- Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Patrick Harvie on 18 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish a monitoring and evaluation framework for the Heat in Buildings Strategy, as recommended by the Climate Change Committee in its report, Progress reducing emissions in Scotland - 2021 Report to Parliament.
Answer
As set out in chapter 11 of the Heat in Buildings Strategy, we are developing a monitoring and evaluation framework which we will publish later this year. We will publish our response to this recommendation, and the Climate Change Committee’s other recommendations this spring.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/heat-buildings-strategy-achieving-net-zero-emissions-scotlands-buildings/pages/12/
- Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Patrick Harvie on 18 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will commit to making all public sector buildings net zero by 2030, with an interim target of 75% by 2027 and a target for absolute zero by 2035, as recommended by Scotland's Climate Assembly in its report, Recommendations for Action.
Answer
The Scottish Government agrees with the Assembly on the importance of rapidly decarbonising public sector buildings. We are committed to developing and agreeing, through consultation, a series of phased targets for the decarbonisation of public sector buildings. Targets will start in 2024, with the most difficult buildings like hospitals being decarbonised by 2038 and for all publicly owned buildings to meet net zero emission heating requirements by 2038. This is seven years earlier than the backstop of 2045 for the rest of Scotland’s building stock.
Action is being taken by the Scottish Government to support Scotland’s public sector to meet these targets:
- The Scottish Green Public Sector Estate Decarbonisation Scheme will distribute £200 million of capital funding during this parliamentary session to aid the decarbonisation of Scotland’s public sector estate.
- NHS Scotland’s £10 billion programme of investment in new hospitals and healthcare facilities is guided by a commitment that all new buildings and major refurbishments will produce net zero emissions and use renewable heat.
- The £2 billion Learning Estate Investment Programme, managed by the Scottish Futures Trust, aims to benefit around 50,000 pupils across Scotland by the end of the next Parliament by delivering digitally enabled, low-carbon schools and campuses.
- Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Kevin Stewart on 8 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how many probable suicides there were in each year from 2017 to 2021, broken down by local authority and also given as an annual crude rate per 100,000 population.
Answer
National Records of Scotland (NRS) publishes figures on probable deaths by suicide annually. Figures for each year from 2017 to 2020 are provided on the NRS website, and this includes a breakdown by local authority areas at Table 5. The data is found here: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/probable-suicides/2020/suicides-20-all-tabs.xlsx
NRS plans to publish figures of probable deaths by suicides for 2021 in summer 2022.
NRS does not publish annual crude rates of probable suicides at a population level. Instead, it uses age-standardised rates which provide reliable comparisons across local authority areas by taking account of different demographic profiles. NRS publishes this data on a 5 yearly basis, rather than on an annual basis, to ensure the data does not disclose individual cases. Detailed information is available in figure 6 of the spreadsheet provided in the above link.
- Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 7 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what specialist support Police Scotland offers to police officers and staff experiencing poor mental health.
Answer
The provision of Health and Wellbeing services, for the police workforce, is a matter for the Chief Constable.
Police officers and staff can access a range of services to care for their physical and mental health through Police Scotland's “Your Wellbeing Matters” programme. This includes the signposting of services by ‘Wellbeing Champions’ and the programme has resulted in a raised awareness of the services available, such as occupational health and employee assistance, which offer counselling, and specific interactions through the Trauma Risk Management programme (TRiM).
- Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 7 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what action Police Scotland is taking to reduce the number of police officer and staff working days lost due to poor mental health.
Answer
The provision of Health and Wellbeing services, for the police workforce, is a matter for the Chief Constable.
Police officers and staff can access a range of services to care for their psychological, physical, social and financial wellbeing through Police Scotland's “Your Wellbeing Matters” programme. Police Scotland have a network of ‘Wellbeing Champions’ who offer Officers and Staff guidance and signposting to the most appropriate support available to them. These support services include occupational health and the HELP employee assistance programme which offer counselling, specific interventions and guidance. Police Scotland offer post traumatic support for all police officers and members of police staff who are directly involved in potentially traumatic incidents through the Trauma Risk Management programme (TRiM). Mental health is also very much the focus of health and wellbeing training offering at present, Police Scotland are working with 2 delivery partners, ELEOS and Lifelines Scotland, on a weekly schedule of training activity. The training aims to raise awareness and support the emotional and psychological wellbeing of the Police workforce.
- Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 7 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether Police Scotland provides financial support to officers and staff seeking to attend the psychological wellbeing and counselling programmes at the two Police Treatment Centres, in Harrogate and Auchterarder.
Answer
The information requested is not held centrally. Any financial support provided to the Police Treatment Centres, by Police Scotland, is a matter for the Chief Constable and the Scottish Police Authority.
- Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 7 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what formal support is available to police officers and staff experiencing poor mental health.
Answer
The provision of Health and Wellbeing services, for the police workforce, is a matter for the Chief Constable.
Police officers and staff can access a range of services to care for their physical and mental health through Police Scotland's “Your Wellbeing Matters” programme. This includes the signposting of services by ‘Wellbeing Champions’ and the programme has resulted in a raised awareness of the services available, such as occupational health and employee assistance, which offer counselling, and specific interactions through the Trauma Risk Management programme (TRiM).
- Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 7 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how many police working days were lost due to mental ill health in (a) 2019, (b), 2020, and (c) 2021, broken down by region.
Answer
The information requested is not held centrally. The recording of absences, in relation to Police Scotland’s workforce, is a matter for the Chief Constable.
- Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2022
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 10 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on when it expects college and university students to be able to return to full-time face-to-face learning.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 10 February 2022
- Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 January 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Patrick Harvie on 2 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how many homes have received energy saving help from it in each of the last five years, also broken down by (a) local authority area and (b) the government schemes involved in providing the help or fuel poverty relief.
Answer
The Scottish Government has provided support to households for energy saving measures through a number of support and advice schemes over the last 5 years. Home Energy Scotland, administered on behalf of the Scottish Government through Energy Saving Trust, acts as a single point of access for advice on sustainable energy and fuel poverty support in Scotland. We also offer support and advice through other Scottish Government schemes providing energy saving help or fuel poverty relief to households. The information on these schemes has been provided to the Scottish Parliament Information Centre at BIB number 63123.
