Chamber and committees

The National Flood Resilience Strategy sets out a long-term vision for a flood resilient Scotland through to 2045, this will continue to require significant public and private investment.

Scottish Government already provides substantial funding to support flood resilience. Since 2008, the Scottish Government has made available £42 million per year to local authorities to invest in flood risk management actions and the 2020 Programme for Government committed an additional £150 million over the course of this Parliament for flood risk management actions. In addition, £15 million has been provided in the draft 2025-2026 Scottish Budget to support the delivery of the Strategy’s actions, wider flooding resilience and coastal adaptation work.

The Strategy will be delivered via an implementation plan which will be developed with partners over the coming months.

The National Flood Resilience Strategy commits to review available flooding budgets to assess how a proportion of flood funding can be directed to support a broader range of flood actions - including smaller flood protection schemes and property level flood resilience.

The Strategy recognises that in order to balance flood resilience actions across a range of locations, communities and situations it will be necessary to understand in more depth relative benefits. The Scottish Government is working with COSLA and local authorities to reform flood resilience funding and governance to maximise benefit to communities.

The majority of the budget for each office in the international network is staffing costs. This comprises both Scottish Government civil servants posted on diplomatic assignment, and country-based staff employed by FCDO on terms appropriate for the local labour market. The small component for programme delivery is considered through annual budgeting procedures taking into account priorities in each country and elsewhere in the portfolio.

The increase in budget for our international network of 2.0% overall is primarily to fulfil the pay agreement applied across the Scottish Government. In most cases, programme budgets to deliver events and undertake outreach work were static or slightly reduced.

There is a range of factors which have had an effect on the net cost of running passenger rail services over the last 10 years. These include the number of services delivered, passenger revenue, Network Rail access charges, inflation, energy and fuel costs, and variations introduced during the Covid period.

There are no reports on the impact of the Softer Landing, Safer Care Programme however NHS Education for Scotland (NES) works with service leads to ensure all learners work within inclusive environments. A comprehensive strategy exists through NES’s ‘Advancing Equity in Medical Education’ workstream that ensures trainees are not exposed to discriminatory behaviours. Trainees can report such behaviours through the trainee surveys and there is a mechanism within the NES Quality Management structures to address such concerns. NES offers a range of interventions to support inclusive workplace behaviours.

The Scottish Government has so far invested over £190 million in pay uplifts for acute hospital doctors employed by NHS Scotland in 2024-25. This investment will ensure NHS Scotland remains the place of choice to work and train and is in recognition of the incredible contribution that they make within our health service.

We wrote to health boards in June 2024 on the findings and recommendations of the Improving Medical Retention Advisory Group to support the retention of consultants at the latter stage and peri-retirement career phase in particular - Recommendations to improve the retention of consultants at the latter stage and peri-retirement career phase.

There is strong evidence which demonstrates that positive wellbeing enhances staff retention, which in turn raises standards of patient safety and quality of care. In support, from 2024-25, Scottish Government are investing over £2.5 million annually to support health and social care staff wellbeing. This funding provides our workforce with access to psychological interventions and therapies, self-service resources through the National Wellbeing Hub and the National Wellbeing Helpline delivered by NHS 24. Registered staff including doctors also have access to confidential mental health services through the Workforce Specialist Service (WSS). Furthermore, the National Supporting work life balance policies provide staff with a range of flexible working options to help balance lifestyle whilst maintaining and promoting the best possible service.

“Ghost fishing” results from abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear and has a negative impact on our environment. Some loss is unavoidable because of weather, snagging or gear failure, and fishers make every effort to retrieve this gear where possible. Marine litter resulting from fishing gear is a shared global problem and we will continue our work in Scotland set out in our Marine Litter Strategy, and internationally through the Oslo Paris Convention (OSPAR) and the Global Ghost Gear Initiative to help tackle it.

Changes to legislation came into force in November 2021 which allow for local authorities to put experimental projects on the ground with 7 days’ notice and a minimum 6 month consultation period which begins on the day the project is put in place. There is also a streamlined process to follow if the authority then wish to make the Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (ETRO) a permanent Traffic Road Order (TRO).

No full review of this process has been undertaken since 2021 but officials have had a number of discussions with local authorities to provide further information on the change in process and to assist in putting the new measures in place. No concerns regarding the new procedures have been raised during these discussions.

Significant additional activity is already underway following the allocation of £30 million funding to target reductions to the national backlogs that built up throughout the pandemic. This includes over 40,000 extra diagnostic procedures.

To specifically support scope based diagnostics we have published an Endoscopy and Urology Diagnostic Recovery and Renewal Plan backed by £70 million. The plan focuses on key areas such as: Balancing Demand and Capacity; Workforce Training and Development; Infrastructure; and Innovation and Redesign.

To provide further support for timeous diagnosis, the Scottish Government commissioned Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) will shortly publish a newly developed Inflammatory Bowel Disease pathway to support earlier identification and management of the disease.

The Budget we set out on 4 December 2024 will throw the weight of the government behind performance improvements with almost £200 million to reduce waiting lists and help support reduction of delayed discharge. By March 2026, we expect no one to be waiting longer than 12 months for a new outpatient, inpatient treatment or day case treatment.