Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.

The Scottish Government’s ‘A Fairer Scotland for Older People: framework for action’ contains a dedicated strand focused on activity we are undertaking to ensure people are financially secure and supported as they age.

In addition, we provide funding of £2.2 million, through the Equality and Human Rights Fund, to older people’s organisations and age equality projects. This funding is delivering a range of initiatives that tackles poverty among older people. A copy of the fund’s progress report can be found here Oct 23-Mar 24_E&HR Progress Report and provides details on initiatives we are delivering with this funding.

Our Pension Age Winter Heating Payment supports older people in receipt of relevant benefits to help with the costs of heating. Next winter, we will introduce a universal Pension Age Winter Heating Payment for all pensioner households in Scotland, meaning every pensioner household will receive a minimum of £100 with support towards their energy bills. This universal payment will provide much needed support not available anywhere else in the UK.

The Health and Social Care Standards set out the expectation that care should be provided by health and social care professionals based on the most relevant evidence, guidance and best practice, as is appropriate to their profession and patient group. In July 2022 we wrote to health boards and GPs to raise awareness of the NICE guidelines and highlight key changes in practice, and these remain the most current national guidelines on the management of ME/CFS.

It is not appropriate for the Scottish Government to comment on the clinical opinion of health professionals.

We expect Health Boards to ensure their staff are appropriately trained and developed for their roles, as per the Staff Governance Standard. The standard complements the training expectations set out in individual professional and regulatory requirements.

We have funded Action for ME and partners to disseminate an online Continuous Professional Development training module on ME/CFS for health and social care professionals. Evaluation data suggests it is significantly improving participants’ ability to diagnose and manage ME/CFS. Recent activity around the module has included a focus on increasing uptake among clinicians.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to the decarbonisation of its vehicle fleet. To support this, a replacement strategy has been in operation since 2015 to replace end of life vehicles with zero or ultra-low emissions vehicles where possible.

The Scottish Shape of Training Transition Group undertakes an annual review of medical training establishments (the number of established training places in each specialty) and makes subsequent recommendations to Scottish Ministers around the need to expand in order to meet increased service demand and future anticipated consultant need. This annual review process has led to year on year increases in additional training places being created across multiple different specialties since 2014, including 47 new specialty training places that will be created in 2025.

Scottish Government marketing teams do not specify inclusion of any specific media outlets to media agencies who prepare the media strategy and schedules based on audience to ensure advertising is as effective as possible and delivers high levels of reach for the investment. Therefore campaign budget is also a critical factor in media agencies determining whether smaller outlets, which deliver lower levels of reach in general, will be added to a media schedule.

While exact data on the percentage of Foundation Year 2 doctors who applied for NHS specialty training who were offered a place is not available, the General Medical Council education data tool shows the proportion of doctors in training each year following completion of Foundation Year 2 from 2012 to 2023: https://edt.gmc-uk.org/progression-reports/recruitment-from-f2

The Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) provides a snapshot of the domestic housing stock in each survey year, including the construction age, built form and primary and secondary heating system and fuel.

The SHCS currently records the following heat systems: Boiler, Community Heating, Storage Heaters, Room heaters, Warm Air Systems, Heat Pumps (with and without and MCS certificate), and Room Heater Back Boiler: no Radiators (these are systems which have a solid fuel fire with a back boiler where the back boiler is used only for heating water, and is not connected to radiators for heating the house). As these are the most common types of heating systems in Scotland.

The SHCS does not currently record heating systems, such as fuel cells, hybrid heat pumps and hydrogen ready boilers. However, we review the survey questions annually and these forms of heating will be considered for inclusion in future surveys when they become more prevalent in the Scottish dwelling stock.

Security of supply for gas and electricity is a matter reserved to the UK Government and is delivered by the National Electricity System Operator (NESO) across the whole of GB, under regulation from Ofgem. The National Grid has also confirmed that Great Britain’s eight main gas storage sites remain healthy. However, we remain engaged to plan for any challenging scenarios that might emerge this winter.