Chamber and committees

The iMatter Continuous Improvement Programme, which was developed by NHSScotland staff, enables the measurements of staff experience and employee engagement across all 22 Health Boards as well as participating Health and Social Care Partnerships.

This enables Health Boards to ensure that the insights and experiences of staff are captured and acknowledged, helping to influence and shape initiatives to enhance staff support.

Information on teacher vacancies is not held centrally.

As stated in my previous response to S6W-35365, Instrumental Music Tuition is offered in all local authority areas as an optional extra complementing classroom music lessons which form part of the Expressive Arts curriculum for all children.

Since 2021-22 the Scottish Government has provided dedicated funding to local authorities to remove fees for instrumental music. A further £12 million will be provided to councils in 2025-26, bringing the total funding since 2021-22 up to £51.3 million.

The Scottish Government continues to engage closely with a range of partners, including local authorities, teacher unions and the GTCS, to implement our commitments on instrumental music tuition. We intend to discuss detailed options in relation to GTCS Registration with interested parties in the coming months.

Alan Gray, Director of Health and Social Care Finance, wrote to Chief Executives of NHS Scotland on 04 December 2024 to provide the details of the indicative funding settlement for NHS Boards in the Scottish Government Budget 2025-26.

The letter confirmed that brokerage would not be available for 2025-26 and that NHS Boards would be expected to work towards a break-even trajectory in their three-year financial plans.

Following submission of three-year plans, Boards who are not anticipating to breakeven have been required to submit recovery plans for 2025-26 to achieve set levels of overspend. Should these not be agreed, these boards will be required to seek authority from the Scottish Government to spend above agreed levels.

NHS Board overspends in 2025-26, up to and inclusive of the agreed levels, are not repayable and will not be included in historic cumulative brokerage levels. For NHS Boards who are forecasting breakeven positions in their financial plan, no deficit is permitted and any overspend will be included as an overspend in their financial statements.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to supporting people’s rights to public assembly and protest. The operational policing of protests and demonstrations is rightly a matter for Police Scotland and their priority will always be maintaining public safety. The Scottish Government supports Police Scotland, as a rights-based organisation, to take appropriate and proportionate action in response to any criminal offences and to maintain public order at, and around, such events. We have funded the Centre for Good Relations to run training courses to upskill stewards and marshals involved in facilitating marches, parades and protests. This training is available free of change and has received very positive feedback in 2024-25, which is why we are continuing to support this in 2025-26.

Decisions about the use of AI are currently determined by Local Authorities and schools. Guidance for teachers regarding the use of AI is available through Education Scotland: Teaching and Learning with Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Resources | Education Scotland.

Guidance around the use of Generative AI in assessments is available through the SQA: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in assessments - SQA. This guidance is currently under review and will be updated in the near future.

The Scottish Government is actively considering the role of AI in schools. Following the recent International Summit on the Teaching Profession, we have committed to consider carefully the guidance produced by the OECD and Education International, and to create an equivalent set of guidelines and guardrails for the Scottish context.

Hardware purchased to support virtual meetings is often multi-functional and may have a primary use other than supporting virtual meetings. This makes categorising purchases directly related to the provision of virtual meetings difficult. Furthermore, hardware which supports virtual meetings may be purchased and managed by different areas across Scottish Government. For example, the provision of meeting rooms supporting virtual meetings is often a joint effort managed by iTECS and Facilities, with other areas of Scottish Government able to contribute on an ad hoc basis. Therefore, the records pertinent to this question are not held centrally. In this instance, to define, collate, and analyse the information requested would represent a disproportionate cost. However, it should be noted that any hardware purchases should leverage framework agreements which ensure the best value for the public purse.

The Thistle does not provide a drug checking service and it does not collect validated information about contaminated drugs. When concerns are raised, for example due to unexpected adverse events, these are reported to the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Drug Trends Monitoring Group. This process is co-ordinated by Greater Glasgow and Clyde Public Health and is a multi-agency group including Police Scotland.

The information requested is not held or collected centrally by Scottish Government. However, Police Scotland may be able to provide some data obtained from their National Missing Persons Application which was introduced in April 2019.

With respect to the use of e-consultations and telephone triage, while the Scottish Government sets the strategic direction, it is for Health Boards to plan their services based on local need. What is most important is appointments are agreed through shared decision making, balancing patient choice and clinical judgement. We continue to engage with stakeholders in support of service delivery.