The vast majority of funding from the Scottish Government is provided by means of a block grant to local authorities. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them.

The 2022-23 Local Government Finance Settlement of almost £12.7 billion provides local government with a cash increase of over £1 billion or 9.2 per cent which is the equivalent of a real terms increase of 6.3 per cent.

It is for each individual local authority to decide how best to allocate this money, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities, including towards home adaptations for disabled people.

We are working alongside local authorities and partners to help displaced people from Ukraine integrate into communities and support them to settle here. Local authority caseworkers are in place to enable access to services including healthcare, education, employment and benefits advice.

Our New Scots strategy provides a clear framework for integration and it assists partners to make the best use of resources and expertise by promoting partnership approaches, joined-up working and early intervention.

We have also provided £1.4 million to the Scottish Refugee Council for the expansion of its Refugee Integration Service, funding to JustRight Scotland to enable them to provide free and confidential legal advice to Ukrainians seeking safety in Scotland and providing a funding uplift for Edinburgh Third Sector Interface organisations; EVOC and Volunteer Edinburgh, to ensure the continued provision of volunteers to give a warm Scots welcome to tired and often traumatised people as soon as they arrive in Scotland.

Under this government (since 2007), the number of Psychiatric Consultants across all Specialities in NHS Scotland has increased by 21.6% to 548.8 whole time equivalent posts as of March 2022.

In 2020-21 and 2021-22, the Scottish Government has invested in increasing the number of trainee places on Core and Specialist Psychiatry training programmes. The number of posts advertised for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry specialist training increased from 6 in 2020 to 10 in 2022.

The Scottish Government are working with NHS Education for Scotland and the Royal College of Psychiatry to better understand the challenges associated with recruitment and retention in Psychiatry and 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.

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training

Recruitment information regarding this trainee group has been recorded since 2013. The following figures refer to successfully recruited candidates and represent the cohort trained each year.

Recruitment to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (Specialist Training - Year 4)

The Scottish Government has prepared a draft Voluntary Code of Practice on dismissing and replacing land-owning land maintenance companies.

To ensure that the draft Code is fair and workable for all users we will seek views from consumer facing bodies and land owning land maintenance companies before we progress to publication.

Plans for engaging are underway.

It has been heart-warming to see the groundswell of support from our communities, pubic services, third sector and partners for people fleeing Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. We have worked closely and collaboratively with partners to stand up our Warm Scots Welcome response, ensuring that all those arriving from Ukraine are accommodated and supported as soon as they arrive in Scotland.

In collaboration with the Scottish Refugee Council, we have delivered three public webinar sessions for hosts. Scottish Government officials regularly engage with community groups working to support people fleeing the war in Ukraine, and those who have volunteered to host displaced people in their homes.

There are a number of measures in place to ensure that ancient and veteran trees are protected, including as protected areas for nature, which engage statutory mechanisms to protect sites of ecological interest, such as ancient woodlands.

Protection for woodland is also in place via felling regulations under the Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018. It is only in exceptional circumstances that a felling permission would be granted for an ancient woodland, such as public safety or improving woodland condition. Where felling permission is not applicable, the Control of Woodland Removal Policy only permits removal of existing woodland where it would achieve significant and clearly defined additional public benefits.

Scottish Planning Policy 2014 (SPP) seeks to protect and enhance ancient semi natural woodland as an important and irreplaceable resource, together with individual trees. SPP states that Tree Preservation Orders (TPO) can be used to protect individual trees and groups of trees considered important for amenity or their cultural or historic interest. Draft NPF4 is currently considering how to strengthen protection.

We recognise the important role ancient and veteran trees play in our ecosystems, which is why we have committed to support work to restore and expand Scotland’s precious Rainforest habitat.

The Scottish Ancient Woodland Inventory records the location of ancient and other long established semi-natural woodlands, and local authorities record TPO’s for protection purposes. We know this Inventory has an important role to play in ensuring we can identify where protection is needed, which is why we have committed to establish a new National Register of Ancient Woodlands, building on the existing inventory.

The Scottish Government has no plans to update the published Resource Planning Assumptions at this time.

The spending review sets out the financial framework to support delivery of our commitments. It sets out high-level multi-year spending plans for the Scottish Government and does not replace the annual budget process.

Annual budgets will continue to be set through the annual parliamentary budget Bill process and the annual budget will be based on the latest fiscal information.

The Scottish Government has continued its work with Public Health Scotland to develop an online platform for members of the public to access information on the average waiting times for a range of specialties within their health board area.

It is expected that the specialities included will be in line with the National Statistics currently published, which can be found here: https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/13252/ipdc_may22.xlsx in Table 2.1.

A date is still to be confirmed for the publication of the online platform so we are unable to provide any further details at this time. We would be happy to provide the member with further updates on progress as these become available.

The replacement (planned and unplanned) of train services with bus replacement services remains an operational matter for ScotRail. Planned buses replace train services that have been impacted as a result of planned works on Scotland’s railway i.e. planned engineering works. ScotRail advise that 515 buses were booked during April 2022. This figure is particularly high with bus replacement services planned every day in April as a result of the Anderston works.

Unplanned buses replace train services that have been impacted as a result of driver shortages, trespassing onto the tracks, fleet issues, signalling issues, points failures and other track faults. ScotRail advise they were supplied with a total of 143 bus replacement services to cover unplanned train service disruption during April 2022.

The breakdown for each day during April 2022 for unplanned and planned bus replacement is as follows:-

We know that the cost-of-living crisis is having a huge impact on individuals and families across the country, and we continue to have conversations across the range of challenges faced. We are using our regular engagement with the UK Government to ask that more sustainable support is provided to those in greatest need, given that most of the levers currently remain reserved. Just last week my colleague Ms Forbes raised cost-of-living with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and urged the UK Government to do more to address the root cause of increasing fuel costs. We will continue to press the UK Government to use all of the powers and fiscal headroom at their disposal to address the cost-of-living crisis.