Questions and answers

Question reference: S5W-14829

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 23 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 8 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the potential impact on oil distribution companies of the changes to the Controlled Activities Regulations when applying for a SEPA licence, and how many companies these changes will affect.

A study was carried out in 2015 into the condition of oil storage facilities used for onward distribution, which were exempt from oil storage legislation. A number of issues were found which had potential to impact on public safety, or the environment. It had also been identified that some of the exempt structures were of similar volume to installations already covered by legislation.

Following engagement with the sector, and consultation, the decision was taken to include oil distribution depots in oil storage legislation and consolidate the regulations into the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations (CAR).

The consolidation of oil storage into CAR provides flexibility in that where a site complies with the general binding rules there is no additional cost to the operator. Where a site does not comply with the rules there is a requirement to apply to SEPA for a licence. Licences can be issued on a single fee multi-site basis; allowing operators to include a number of sites under one licence. SEPA will work closely with these operators on a mutual timetable for improvement plans, to provide the required environmental protection.

There are 26 companies operating out of 95 depots, not all of which contain oil storage. SEPA assessments, in association with operators, have identified that some sites are already compliant and will not require a licence. A self-assessment checklist is available to allow operators to check for compliance with the general binding rules of CAR, or whether a licence may need to be applied for. The multi-site licence approach will also reduce the overall number of licences which may be required.

Question reference: S5W-14517

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 7 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-13542 by Shona Robison on 9 February 2018, what its position is on whether the NHS has increased its reliance on privately-funded lab results for diagnosis in order to address backlogs and waiting periods for NHS-funded laboratory results.

The use of private laboratories by the NHS is a matter for individual Boards and will be dependent on demand and availability of services.

Private laboratories are not used by the NHS to process Scottish Clinical Microbiology and Virology samples however this is different south of the border where public-private partnerships exist.

Some labs have used these companies in the past to address short term staff shortages but there is no long term use and there is no evidence to suggest an increasing use.

Question reference: S5W-14676

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 6 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) support and (b) funding it provides to unemployed people who require specific certifications to transition from one job sector to another.

The Scottish Government, in partnership with Skills Development Scotland and employability providers, has a range of support packages available to help support individuals to make the transition from one career into another, where that requires a specific certification or qualification.

We also provide support through our initiative for responding to redundancy situations, Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE). Through providing skills development and employability support, PACE aims to minimise the time individuals affected by redundancy are out of work.

Transition Training Fund (TTF)

The Transition Training Fund (TTF) is focused on supporting people who have lost or face losing their jobs in the oil and gas sector and the support will help them build on their existing skills to transition into other roles in the oil and gas industry, other energy industry and manufacturing employment or any other available roles.

The Fund is providing support by offering grants to individuals to support redeployment through retraining and upskilling. The fund is also helping people with the costs of maintaining any licences needed to work in the sector or to acquire new ones to broaden their skillset. Funding may be approved for up to £4,000.

At the end of January 2018, a total of 2,649 people had received support through TTF. The following table showing the occupational sectors to which their training applied.

Sector categories	Clients	Training items
Education/Care/Health Services	195	321
Health and Safety	886	1594
Management and Business Occupations	444	893
Office and Administrative	214	336
Oil and Gas	530	868
Other	248	438
Renewables/Low Carbon/Engineering	300	473
Skilled Trades	881	1799
Transportation	795	1785
Total	2649	8507

Individual Training Accounts

Individual Training Accounts (ITAs) are targeted at individuals looking to get into or back into employment. The funding is up to £200 towards the cost of a training course.

Employability Fund (EF)

The Employability Fund targets those who are not currently in employment, education or training and delivers a range of interventions to those in need of support at Stages 2-4 of the Strategic Skills Pipeline. Stage 4 provision is designed to enable individuals to access sustained employment through industry specific training. It helps individuals who are likely to be job ready in terms of generic employability skills but need specific skills and/or certification to improve their chances of gaining employment.

No contribution is expected from participants towards the cost of training or obtaining qualifications.

Question reference: S5W-14516

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 2 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what qualifications are required in order to become a police firearms officer, and whether candidates are required to undergo basic firearms training before being considered for such a position.

Question reference: S5O-01836

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 February 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce drug use in prisons.

Question reference: S5W-13937

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 26 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what new initiatives are being considered to support vulnerable children with mental health issues, in light of the reported decrease in the budget for child and adolescent mental health services.

All children and young people have the right to be cared for, protected from harm, and to grow up in a safe environment in which their rights and needs are respected. We expect all children and young people to have their needs met by the mental health system, and the improvements we want to see made to the CAMHS system must take into account the needs of particularly vulnerable groups. The Scottish Government has invested £15 million to support better access to CAMHS and innovation, and we have indicated in our draft budget for 2018-19 an increase for Mental Health Innovation and Improvement of £17 million – this includes money for the transformation of CAMHS.

There is a focus on vulnerable children and young people in the Mental Health Strategy, with specific Actions supporting that focus, including:

Action 5 - Ensure the care pathway includes mental and emotional health and wellbeing, for young people on the edges of, and in, secure care.
Action 6 - Determine and implement the additional support needed for practitioners assessing and managing complex needs among children who present a high risk to themselves or others.
Action 7 - Support an increase in support for the mental health needs of young offenders, including on issues such as trauma and bereavement.
Action 20 - Scope the required level of highly specialist mental health inpatient services for young people, and act on its findings.

