Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government continues to support Scotland’s businesses by passing on every penny we receive from the UK Government and more. Our approach to supporting businesses is tailored to Scotland’s economic needs and we have developed a package of measures that reflects Scotland’s economy and consequentially we are providing support which is unavailable elsewhere in the UK.

The Scottish Government will publish details of the fund in the coming weeks, including the number of applications and how many were successful, once applications have been processed by each Local Authority.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Table 1 provides a breakdown of the average population of HMP Inverness in each year since 1 January 2018.

Table 2 provides a breakdown of the average population of HMP Inverness by month, since 1 January 2018.

Table 1:

The cost of the NHS Highland Elective Centre is £42m.

Following review at the Capital Investment Group in January 2020, approval of the Full Business Case for the project and associated costs was confirmed in a letter from the Director General, Health and Sport dated 13-05-20.

Advance enabling works will commence in June 2020 with construction commencing in October 2020. Construction is expected to be complete in August 2022.

An additional £645,000 has been made available to NHS Highland for 2020-21 to support Access to Cancer Services.

Officials are now working with NHS Highland to ensure that robust plans are in place through their remobilisation plans to ensure cancer service remain a top clinical priority, ensuring patients have appropriate and timely access to treatment.

On 4 June 2020 the Cabinet Secretary announced the Framework for Recovery of Cancer Surgery to assist NHS Scotland to prioritise those most in need of cancer treatment. The Framework sets out how health boards should prioritise cancer surgery as NHS Scotland resumes more services.

The Scottish Tourism Recovery Task Force was set up to have advise on and have strategic oversight of recovery plans in response to the Covid-19 impact on Scottish tourism and hospitality. The Taskforce will look to ensure that the tourism recovery plan is fully coordinated with wider Scottish Government and other relevant sectoral recovery plans, and with our tourism strategy Scotland Outlook 2030. I intend that the Taskforce will have a report ready to be published in early September.

The group has had two plenary sessions, on 25th June and 10th July. Papers and minutes from those meetings, along with a list of the taskforce members, will be published on the Scottish Government website very shortly.

Officials have worked with all of the Health Boards including NHS Highland to formulate Local Mobilisation Plans in which Cancer has remained the number one clinical priority, alongside ensuring capacity for any increase in Covid-19 cases.

Boards will be asked to keep their remobilisation plans under constant review to ensure there is enough COVID surge capacity in place. This work will be cognisant of national guidance and policy frameworks, including those relating to infection prevention and control, testing and PPE.

To support this an additional £645,000 has been made available to NHS Highland for 2020-21 to support Access to Cancer Services.

Through the Pivotal Enterprise Resilience Fund, we are providing support to pivotal SMEs which is unavailable elsewhere in the UK. Due to significant demand, we doubled the Fund to £90m and have since further increased it to £120m. Similarly we have increased our Creative, Tourism and Hospitality Enterprises Hardship Fund by £10m to £30m.

Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise were asked to develop and implement a full, systematic and shared approach to enable the appraisal of a high volume of applications for these funds. Given the immediacy of the situation, they secured external support to build at pace a technical platform for the two new funds and to support part of the appraisal process.

All decisions on awards were made by the agencies themselves, with expert advice from delivery partners VisitScotland and Creative Scotland. WeareUMi is the delivery partner for the agencies and the final cost of the contract is still to be confirmed as work relating to the funds is ongoing.

Ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly meet with representatives of all Health Boards, including NHS Highland.

I joined a weekly virtual meeting of health board CEOs on the 5th of June.

At this present time the Scottish Government are in frequent contact with all NHS Boards on their planning and preparations to safely and gradually resume some paused services, while continuing to maintain Covid-19 capacity and resilience.

The National Elective Centre Programme received a report update on 2 nd June regarding the NHS Highland Elective Centre Project. This followed a discussion with the NHS Highland Elective Centre Senior Responsible Owner on 28 th May and a follow-up discussion took place on Monday 15 th June.

The National Elective Centre Programme is regularly updated on the development of the North of Scotland Elective Care Centre.

Construction is due to commence in June 2020 with a Construction Completion Date of August 2022.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise is currently finalising proposals around next steps for the Cairngorm funicular railway in light of the Cairngorm National Park Authority decision. HIE is expecting to put recommendations to the Scottish Government over the summer and the outcome of these considerations will determine the level of funding required.