Chamber and committees

The provision of allotments is the responsibility of local authorities as set out in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, Part 9.

In accordance with section 121 of Part 9 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, local authorities report annually on the provision of allotments in their areas. The legislation clearly defines the mandatory information to be included in the annual allotment reports including, but not limited to;

• the location and size of each allotment site,
• the number of allotments on each allotment site,
• the rent payable,
• the number of people on the waiting list and how many have been waiting 5 years or more,
• the number of allotments on each allotment site that are accessible by a disabled person,
• the number of allotments adjusted to meet the needs of a tenant who is a disabled person,
• the income received, and expenditure incurred, by the authority in connection with allotment sites,
• such other information as may be prescribed.

Reports are available online from each local authority. The Scottish Government does not collect this information centrally and does not hold historic data on allotment provision.

The number of unpaid carers who receive short breaks or respite is reported in the accompanying tables of the Scottish Government Carers Census . This collection only covers unpaid carers who have a support plan and/or receive support from local services, rather than the total caring population. Table 1 below does not include data from 2018-19, as it is not comparable to subsequent years.

Table 1: Number and percentage of people who received short breaks or respite in 2019-20 to 2021-22 (all areas submitted) (Source: Carers Census, Scottish Government)

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.

It is the responsibility of Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) to plan and commission adult palliative and end of life care services for their areas using the integrated budgets under their control. As such, service level agreements between hospices and health boards are matters for Integration Authorities, their health boards, and independent hospices. Prior to commencement of the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014, any service level agreements would have been matters for NHS Health Boards and independent hospices.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.

Following the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 (the Act), a Memorandum of Understanding was developed between Scotland’s Integration Joint Boards and Independent Hospices. Individual memorandums of understanding between hospices and NHS Boards are a matter for those Integration Joint Boards, their health boards and independent Scottish Hospices. Prior to commencement of the Act, any individual memorandums of understanding would have been matters for NHS Health Boards and independent hospices.

Ministers are required by the Community Empowerment Act (2015) to review the National Outcomes within five years of their previous publication, and the next review is currently underway. The Scottish Government intends to lay the statutory document in Parliament in early 2024. This will outline the work undertaken during the Review, including any proposed changes to the National Outcomes.

The health and welfare of children waiting for paediatric appointment remains a priority for the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on blood tests, nor paediatric phlebotomy appointments. This information will lie with NHS Lothian.

We meet regularly with all Health Boards, including NHS Lothian, to discuss any challenges impacting activity and to provide any necessary support. As part of these discussions we have engaged with the Board on this issue. NHS Lothian are working to increase the number and timeliness of appointments available, while any urgent requests are addressed as a priority.

We continue to work closely with all NHS Boards to maximise capacity and reduce the time people are waiting for appointments and treatment. We have already seen a huge effort by our NHS to clear long waiting times, with the number of new outpatients and inpatient/day-cases seen in the quarter to March 2023 at the highest level since the start of the pandemic.

The Scottish Government is working with the energy sector to plan for a multi-skilled workforce, one that can benefit from opportunities across the energy system. Our oil and gas workers, and their vital skills, will be essential to the transition. Workers, and trade unions, will be at heart of everything we do.

Scotland’s green jobs revolution is underway and a recent report from the Universities of Strathclyde and Warwick provided an initial estimate that up to 100,000 roles are ‘new and emerging’ green jobs in Scotland. Although the researchers regard this as an upper estimate, it is encouraging to see a strong indication of green jobs in Scotland.

While we do not hold data on job flows from the oil and gas sector to the renewables sector at present, the Office for National Statistics undertakes an annual Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy survey. This provides estimates of renewable FTE employment statistics in Scotland.

As the table below shows, there were 28,300 full time equivalent jobs in Scotland in the low carbon and renewable energy sectors in 2021.

Following publication of the Capital Spending Review and a subsequent review of the health portfolio’s capital programme, all projects that were in construction at the time of the review have continued to be progressed, including:

• National Treatment Centres at Forth Valley, Golden Jubilee (Phase Two), Fife and Highland Health Boards
• The Baird Family Hospital and ANCHOR Centre project
• The upgrade of the Edinburgh Cancer Centre and the new national secure adolescent inpatient service in Irvine
• The Glasgow Primary Care Hub project

The review also included a commitment to a doubling of expenditure on maintenance for the health capital programme, in line with the recommendations of the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s Medium Term Financial Strategy will be reviewed in Summer 2023 to deliver an overall, affordable prioritisation of the capital programme to 2026-27. The outcome of this review will inform any reprofiling of capital projects for health and social care infrastructure.

Data on the number of people accessing alcohol treatment services in Scotland is available from Public Health Scotland’s “National Drug and Alcohol Treatment Waiting Times” series of reports. It includes specific figures on the number of service users who have completed a wait to commence specialist alcohol treatment.

It is published by Public Health Scotland and covers the period from 01 April 2011 onwards as earlier data is not available.

The reports covering the period from April 2011 to September 2019 can be found via the URL link below:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/ .

The reports covering the period from October 2019 to December 2022 can be found via the URL link below:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/

Although the data is publicly available online, in order to answer the above question, it is necessary to combine extracts from multiple reports. Results have been presented in Table 1. Not all necessary data, however, is available to answer the question fully, which explains blank boxes in the table.

Table 1. Number of service users who have completed a wait to commence specialist alcohol treatment

The following table shows the number of a nimals involved in injury collisions that were hit in the carriageway.