Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring the health and wellbeing of all school pupils, as well creating a safe environment for children to go to school during the COVID-19 pandemic. If anyone, including school pupils, have symptoms of the virus, they should immediately isolate and arrange test via a drive through centre, through ordering a home testing kit or via a walk-in testing if one is close to their home.

We are continually developing, and working with partners on, testing innovations that could enable us to provide testing in new and improved ways. Reducing the invasiveness of testing is one of the areas that we are looking to improve and we will seek to use less invasive testing techniques if they become available.

The Scottish Government understands the importance of school pupil’s education and will continue to work hard to ensure all our children and young people are able to attend school.

The Scottish Government grant funds Sustrans Scotland to deliver cycling and walking infrastructure in partnership with local authorities mainly through the Places for Everyone programme. This programme is currently paused due to Covid-19 restrictions. However, £30 million of grant funding for Places for Everyone has been repurposed into a programme for temporary active travel infrastructure: Spaces for People. This programme supports active travel whilst physical distancing and staying safe from traffic.

Sustrans has recently engaged with North Lanarkshire Council on the refresh of their active travel strategy, as well as during the process of awarding Places for Everyone project funding. Projects in the Coatbridge and Chryston constituency have received funding of nearly £109,000 over 2018-19-2020-21. Across the wider local authority areas, funding allocations have been made totalling nearly £950,000 over 2018-19-2020-21.

In addition, North Lanarkshire Council have been awarded Spaces for People funding of £567,000, which includes project works in the Coatbridge and Chryston constituency.

Training for grassroots football clubs was able to resume from 29 May 2020 in line with the Phase 1 restrictions – including physical distancing and no more than two households meeting – in place for the general population.

We are continuing to liaise with the Scottish FA to ensure member clubs have access to appropriate advice and support, and we will continue to work with the football authorities to consider what future Phases will mean for all levels of football – including the grassroots game – and will provide guidance in due course.

The Scottish Government notes the concerns raised in the report and the conclusions reached.

All employers have a duty to ensure that employees are able to work safely. All workplaces are covered by provisions under the Health and Safety and Work Act 1974 and under the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (Scotland) Regulations 2020.

Local authorities have, through the emergency regulations, powers to tackle failure to maintain safe distancing in the workplace. Workers can raise enquiries about working safely with the Health and Safety Executive and with Local Authority Environmental Health Officers. If workers think their working conditions are unsafe, they also have rights under Section 44 of the Employment Regulations Act (1996). For workers who are members of trade unions, they may wish to speak to their trade union representative.

The Scottish Government has issued a joint statement with the STUC General Secretary on COVID-19 Fair Work Principles that underpin shared commitment to fair work practices in Scotland. This calls on employers, trades unions and workers to work together to reach the right decisions on all workplace issues that arise throughout the COVID-19 outbreak and ensure workers are treated fairly.

We are taking a partnership approach to developing sectoral guidance in order to create the conditions for business, trades unions and regulators to share expertise and work together to create safer workplaces. As part of this process a working group will be established to take forward the development of call/contact centre workplace guidance.

The reporting requirements set out in Section 15 of the Scottish Act specify a range of detail that must be covered as part of this process. In developing our approach we are considering how we focus and prioritise reporting towards matters of significant interest or implications – including impacts on vulnerable groups and human rights - and identify those areas in which more detailed reporting may be needed. Section 9 of the Scottish Act makes a commitment to the advancement of equality and non-discrimination, and equality impacts and implications for individuals and groups with protected characteristics will be an important aspect of the reporting mechanisms adopted.

In my recent statement to Parliament I outlined the principles of the approach we are developing for reporting on the Acts, and I will shortly be setting out further detail on the terms and structure of these reports and the supporting process for engagement and scrutiny.

Due to the rapidly changing situation with Coronavirus (COVID-19) the Scottish Government is to temporarily pause a number of screening programmes. These are:

• Breast Screening (mammograms)

• Cervical Screening (smear tests)

• Bowel Screening (home test kits)

• Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) Screening (ultrasound of abdomen)

• Diabetic Retinopathy (Eye) Screening (images taken of the eye).

Pregnancy and Newborn Screening Programmes, including tests offered during pregnancy and just after birth, will continue where logistically practical.

This means no additional patients will be invited for screening until further notice. Results for those who have recently been screened or who have completed and returned home test kits will continue to be processed.

The suspension is temporary and will be formally reviewed after 12 weeks, or earlier if indicated by the evidence.

Pausing these screening programmes allows staff to be re-allocated to support other essential services, including COVID-19 laboratory testing and covering for colleagues who are unwell or self-isolating.

Vaccination Transformation Programme

The timescale for completion of the Vaccination Transformation Programme, which commenced in 2018 and was due to complete in April 2021, will be extended by one year to April 2022. This will enable the NHS staff whose involvement is vital to the success of the programme, to fully engage with the COVID-19 response over the coming months.

Implementation of the Human Tissue (Authorisation) (Scotland) Act 2019

Implementation of the Human Tissue (Authorisation) (Scotland) Act 2019 has been rescheduled to March 2021.

The health and wellbeing of teachers is a key concern of the Scottish Government. It is recognised that supporting the health and wellbeing of teachers is of paramount importance in enabling them to deliver high quality learning and teaching for children and young people.

We welcome the Barnardo's report and efforts to promote health and wellbeing for those working in our schools. I chaired a roundtable with Barnardo's and Place2Be on supervision last November. The outcomes of this roundtable, along with the findings in the Barnardo's report, will contribute to the work we are currently undertaking in partnership with local government and the teacher unions on the development of new professional learning opportunities for teachers focussed on their health and wellbeing. Opportunities to further explore the place of supervision structures for education staff are being discussed as part of this work.

The majority of Lyme disease cases can be diagnosed and treated in primary care without the need for specialist input, however where specialist input is needed such cases would be cared for in Scotland by Infectious Disease Consultants.

Increasing awareness amongst health care professionals of ticks and Lyme disease is an on-going priority for the Tick Borne Infections group which is part of the Scottish Health Protection Network. The group has produced a number of educational resources for health care professionals to support them in the early detection and management of Lyme disease cases, which can be accessed through the NHS Education for Scotland website.

The Scottish Government promotes the use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which aims to help land managers in all sectors reduce their reliance on pesticides, including those containing glyphosate.

IPM is a site specific approach that integrates a full range of measures – including cultural, biological, chemical and design strategies – to manage pests, weeds and diseases, while minimising risks to people and the environment.

IPM is already promoted through strategies such as the Pesticides National Action Plan and we continue to work with land managers to further reduce reliance on pesticides as outlined in our recent programme for government.