from at least £9.50 per hour in April 2021 to at least £10.50 per hour in April 2022.

The Scottish Government introduced Scottish Building Regulations in 2019 requiring the provision of Changing Places Toilets in larger new buildings to which the public have access. These provisions are detailed in the Building standards technical handbook 2020 . At the same time, we also amended our Planning System to include these amended building regulations and further detail can be found within the Planning Circular 1/2020: Changing Places Toilets Regulations.We are not planning any further legislative changes in this area at this stage. Our work to amend building standards in 2019 was robust and sought to strike a sensible balance between encouraging further CPT provision across Scotland whilst recognising the resource needed to build these facilities may be prohibitive for smaller buildings.

We have recently published our Changing Places Toilets: Planning Guide and an accompanying easy read . This guide, written in collaboration with PAMIS (Promoting A More Inclusive Society), details practical considerations when considering installing a Changing Places Toilet in both existing and new buildings. This helpful toolkit will improve Changing Places Toilet provision in the immediate term and ensure that new toilets built following our changes to legislation are appropriate and well considered

Since 2007, the number of Psychiatric Consultants across all specialities in NHS Scotland has increased by 20.7% to 544.9 whole time equivalent posts. Despite this workforce expansion, we know that demand for psychiatric treatment continues to grow. That is why in 2021 we increased the number of Core Psychiatry places by 5 in response to increased demand for psychiatry. This year we are expanding training by a further ten places, and we will consider further increases in future years. In the 2023-24 training year, we will fund another 15 Core Psychiatry training places. Five of these will be created for the February 2023 start date and the other ten will be made available for trainees taking up post in August 2023. Further, the Scottish Government is working with NES and the Royal College of Psychiatry to encourage medical students to consider a long-term career as a psychiatrist. This work includes the ‘Choose Psychiatry’ campaign, undergraduate taster sessions and improved psychiatric placements at Foundation level.

The Scottish Government has awarded funding of £444,000 in 2022-2023 to support the delivery of the Once for Scotland approach stated in the plan.

We have awarded the Care Inspectorate £194,000 to enable them to build on the learning from the Care About Physical Activity (CAPA) programme. The project will work across care homes, care at home, housing support and day services for adults.

£250,000 has been awarded to Thistle Foundation to deliver a range of organisational development interventions to support rehabilitation teams to reshape their rehabilitation services.

The Scottish Government is in the process of establishing an advisory Board, which will help to identify local rehabilitation leads, ensuring appropriate appointments to take forward the aims identified in Rehabilitation and Recovery.

Statistics relating to new housebuilding are published quarterly on the Scottish Government website. They can be accessed using the following link: https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-for-scotland-new-house-building/

The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government will be applying an uplift of 5.6% to the value of the GP contract later this year. This uplift will be backdated to 1 April 2022 and will include funding to cover a 4.5% increase in non-staff expenses. Scottish Government are also adding an extra 20% to all item of service claims made by NHS general dental practitioners in quarter three of this year (October to December), and 10% in quarter four (January to March). The Welsh Secretary and I have jointly written to the UK Government asking it to provide additional funding given that it is their actions that have caused record high inflation. A copy of the letter has been placed in SPICe, bib number 63796.