Chamber and committees

A stakeholder group has been established to progress this work, including the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) and NHS Education for Scotland (NES) who each have a key role in social care workforce development.

Last year, we worked collaboratively with SSSC and NES to develop a national induction framework for social care staff. An evaluation of the framework has been launched with the aim of improving and expanding the materials further.

We have also committed to expanding the framework to encompass continuous professional development opportunities, and this work has begun with the stakeholder group. By doing this, we will support our commitment to improving fair work, increasing employee engagement, enhancing skills and capabilities, attracting new talent and contributing to improved employee wellbeing.

The target intake for nursing and midwifery have seen 10 consecutive years of increases but we recognise that undergraduate entry programmes are just one route into these two critical professions in our NHS.

The Scottish Government alongside a wide range of stakeholders including NHS Boards, Higher Education Institutions and Skills Development Scotland is taking forward work to develop alternative career pathways into these professions including potential apprenticeship models and other ‘earn as you learn’ routes that will widen access into the profession to those individuals who may not choose the undergraduate route. These developments will allow people to study and work at the same time as they progress their career. These new routes aim to attract new employees to NHS Scotland and at the same time offer existing staff opportunities to develop and progress towards registered roles.

Staff across a wide range of services play a role in growing community mental health resilience and directing social prescribing, While it is not possible to quantify the total number of staff contributing to this objective, Action 15 of the Mental Health Strategy 2017-27 outlined our commitment to funding 800 additional mental health workers in key settings, including A&Es, GP practices, police station custody suite and prisons – ensuring local provision and support is at the heart of our plans. At the end of the commitment, an additional 958.9 whole time equivalent (WTE) mental health roles have been filled using Action 15 funding. This exceeds the original commitment and includes an additional 356.1 WTE mental health workers recruited to GP practices.

We have also prioritised investment through the Primary Care Improvement Fund (PCIF). At March 2022, 260 WTE mental health workers had been recruited to primary care settings. The PCIF also funds Community Link Workers (CLWs) as part of primary care multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs). CLWs also play a role in social prescribing by enabling people to identify and access relevant resources within their community. At March 2022, 249 WTE CLWs had been recruited to support GP practices.

Since 2021, we have invested £36 million in our Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults. We have made over 1,800 awards to grassroots community projects focused on prevention and early intervention, with the aim of building capacity within community organisations to support the mental health and wellbeing of individuals.

We are continuing to invest in community-based supports for children, young people and families, with a further £15 million being provided this year. These services benefitted over 38,000 children, young people, parents and carers in the first six months of this year alone. Many of these services include links to local sport and recreation activities, which capitalise on the benefits of young people being active.

The majority of spend relating to the Enhanced Psychological Practice programme relates to salaried posts in NHS Health Boards, creating additional capacity within the workforce and enabling delivery of evidence based psychological interventions at enhanced level. The allocated spend to date is as follows (please note numbers of learners/practitioners are cumulative and there are ongoing discussions with partners about the programme for future years):

2021-22 - £377,446

• £224,538 funding towards salaries/backfill for 18 months for 20 practitioners – learner phase followed by post qualification consolidation phase
• £152,908 towards development and delivery of education and training, and programme infrastructure – NES staffing, eLearning development, teaching support and consultancy, learning resources

2022-23 - £2,193,767*

• £1,925,908 funding towards salaries/backfill for 18 months for up to 81 practitioners – learner phase followed by post qualification consolidation phase
• £267,859 towards development and delivery of education and training, and programme infrastructure – NES staffing, teaching support and consultancy, eLearning development, SQA fees and learning resources

*salary costs included in this figure are based on 2021-22 Agenda for Change rates and will need to be amended on confirmation of the Pay Award for 2022-23.

Within the South Region of Forestry and Land Scotland, since 2007, the following estimated number of trees (based on normal planting densities per hectare), have been planted by Forestry and Land Scotland in each Local Authority Area:

Data on deaths from all causes in Scotland are available from National Records of Scotland: Vital Events - Deaths | National Records of Scotland (nrscotland.gov.uk).

The information requested is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government’s ambition, shared with COSLA, is for a trauma-informed and trauma-responsive workforce and services across Scotland. We want anyone who has been affected by trauma in Scotland to be supported by trauma-informed services that are built on safe and trusted relationships, which support recovery and do not cause any further harm or re-traumatisation.

We continue to support the development of a trauma-informed health and social care workforce in Scotland. Since 2018, we have invested over £6 million in a National Trauma Training Programme, including £3.2 million which has been distributed to all local areas to further develop and embed trauma informed approaches. Support for training and implementation, across all sectors of the workforce, is provided by a team of Transforming Psychological Trauma Implementation Co-Ordinators (TPTICs). In 2021, a network of ‘Trauma Champions’ was also established, this includes senior leaders from across local authorities, health boards and key community planning partners who work collaboratively to influence change across local areas. The Trauma Champions network is supported by the Improvement Service.

A Quality-Improvement Framework for Trauma Informed Organisations, Systems and Workforces in Scotland is currently under development and due for publication in Spring 2023. This will support organisations to implement trauma-informed change and to identify their own progress, successes and areas for improvement.

We continue to implement our Heart Disease Action Plan which seeks to ensure that everyone with suspected heart disease has timely and equitable access to diagnosis, treatment and care.

The Network for Inherited Cardiac Conditions Scotland (NICCS) is a National Managed Clinical Network which supports improvements in the diagnosis, treatment and outcomes of people with inherited cardiac conditions (ICC).

Scottish Government are key partners in the Save a Life for Scotland Partnership who are working to deliver the Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest: Strategy 2021 to 2026 . A key aim of this strategy is to increase survival from OHCA to 15% in Scotland by 2026.

It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own parking charges on the basis of local needs and priorities. Parking charges and restrictions can have many objectives, including managing both demand for space and the time that space is occupied, to ensure parking is available for those who need it most. The Scottish Government does not have a national policy on parking charges for public places however we are committed to finding ways to shift the balance towards sustainable travel, away from private car use. We are equally committed to tackling inequality and increasing opportunities for people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to interact in improved areas of civic space. Reducing our reliance on private car use can significantly improve the places we live in and have great benefits for local high streets.

There is research on the topic, for example the Living Street’s Pedestrian Pound Report from Sustrans (2018) evidenced that local shops can benefit from their customers travelling car-free. https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/media/3890/pedestrian-pound-2018.pdf

Additionally, Transport Scotland has recently commissioned research through ClimateXChange to better understand the environmental, social and economic benefits of sustainable travel to local highstreets and town centres. The findings will be particularly valuable to local policy makers, local businesses and individuals and will support the Scottish Government policy to reduce car km in Scotland by 20% by 2030.

The routemap to achieving the reduction in car km was published in January 2022 and aligns with the ‘ Town Centre Action Plan Review – Joint response from Scottish Government and COSLA’ that sets out a new vision for town centres and outlines actions directed to better embed a ‘Town Centre First approach’ to ensure the economic, social and environmental health of town centres is at the heart of investment decision making. Further to this, the draft NPF4 recognises that our cities and towns are a national asset and strengthens support for development in town centres.