Chamber and committees

The National Strategy for Economic Transformation sets out our vision to make Scotland a world-class entrepreneurial nation that encourages, promotes and celebrates entrepreneurial activity in every sector of our economy. The strategy’s programme for action details how we will make Scotland one of the best countries to start and grow a business.

We will shortly publish a refreshed Town centre Action plan and City Centre Recovery Taskforce report to support action to revitalise town and city centres respectively, and we have provided £80 million Covid Economic Recovery funding to local authorities to consider the needs of local businesses, communities and households and to target support to maximise economic recovery in their areas.

In August we announced the Scotland Loves Local Programme. The aim is to encourage people to support their local businesses and communities, to build wealth in local communities, revitalising town, city and neighbourhood centres and increasing footfall.

We have provided over £1.85 million additional support for Business Improvement Districts since the start of the pandemic, with a further £500,000 for 2021-22.

The Energy Saving Trust maintains the Renewable Heat Database for the Scottish Government. The following table extracts domestic renewable heat installations over the period 2016-2020. Data for 2021 are not yet available. These data are derived from registrations under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme, and as such likely underestimate the total number of installations due to lower coverage of new build homes.

Children and young people who are prescribed antidepressants will receive regular medication reviews with their prescribing clinician. The frequency and structure of these reviews will be based on the clinician’s judgment and on consultation with the patient and, where appropriate, with the patient’s family.

Clinicians will refer to the British National Formularyfor Children (BNFC) when prescribing antidepressant medication to children. The BNFC is the standard UK paediatric reference for prescribing and pharmacology.

Clinicians can also refer to National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline NG134 which sets out further advice for the prescribing of antidepressant medication to children and young people.

The Scottish Government has not made any legislation that would require the adoption of a heat pump in any building.

Rather, as part of our Heat in Buildings Strategy, we have proposed that all homes will be regulated to use zero emissions heating systems by 2045. Such systems include, but are not limited to, heat pumps.

As set out in the Heat in Buildings Strategy Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA), the average cost of installing a heat pump is currently around £10,000 with, approximately, an additional £2,000 for energy efficiency measures to support the efficient performance of the heat pump. However, the cost of conversion to zero emissions heating systems is likely to vary across properties according to property type, size and condition.

The BRIA also explains that the impact on operating costs is also likely to vary across properties, with some seeing a slight increase in energy bills while others experience a reduction. The impact that installing a heat pump will have on energy bills is dependent on the relative price of electricity and the fuel being displaced, the relative efficiency of the heat pump and the heating system being replaced, and a number of other factors, including the design and quality of system itself, user operation, and the energy efficiency of the property in which it is installed. Wider system costs, for example upgrading energy networks, may have an impact on consumer bills.

We recognise that in decarbonising our homes we must not make fuel poverty worse, and the Heat in Buildings principles set out in the Fuel Poverty Strategy commit to delivering measures to help those in fuel poverty to manage their running costs.

Further analysis of the estimated capital and running costs of zero emissions heating systems has been undertaken as part of the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment for the Heat in Buildings Strategy, which can be accessed at: Heat in buildings strategy: business and regulatory impact assessment - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The member may also be interested in an independent report, commissioned by the Scottish Government, that assessed the suitability of low carbon heating technologies in residential buildings in Scotland. The report can be accessed at: Executive Summary - Low carbon heating in domestic buildings - technical feasibility: report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The Scottish Government will produce a range of further impact assessments when we introduce legislation requiring zero emissions heating systems.

We intend to issue a consultation paper on Phase 2 permitted development rights (PDR), including extensions to existing electric vehicle charging PDR, in the first quarter of 2022-23. The aim is to have resulting legislation in place by the end of the year.

In the meantime, processing of any required planning applications are a matter for individual planning authorities in the first instance. Current Scottish Planning Policy (paragraphs 275 and 289) sets out the need for planning authorities to support EV charging infrastructure in development plans and development management decisions.

The performance and resourcing of the planning system are key priorities; we are progressing a range of improvements through our planning reform programme and working closely with CoSLA, the Royal Town Planning Institute and Heads of Planning Scotland to address issues from resources to capacity and skills.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested.

Data on UK and export sales of peat sourced from Scotland since 2011 is gathered for the UK Growing Media Monitor ( https://hta.org.uk/associations-committees-groups/growing-media-association/gma-research ) and provides insight into the volumes of peat extracted for horticulture in Scotland up to 2020, the main end use of extracted peat.

