Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01418 on‎ 9 August 2021. 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

Officials are continuing work to explore options to introduce RET on all Northern Isles routes. This work was rightly paused in March 2020 while resources were pivoted to respond to the Covid pandemic. Work has however now resumed and we will provide updates to stakeholders and Parliament as soon as it is possible to do so.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. However, the number of patients who are registered with a NHS dentist can be found on Public Health Scotland at: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/dental-statistics-registration-and-participation/dental-statistics-registration-and-participation-statistics-as-at-30-september-2020/ .

On Friday 3 September 2021 a QR code was included as part of the vaccination status letter. People travelling abroad can request their vaccination status online via NHS Inform or call the Freephone Helpline.

The following tables give the volume and value of applications for each local
authority area in each of the last 5 years. This breaks down into applications,
subsequent offers, expired loans with accepted offers and loans not accepted
before expiry date.

Table 1: Volume and value of HES loan applications by local authority area in
2021-22 to end July

Following completion of an innovative co-creative process with the community, work to assess four route options, including the community’s preferred route option, is ongoing to identify a Preferred Route option. This is being progressed in accordance with design standards and once a Preferred Route option is announced a timetable for the statutory processes will be set. It is necessary that the correct statutory process is followed to ensure a fair and transparent assessment of options and impacts on local communities and road users.

A market consultation exercise commenced earlier this year to inform an assessment of procurement options for the remaining sections when the statutory process is complete. Determination of the optimal procurement option is a complex exercise which is considering a pipeline of work in a form that can be delivered by the industry, supports the economic recovery post COVID and minimises disruption to users of this lifeline route. It is expected this analysis will be completed in the coming weeks and will inform decision making on our procurement approach and phasing.

As set out within the Tackling Child Poverty third year progress report, published on 23 June 2021, it is estimated that the Scottish Government invested almost £2.5 billion to support low income households in 2020-21. The member can find the breakdown of this investment on pages 67-69 of the report using the following link:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/tackling-child-poverty-third-year-progress-report-2020-2021

The Scotland Government no longer require social care staff (in line with the general population) to self-isolate if they are double vaccinated, symptom free and return a negative PCR test. As an additional protection social care staff are also asked to undertake daily LFD testing for ten days following covid exposure.

More information can be found at the following link:

Coronavirus (COVID-19) – exemption of fully vaccinated social care staff from isolation: information for providers - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The 2017-18 parliamentary inquiries on Salmon Farming in Scotland; and the Salmon Interactions Working Group report of 2020 highlighted the challenges which the sector faces and the need for improved efficiency and regulatory change.

We are committed to moving beyond the status quo and ensuring that the current regulatory framework is as efficient and effective as it can be. This work is being progressed through the independent review of Scotland’s regulatory framework for aquaculture being led by Professor Russel Griggs.

We remain committed to an aquaculture industry that is sustainable, diverse, competitive and economically viable and recognise the many benefits which it brings to Scotland’s rural communities and islands. We will consider the recommendations made by Professor Russel Griggs at the end of this year and work to set out our Vision for the sector in 2022.

ScotMoves+ is a software module added to the current ScotMoves system which has been used by cattle keepers since 2017 to record cattle movements within their business. ScotMoves+ will provide functionality to record calf registrations, deaths at abattoirs and on-farm, and business-to-business moves within the multi-species ScotEID livestock relational database.

The estimated costs for development, release, support and management of the ScotMoves+ system is approximately 12% of total ScotEID operational and support systems costs for 2021-2022, equating to £136k. The development of ScotMoves+ during 2019-2021 is estimated to be an additional 5% of total ScotEID operational and support systems costs for those years, equating to £89k, with a total cost over 3 years of £225k.

There are also costs for producing and distributing paper passports, these are estimated to be £479k annually - equating to £0.83p per cattle passport. These costs will be fully realised as work progresses across GB when England and Wales disaggregate from the Cattle Tracing System (CTS) and they make the transition to their new systems. Passports are currently undertaken by the Rural Payments Agency who operate CTS.