Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is expecting findings from the independent Public Health Scotland evidence review of the existing literature, studies and research on alcohol marketing and advertising to be available in Spring 2025.

All Scottish Government fleet vehicles are maintained in line with manufacturers guidelines to ensure emission regulation compliance. 

I wrote to the UK Minister for Energy Consumers on 17 October 2024. Scottish Ministers proposed changes to the ECO4 scheme to enable ECO financed work to benefit from stronger management and quality control as part of local and national fuel poverty schemes in Scotland. Scottish Ministers emphasised the need to re-build public trust in the reliability of `government backed’ schemes, citing the inappropriate use of spray foam insulation in lofts as an example.

The UK Minister for Energy Consumers replied on 19 December to say that the UK Government was reviewing the current consumer protections in place for retrofit work and how they could be strengthened. They advised that any changes in their approach to consumer protection will form part of the UK Government’s Warm Homes Plan.

We will continue to press the UK Government to allow a better managed approach to ECO4 delivery in Scotland and request further details about any proposed changes to consumer protections.

The Scottish Government meets with the Scottish Ambulance Service regularly to discuss demand, capacity, and pressures. Since escalating to REAP level four the Service has been submitting twice daily situational reports on pressures and we have been meeting with their operations Director on a frequent basis.

The First Minister has also Chaired several meetings to discuss NHS pressures more widely which were attended by SAS and other key partners.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has implemented a number of actions to mitigate the effects of pressures throughout the healthcare system over the past few weeks and continues to maintain its focus on improving response times to patients.

The Scottish Government is aware that, since April 2024, there has been ongoing supply issues with the availability of naloxegol (Moventig®) tablets. On 25 April 2024, the Scottish Government issued a Medicines Supply Alert Notice to NHS Scotland on the availability of naloxegol (Moventig®) tablets. Medicines Supply Alert Notices are circulated to Medical Directors and Directors of Pharmacy across all Health Boards including national Health Boards (such as NHS National Services Scotland) for onward dissemination to healthcare professionals. Community Pharmacy Scotland also receive a copy of the Medicines Supply Alert Notices for onward dissemination across their network.

The Resuscitation Research Group’s PADmap web portal is expected to go live by Spring 2025. PADmap will provide organisations and communities with more evidence on the optimal location to place their defibrillators in order to increase their potential impact.

The alcohol marketing review is being carried out as part of the remit of work Public Health Scotland (PHS) is already commissioned and funded to do. PHS is a national Special Health Board, funded by the Scottish Government to work collaboratively, focusing on increasing healthy life expectancy and reducing premature mortality.

The NHS Scotland Support and Intervention Framework is one of the key elements of the evidence-based approach to monitoring performance and managing risk across the NHS in Scotland.

All NHS Boards have recently been reviewed against the framework for finance purposes.

Following this review the decision was made for NHS Grampian to be escalated to Stage Three of the Framework for finance. This is based on the deterioration of the Board’s financial position during 2024-25.

Stage Three escalation comes into effect from January 2025 and involves enhanced monitoring and support including increased oversight and coordinated engagement from Scottish Government. This will include monitoring by and meetings with the Scottish Government’s Finance Delivery Unit, as well as further engagement with the NHS Scotland Director of Health and Social Care Finance.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with NHS Grampian to monitor their financial position and assist with longer term financial planning and improvement.

The Scottish Government owns two bicycles, and we do not lease any bicycles.

Our bicycles are for use in campaign marketing in respect of Net Zero messages, and are not made available to staff for use on official business.

Registers of Scotland is accountable to the Scottish Parliament and its performance is regularly scrutinised by the Economy and Fair Work Committee. The Scottish Government also receives regular reports on the progress RoS is making in delivery of its Corporate Plan 2022-2027 strategic objectives, which includes updates on the achievement against RoS’s Key Performance Indicators for its service performance (timeliness, quality and customer satisfaction).