The Scottish Government is committed to banning the sale of peat related gardening products, as part of our wider commitment to phase out the use of peat in horticulture, and we are currently preparing to consult on this issue. Our draft National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) sets out that development proposals for new commercial peat extraction, including extensions to existing sites, should not be supported unless the extracted peat is supporting an industry of national importance to Scotland.

We will also give consideration, through our peatland restoration programme, to whether and what further data may be required to support future monitoring of progress against targets.

Psychological Therapies (PT) delivered in any service setting is already included within the 18-week PT waiting time standard and delivery of PT in forensic services should be counted in the PT standard. This is not consistently happening at the moment and to help ensure that services deliver and measure Psychological Therapies across in a more standardised way across Scotland a new national standard for Psychological Services and Therapies is currently under development with a publication date of Summer 2022.

Additionally, in order to ensure consistency in the quality of service delivery across Scotland, Scottish Government has worked with NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to produce the Psychological Therapies 'Matrix' - a stepped guide to planning and delivering evidence-based psychological therapies within NHS Boards in Scotland. Matrix - A guide to delivering evidence-based psychological (scot.nhs.uk)

The Matrix is published by NES, in partnership with the Scottish Government and provides a summary of the information on the current evidence base for various therapeutic approaches, guidance on well-functioning psychological therapies services, and advice on important governance issues.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living in Scotland who want to work, including those receiving adult social care support, are able to access appropriate and flexible employability support.

We will continue to work towards our ambition to reduce the disability employment gap by at least half by 2038 as set out in the Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: Employment Action Plan. We will do this by supporting disabled people into employment , and ensuring that employers have the skills they need to recruit and retain this vastly underutilised pool of talent. We have reviewed current approaches to supporting disabled people with additional support needs into employment and will publish the findings by Summer 2022.

Through this plan we will work to ensure that our social care system delivers the right type and mix of support to help remove the barriers to work for disabled people.

Current models of care should afford flexibility to the individual to take up employment where possible subject to individual care needs being met. We are currently reviewing the guidance on Self Directed Support (SDS) to strengthen consistency and choice in the way social care is provided.

Going forward, we are committed to building on this as we work towards establishing a National Care Service to provide high quality, consistent and fair social care support across Scotland that enables people to achieve the outcomes they want to lead a full life.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people are able to access the right support for their mental health without stigma, including medication where this is the most appropriate intervention.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the numbers of children and young people aged 19 and under who were prescribed antidepressants by a GP, without seeing a specialist, while waiting for access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

We know that the Covid-19 pandemic has been exceptionally difficult for the mental health and wellbeing of many children, young people and their families. Long waiting times for treatment are unacceptable and we remain committed to meet the standard that 90% of patients begin treatment within 18 weeks of referral. This is why in the 2021-22 financial year we have allocated nearly £40 million to NHS Boards to improve CAMHS; with £4.25 million specifically invested this year to help NHS Boards tackle backlogs, with a clear view of meeting standards and clearing CAMHS backlogs by March 2023.

As set out in the response to S6W-07188 on 21 March 2022, prescribing is a clinical decision based on a prescriber’s judgment as to what they believe is in the best interests of the patient. The prescribing of antidepressants for children and young people is undertaken in consultation with the patient, and where appropriate with their family, to ensure that patient choice is also central to decisions taken regarding treatment and care.

Medication is one aspect of treatment, alongside psychological therapy or other therapeutic interventions, available as an option for children and young people who require support. We continue invest and improve access to other services, including by providing £16 million per annum to ensure that every secondary school in Scotland has access to counselling support; and by investing £15 million in community-based mental health and wellbeing services as part of our focus on early intervention and prevention.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Police Recorded Crime statistics can only identify the likely presence of a knife for crimes of ‘possessing an article with a blade or point in a public setting’. Tables of the requested data have been placed within the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (BIB number 63223).

There are two measures of possessing an article with a blade or point in a public setting - one for where the weapon was not used in other criminal activity, and one for where it was used in other criminal activity. For the former, data has been presented by local authority for the requested time period of 1999-00 to 2020-21. Data for the latter is only available from 2017-18 onwards, following implementation of a procedural change to the recording of weapon possession crimes.