Chamber and committees

The Scottish National Investment Bank’s investment portfolio is funded directly by the Scottish Government through the use of Financial Transactions. Financial Transactions (FTs) are loans from HMT with interest and repayable over an agreed period. They must go ‘beyond the public sector boundary’ and are used for by a variety of Scottish Government portfolios, such as Higher Education, Enterprise bodies, Transport, Energy, Housing and Digital, etc. Due to the structure of these transactions, the Bank currently cannot lend to any aspect of the public sector.

There are no immediate plans to alter from the existing model operated by the Bank towards either investing into the public sector or issuing bonds.

Although guided by the missions set for it by Scottish Ministers, the Scottish National Investment Bank is operationally independent and makes investment decisions based on its own investment process and strategy.

On the specific matter of North Star, it is for North Star as a private commercial company to make its own decisions in respect to where it sources it vessels. The Scottish Government recognises the opportunity that requirements for offshore wind service vessels presents for Scottish industry going forward and will seek to work together to support this.

The Scottish Government annually update and publish information relating to Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and Non-Profit Distributing (NPD) contracts and their associated unitary charge payments. This information is collated from the relevant procuring public sector bodies including local authorities and published on the Scottish Government website at the following link www.gov.scot/npd/pfi

Although guided by its missions, which are set by Scottish Ministers, and the legislation within the Scottish National Investment Bank Act 2020, the Bank operates independently. So, any potential future investment roles or opportunities would be a matter for the Bank to decide.

Work is ongoing to develop our infrastructure improvement programme. As part of that improvement work we have been engaging across government and, at this stage, with the Scottish Futures Trust to understand some of the issues that have affected previous capital investment projects and how we can best take action to improve delivery, as part of our work to develop options for a national infrastructure company.

The Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) (most recently published in 2021) ( The Scottish Government's Medium Term Financial Strategy - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ) sets out the range of funding available to the Scottish Government to invest in infrastructure, including revenue finance models. As part of the National Infrastructure Mission commitment, the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) were commissioned to examine new privately financed profit-sharing schemes. SFT assessed different funding models (such as evolved Private Finance Initiatives, financial transactions and MIM variations) against their ability to deliver additional investment, value for money, affordability, investor interest and financial risk. More information on the analysis performed by SFT can be found here: sftoptionsappraisalreportlowres.pdf (scottishfuturestrust.org.uk) .

The Scottish Futures Trust also supports the Scottish Government in considering the range of sources of finance and their relative merits for different types of infrastructure investment– a summary of which can be found in Appendix 5, here:

NPF4_Draft_3.QXP_Layout 1 (scottishfuturestrust.org.uk)

The Scottish Government expects NHS Boards to provide high quality, person-centred care for all people, including those with postural tachycardia syndrome.

There are a range of treatment options available on the NHS in Scotland, including self-management and a range of medications based on individual circumstances. The recommendation of any particular treatment is a matter for discussion between a patient and their clinician.

Information on local authority spend on their professional learning is not held nationally by the Scottish Government. Local authorities are best placed to advise on their spend in this area.

In 2022, we ran a public consultation on the draft of the new physical intervention in schools guidance Physical intervention in schools: draft guidance - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . The draft human rights-based guidance is clear that restraint and seclusion should only ever be used as a last resort and to prevent a child or young person coming to harm. This position is also clear in existing guidance on the use of physical intervention and seclusion.

The draft guidance includes links to free professional learning resources that are focussed on promoting positive relationships and behaviour to minimise the use of restraint and seclusion. The draft guidance also recommends that the any training in the use of restraint is certified as complying with Restraint Reduction Network (RRN) training standards.

We are carefully considering all consultation responses received and recognise that there are calls for further legislation in this area. A consultation analysis report is currently being prepared. Alongside the publication of the guidance, and in line with our original commitments, we are exploring options to strengthen the legal framework in this area, including placing the guidance on a statutory basis.

The DRS Regulations require that from 2025 at least 90% of scheme articles are to be collected through the scheme, therefore the amount of bottles and cans collected by local authorities is likely to be very low.

Local authorities will have flexibility to decide how to redeem deposits from containers entering the kerbside collection and should contact the scheme administrator, Circularity Scotland, for advice and guidance.

Following the publication of the Health and Social Care Winter Resilience Overview I wrote to General Practices on 15 November to set my expectations regarding the need to ensure there is an appropriate mix of pre-booked, same day, face to face and remote appointments that suits individual practice populations.

I also announced the formation of the General Practice Access Group. The group aims to understand the challenges and issues affecting access to General Practice and will establish high level core principles to support and enhance patients’ experience of accessing ‘The Right Care, Right Time, Right Place’. The group has commenced its work and I understand will be looking to consult on a draft document in February.

On 21 December 2022 NHS Forth Valley and NHS Lanarkshire have been allocated £52.565 million and £109.967 million respectively to provide primary medical services.

Circularity Scotland issued the final RVM specification in November 2022. Separately some producers have highlighted that their containers have higher than usual variation in weight. Circularity Scotland have recently met with RVM vendors and drinks producers to discuss tolerance levels in dimensions, particularly with glass, to ensure that the settings in RVMs accommodate these variations. This is a standard approach for deposit return schemes and will mean that return points don’t need to deal with high levels of rejections.