Chamber and committees

While the Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally, the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) hold information about defibrillators across Scotland – available at: Registering your Automated External Defibrillator . The key aspect of the information held relates to the location in order to support SAS call handlers to direct OHCA bystanders to the nearest publicly accessible defibrillator, rather than maintaining a record of the type of building where the defibrillator is placed.

In searching this publicly accessible information, there are over 150 defibrillators at school locations across Scotland currently registered with the Scottish Ambulance Service.

It is, however, it is important to note that registration of defibrillators is voluntary, and the responsibility of the defibrillator guardian, therefore this may not be an accurate picture of the number of defibrillators placed in schools across Scotland. I refer the member to my answer given to PQ S6W-01501, in which I recommend that you may wish to contact Scottish Local Authorities individually for information they may hold.

We do not underestimate the severe impact the pandemic is having on the night-time sector and restrictions will not be kept in place a day longer than necessary. As the First Minister made clear on 13 July, a gradual approach to the lifting of restrictions gives the best chance of sustainability and will help build people’s confidence to return to their normal lives and support these businesses.

We have previously made additional funding of up to £750 per week available to nightclubs depending on their Rateable Value. We regularly engage with the night time industry. Guidance for the night time economy will be developed in partnership with the industry in line with the decisions on moving beyond level 0 and taking account of the baseline measures which will be in place. We are however, at this time, unable to commit to further funding for businesses or their employees including those in the night time economy due to a lack of further consequentials from the UK Government.

We continue to urge the UK Government to extend both the Self Employment Income Support Scheme and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to support both workers and the self-employed impacted by the ongoing influence of COVID-19 the economy .

The legislative changes recommended by the review are being introduced via the Integrated Authorisation Framework regulations, however the progression of the regulations was paused due to Covid-19. We have now recommenced taking this work forward and a consultation process will take place in the coming months.

While the regulation of consumer protection is reserved to the UK Government, the Scottish Government supports this right for consumers in relation to faulty goods. It provides clarity to businesses about their obligations to their consumers and helps businesses to ensure that any complaints are handled quickly and easily. The UK Government published an Impact Assessment in January 2014 which estimated the net annual cost to UK businesses at £2.78m. No separate impact assessment was carried out for Scotland.

Ear wax removal services are available through the NHS.

How to treat ear wax is a clinical decision; ear syringing is not the current preferred procedure and is no longer routinely provided by clinicians.

The NHS has continued to provide services to patients throughout the pandemic. However, due to the pressures of the pandemic some routine condition management has needed to be paused but only in those instances where it is safe to do so.

The Scottish Government does not hold data centrally on how many people have been referred by their GP to mental health services.

Public Health Scotland have provided the following table information showing the number of mental health inpatients referred by their GP for the calendar years 2016 to 2020, broken down by year of admission and NHS board of treatment. This information will not show referrals to non-statutory mental health services which routinely are not recorded. Patients will be counted multiple times if they have been admitted within the same board in different years, or different boards in the same year, or both. Complete figures for 2021 cannot yet be provided.

The Scottish Government has committed to undertake a review of the Welfare Fund, including examination of its funding, administration, promotion, take-up and accessibility. The detailed scope, delivery and timescales of the review will be determined in due course. We intend to commence it during the first year of the new parliament.

At 31st March 2021 there were 7816 directly employed staff within the core Scottish Government and 52 operated offices, however all staff continued to work from home where possible during this time.

Headcount and number of offices split by local authority are provided in the following table. Please note that staff may work from locations other than Scottish Government offices.

The Scottish Government has consistently called for the furlough scheme to remain in place for as long as it is needed to support businesses as we move through recovery. The UK Government should make it clear to businesses and workers, well in advance of the furlough scheme ending, what further assistance will be in place to support jobs and necessary labour market transitions in sectors that are most deeply impacted by Covid. Provisional figures from HMRC show at 31st May, 173,100 jobs (7% of eligible jobs) in Scotland were being supported by the Job Retention Scheme. This is a slightly lower than the UK (8%) and a fall of 102,600 from April when 11% of eligible employments in Scotland were on the scheme.

Whilst these figures show those on furlough are reducing, there is still a significant number of jobs which continue to be supported by this scheme. The Scottish Government is doing all it can to protect Scotland’s economy and ensure that as many people as possible on furlough keep their jobs. Our ambitious 10 year National Strategy will drive Scotland’s economic transformation, helping the country recover from COVID-19 and transition to a net zero economy, prioritising investment in the industries of the future and delivering new, good and green jobs.

During the period 1 January 2021 until 9 July 2021, CalMac Ferries Ltd had over 74,130 scheduled sailings to operate. From these, there were 62 instances where a vessel from the CalMac fleet was removed from service to allow unscheduled maintenance or repair work to be carried out at a cost £6,630,344. This represents only 0.08% of those sailings. Scheduled annual overhauls are carried out when vessels are not in service.

In many instances when a vessel is removed from service, a minimal number of sailings are affected.