Chamber and committees

COPFS and the University of Glasgow agreed an Improvement Plan to reduce the toxicology waiting times. This plan defined performance targets and required the University of Glasgow to provide data to COPFS on a weekly basis. The required data was to highlight the laboratory’s progress with outstanding cases and new cases.

The Improvement Plan has been successful; the toxicology waiting times are now reduced and there is no delay in provision of those reports to the pathologists who require them to finalise the post mortem report.

An indication of the effectiveness of the improvement plan is that, in the week of 25 September 2020, there were 1351 open toxicology cases with University of Glasgow and in the week of 26 September 2021 there were 351 open toxicology cases.

In 2019 COPFS began to experience delays in the provision of toxicology reports from the University of Glasgow, the main contractor for this service. This was further compounded during 2020 due to the pandemic.

Once a toxicological report has been finalised, it is then considered by the pathologist(s) who conducted the post mortem, and thereafter a final post mortem report is issued to the appropriate team in COPFS, who require to review it in detail before the next of kin can be informed of the final cause of death.

Working with Glasgow University, COPFS put various measures in place to address both the backlog and the increasing number of new deaths requiring toxicological analysis. The measures included agreeing a new format of abbreviated report for some cases, and an Improvement Plan which set out weekly performance targets and ensured focused progression with both the backlog of cases and newly reported cases.

Successful implementation of the Improvement Plan in particular means that there is now no backlog of toxicology reports and toxicology analysis is being completed in the majority of cases within 8 weeks.

Our approach to developing the Fund will mirror our just transition planning work. The Fund will be co-designed and co-delivered with those who stand to be most significantly impacted by the transition to net zero. This is likely to include, but not be limited to, community groups, workers and trade unions, businesses, business leaders and industry bodies and include input from academia and educators, and climate leaders, activists and thinkers.

We consider that as part of a package of measures in the forthcoming Land Reform Bill, a public interest test could potentially make a significant contribution to our longstanding land reform objectives by stimulating a more productive, diverse and dynamic pattern of land use.

The test will aim to ensure that the public interest is considered on transfers of particularly large scale land holdings, and we will aim to introduce a pre-emption in favour of community buy-out where the public interest test applies, and where it is appropriate to do so. We intend that the public interest test will help address the issues associated with concentrated land ownership.

It will comply with both the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right to private property, and the terms of the current devolution settlement. This reflects the principled position of the SG, and our explicit commitment to respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights for every member of society. It will also complement existing Community Right to Buy legislation.

We will be undertaking a wide-ranging public consultation on proposals for the Bill in 2022, including the public interest test, and we are committed to engaging with all stakeholders to develop policy and legislative solutions to progress our proposals.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is responsible for assessing the impacts of chemical pollutants on the water environment under River Basin Management Planning, which began in 2009.

Along with a wide range of other water quality parameters, the Scottish Government directs SEPA to assess the impacts of priority substances (chemicals which have been identified as a significant risk to water quality and wildlife) through its comprehensive monitoring programme of the water environment. Environmental quality standards, which protect the water environment and wildlife, are used by SEPA to assess any damage that chemical pollutants have caused in waterways and rivers.

Since the start of the outbreak, Public Health Scotland (PHS) has been working closely with the Scottish Government and health and care colleagues to support the surveillance and monitoring of COVID-19 amongst the population. There is a large amount of data being regularly published regarding COVID-19. For example, the COVID-19 Education Surveillance dashboard is updated daily and published by Public Health Scotland. COVID-19 PCR test results in educational populations and settings are not broken down individually but are included as part of the wider community-wide surveillance in the PHS COVID-19 dashboard .

We are also reassured by PHS analysis on the risks to teachers when compared to similar working age adults. Analysis published in the BMJ shows that neither teachers, nor their household members, were at increased risk of hospital admission with COVID-19 when compared to similar working age adults from March 2020 to July 2021.

The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) sets the legal obligations to monitor and assess a range of chemicals in the water environment.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) monitors the water environment for a range of contaminants of emerging concern (including 4 antibiotics, 1 antidepressant, and 3 antifungal medicines) at targeted watercourses. Through the WFD watch-list prioritisation mechanism environmental quality standards for a number of pharmaceuticals are currently being developed by the EU. This includes antibiotic clarithromycin, painkiller ibuprofen, anticonvulsants and painkiller carbamazepine, anti-inflammatory diclofenac and estrogen medication EE2 in this study.

SEPA is working with partner organisations on the identification of chemicals of emerging concern in the environment, and is developing new analytical techniques that will allow it to screen environmental samples for a much larger number of chemicals, including a number of pharmaceuticals. This work will allow us to better understand the risks posed by pharmaceuticals in Scotland’s water environment.

EU-wide research on the environmental risk posed by chemical substances informs the development of environmental quality standards These standards consider not only risks to animals, including fish, and plants that are exposed to these substances in water, but also risks to predatory animals like birds from the consumption of contaminated prey, so that the overall environmental quality standard is protective of all. The EU is currently developing new environmental quality standards for a number of contaminants of emerging concern, including certain pharmaceuticals.

The Scottish Government has made clear its commitment to maintain or exceed environmental standards in place upon EU exit, and to maintain alignment with developing EU standards, as far as possible.

The Scottish Government directs the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) to use environmental quality standards to monitor and assess the water environment through River Basin Management Planning.

As we stated when we published our response to the independent Grouse Moor Management Group report (the ‘Werritty Review’) in November 2020 we recognise the important contribution grouse shooting makes to the rural economy.

Alongside the Werritty review, the Scottish Government commissioned Scotland’s Rural College and the James Hutton Institute to undertake extensive research into the biodiversity and economic Impacts of grouse moors to address some of the knowledge gaps regarding Scottish driven grouse moor management.

The research was carried out in two phases and the reports, which were published in 2019 and 2020 can found on the Scottish Government website at Socioeconomic and biodiversity impacts of driven grouse moors in Scotland | SEFARI

and

Phase 2 Grouse Research - Socioeconomic and biodiversity impacts of driven grouse moors and the employment rights of gamekeepers | SEFARI

The findings of this research, alongside other available evidence were taken into account when we developed our response to the Werritty review.

As detailed in our response to the Just Transition Commission, a co-designed and co-delivered approach will ensure all partners are empowered to engage and that action is fair and co-ordinated. This means placing those most likely to be negatively impacted by the transition at the heart of our process. Empowering people to shape their future is essential in maintaining a strong social consensus for change, and will inevitably be a more robust and creative process of planning. It will also help ensure that all the Just Transition Plans are underpinned by diversity and inclusion. These principles of co-design and co-delivery will inform the way we define the parameters for the Just Transition Fund.

We have already initiated ongoing engagement with key stakeholders, including the new Just Transition Commission, trade union representatives and the Council of Local Authorities, on our approach to just transition. We also expect to launch a specific programme of engagement for the refreshed Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan at COP26 and we have committed to publishing a detailed review of this co-design process, informed by our engagement, following the development of that draft Plan. This will be supplemented by ongoing stakeholder engagement.

The Just Transition Fund will accelerate the energy transition of the North East and Moray regions, and will also support the role of Aberdeen and the wider north east as one of Scotland’s centres of excellence for the transition to a net zero economy.

As committed in Parliament, a draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan will be published in Spring 2022.