Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that those living with respiratory conditions can access clinically appropriate, safe and effective person-centred healthcare treatment and support.

On 20 December 2019, the Scottish Government published the draft Respiratory Care Action Plan for Scotland for consultation. The consultation closed on 3 July 2020 and work is now underway to develop the final plan.

As we continue to develop and finalise the plan we will have a clearer understanding of funding required to deliver the Plan.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-30228 on 22 July 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

As outlined to the member in the answer to question S5W-30228 Scottish Government officials are currently working to identify, a project lead and Lead Clinician to establish a Steering Group and develop the specification and standards for a National Leading Disability CAMHS Clinical Network. Subject to progress and the recommendations of the Steering Group, an application to the NHS National Specialist Services Committee for National MCN designation will follow.

I would like to reassure the member that although the pandemic has slowed the pace of this work, this is an important area of work and identifying a project lead will be progressed in the coming weeks.

Details of the Scottish Budget have been made available online since 2004 and can be found on the Scottish Government website. The following address links to the most recent material: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Government/Finance/18127/Documents . Information specific to Health Research can be found in the supporting information of the published support documents.

The nature and detail of this financial support has evolved over time since 2007 as set out in successive 5 year strategies covering this period. Details are available on line and the most recent strategy can be found at the following address

http://www.nhsresearchscotland.org.uk/uploads/tinymce/Supporting%20Clinical%20Research%20in%20Scotland.pdf

This information is not held centrally.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-32056 on 25 September 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at

http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

This government takes any form of hate crime or prejudice, including anti-English abuse, very seriously. It has a hugely damaging effect on both victims and communities so it’s important that everybody plays their part to challenge it at all times.

We published our Tackling Prejudice and Building Connected Communities Action Plan in June 2017 and I chair an Action Group to take this work forward. Among other things, this group has prioritised raising awareness of hate crime and encouraging reporting through, for example, campaign activity.

We encourage anyone who has experienced or witnessed hate crime to report it to Police Scotland or by using a third party reporting centre, details of which can be found on Police Scotland’s website.

We are committed to working across government in order to build a fairer Scotland where there is simply no place for hatred and prejudice and where everyone feels connected, has a sense of belonging and feels valued.

This information is not collated centrally.

This data can be found in Table 5.2 at the following link: https://www.gov.scot/publications/pupil-census-supplementary-statistics/

Note that data is only available for pupils attending publicly funded schools.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested. Whist we have previously published figures on racist incidents or racially aggravated hate crime up to 2017-18, this does not include information on the social group the perpetrator was perceived to be showing malice or ill-will towards.

We made clear during the Showing Solidarity with Anti-Racism debate in parliament on 10 June 2020 that data on police recorded hate crime in Scotland needs to show a greater level of disaggregation. This is being taken forward in two ways. The first is a study by Scottish Government statisticians into the characteristics of police recorded hate crime in 2018-19, based on a review of crime records. The findings will present information on the social groups that perpetrators were perceived to have shown prejudice towards, including an estimate of how many cases were anti-English in nature. This project had been postponed due to COVID-19 as data could not be collected when working from home, however it has now resumed and analysts will announce a publication date in the near future.

As a second action, we are also setting up a cross justice system working group to improve the collection and reporting of evidence on race, whose remit will include identifying how more detailed hate crime statistics can be produced on an ongoing basis. Justice partners and stakeholder groups have been invited to join, with further announcements on the group to follow in due course.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on local road maintenance expenditure.

Maintenance of the local road network is the responsibility of local authorities. The vast majority of funding to local authorities from the Scottish Government is provided via a block grant and we do not stipulate how local authorities should utilise their individual allocations. It is therefore the responsibility of each local authority to manage their own budget and to allocate the financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government has taken exceptional measures in every area of government as we deal with the challenges of COVID- 19 - and that is particularly clear in our support for local services. To date, £379 million of additional funding has been committed to local authorities by the Scottish Government and to avoid any potential cash flow problems we agreed with COSLA to front-load our weekly grant payments to local authorities by £455 million during May, June and July.