Question reference: S5W-13276

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 December 2017
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 11 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to (a) monitor and (b) improve employment opportunities for young people with autism.

Effective and accurate collection and monitoring of employment data is important to ensure we can assess the extent to which we are making progress helping particular groups, including young people with autism. We are working to ensure that through the new devolved employment service, Fair Start Scotland, we are able to capture accurate data on types of disability.

This approach is in line with the recommendations of the 2016 report from the Scottish Commission for Learning Disability which highlighted the need to ‘substantially improve recording and reporting of learning disabilities data’.

We recognise the particular challenges people with autism face, including that only 16% of adults with autism are in full time paid employment.

Since the publication of the current autism strategy, a range of projects have been put in place to help support people with autism:

One of the thirteen projects selected to receive funding from the Employability Innovation and Integration Fund over the period of 2017-19 will see West College Scotland implement a package of employment support for 50 people with disabilities, including Autism.
The Autism Innovation and Development Fund has supported a number of third sector organisations to provide individuals with the skills to take up employment opportunities.
We are supporting a range of supported employment models, including Project SEARCH, to support people with autism to find employment. We will continue to work with our partners to promote personal outcomes approaches.
The Open Doors Consortium is providing specialist employer support to young people across Scotland, tailored to the needs of the individual.
Through the Scottish Government’s Cashback for Communities initiative, the National Autistic Society Scotland have received 3 years funding to deliver their employment project Moving Forward to over 300 young people between 16 – 24.

Following national engagement, and building on the work undertaken during the period of the current strategy, we will publish a new Autism Strategy for 2018-2021. This will include further action to increase employment levels among people of all ages with autism as part of our ambition to more than half the disability employment gap.

Question reference: S5W-13542

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 December 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 9 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether the NHS take blood/saliva tests results provided by private laboratories into account when providing a clinical diagnosis, and if so, what criteria these laboratories must meet.

Front-line diagnostic testing is undertaken in local laboratories attached to NHS hospitals and clinics. They process samples (blood cultures, wound swabs, urines, sputa etc.) taken directly from patients by NHS health professionals. Health Protection Scotland has responsibility for the commissioning of Reference Laboratory Services, which provide support to NHS Scotland in guiding the clinical management of individual patients.

It is a clinical decision whether to accept other results such as those obtained from private or overseas laboratories but they would usually be repeated if required.

The system of Clinical Pathology Accreditation is run by the UK Accreditation Service (UKAS) and inspects laboratories on a regular basis. This is a very thorough review of the processes in each pathology discipline undertaken by that laboratory and is done to international standards (ISO 15189 medical laboratories). There is an expectation that all laboratories, whether they are part of the NHS or private, comply with these standards.

Question reference: S5W-13565

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 December 2017
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 22 December 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what emergency support measures are in place for people who could be affected by severe weather over the festive period.

The Scottish Government’s Resilience operation is active every day of the year, including weekends and public holidays over the festive period, analysing and responding as required to any weather and flood alerts that are identified by the Met Office and the Scottish Flood Forecasting Service.

In the event of severe weather being forecast, the Scottish Government Resilience Room (SGoRR) facility can be activated to support and co-ordinate an effective national response, supported by Transport Scotland’s resilience arrangements and other relevant parts of the public sector. Scotland’s network of Resilience Partnerships, which bring together emergency services, local authorities, health boards, utility companies and other responders, can also be activated at any time to co-ordinate the local response to the consequences of severe weather.

Detailed local resilience response arrangements are a matter for the statutory response organisations, including emergency services, local authorities and health boards.

Question reference: S5W-12800

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 17 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 15 December 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what support it gives to inventors; how this support is promoted, and what methods it uses to encourage innovation.

The Scottish Government's vision is to be a place where innovation is built into our culture, society and economy. We recognise the role that innovators and inventors are playing in contributing to this aim and that is why we are investing in the development and application of innovation and technology. Some specific measures include:

Supporting the network of eight Innovation Centres; doubling our funding for CivTech® - enabling them to scale up their activity to address cross-sector public sector needs with business-led innovation; using public sector needs and spend to catalyse innovation by, for example, the £9m CAN DO Innovation Challenge Fund; investing £90 million towards development of the £180 million Oil and Gas Technology Centre in Aberdeen; and investing £48 million in the National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland, which will allow business to access expertise and cutting edge technology to design and develop prototype products in advanced manufacturing disciplines. We are also seeking to double Business Enterprise Expenditure on Research and Development (BERD) by 2025 and are stimulating growth in BERD through increasing Scottish Government support for business R&D grants, delivered by our enterprise network, by £45 million over the next three years to reach £111 million over this period - an increase of 70%.

We have made guidance available for individuals and businesses with early-stage ideas at www.mygov.scot/business/develop-ideas-for-businesses/ In addition, a range of public sector and other support information for businesses is available at www.mygov.scot/business/funding-businesses-ideas/. This support starts with Business Gateway, which is delivered through Scotland's local authorities.

Scottish Enterprise can deliver innovation support aimed at helping businesses commercialise new ideas and may include one-to-one specialist support, access to expertise and, where appropriate, grant assistance. Information is available at www.scottish-enterprise.com/knowledge-hub/articles/guide/innovation-support.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise delivers a regional innovation service called Innovate Your Business which supports businesses who are new to innovating. Information is available at www.hie.co.uk/business-support/innovation-r-d/.

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