Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is currently consulting on Scotland’s draft palliative care strategy Palliative Care Matters for All. The consultation is open until 10 January 2025 and builds on extensive stakeholder engagement to develop a framework to support delivery and build on existing work to support those in need of palliative care and their families. Through our draft palliative care strategy, we are committed to working with Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) and adult independent hospice organisations to develop a national guidance framework to support and improve consistency of local planning and commissioning of independent hospice services through Integrated Joint Boards (IJBs).

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

SPS have reported or recorded 0 level three incidents since 2016.

The answers to questions S4W-30590 on 23 March 2016 and S5W-24194 on 30 July 2019 provided information on formal practice list closures which the Scottish Government gathered from NHS boards for the purpose of answering those parliamentary questions. NHS boards are responsible for the accuracy of this data and the Scottish Government decided that the best answer to S6W-30808 was to refer Mr Green directly to the source of the data.

The Scottish Government does not routinely gather information on list closures, and as the responsibility for the accuracy of this management information lies with NHS boards, the Scottish Government would not look to publish it.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) is progressing the Small Vessel Replacement Programme Phase One vessels procurement and has confirmed that six shipyards have been invited to tender for the contract.

Scottish Government Ministers have no role in the procurement process or in assessing the bids.

Tender returns are expected in January 2025 with a view to awarding the contract in March 2025.

The Scottish Government works closely with its agencies and partners to explore all viable options to avoid closures and retain jobs in the region. However, despite our best efforts to seek alternative outcomes, this is not always possible to achieve.

The people affected by these announcements are always our immediate priority. The Scottish Government provided support to these individuals 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.

In Scotland, employability services are delivered through the No One Left Behind approach, which sees Scottish and Local Government work in partnership with public, private, and third sector organisations to deliver support to those who are at risk of long-term unemployment. Employability support is in place in every local authority area, with decisions on the design taken by Local Employability Partnerships. Between April 2019 and June 2024, 1813 people have entered No One Left Behind support in Inverclyde.

The most up to date estimates from the Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy (LCREE) survey published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that there were 25,700 direct full time equivalent LCREE jobs in Scotland in 2022.

A seven year time series from 2015 to 2022 is presented in the following table. The results in LCREE are survey-based, the data is gathered from a sample rather than the whole population. The estimates are therefore subject to uncertainty and the level of uncertainty is expressed through confidence intervals. These are presented alongside the estimates below.

Table 1 provides information on the number of emergency readmissions within 7 days of a prior hospital discharge. The data are broken down by financial year (2016-17 to 2023-24) and NHS board of residence, in Scotland.

Table 1: Emergency Readmissions within 7 days of a prior hospital discharge by NHS Board, Scotland 2016-17 to 2023-24

This question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court and Tribunals Service (SCTS) corporate body. The question has been passed to the Chief Executive of the SCTS who will reply in writing within 20 days.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Practices must apply to their Health Boards to close their lists and agree the conditions and timelines for reopening them.

Circumstances will arise where GP practices experience capacity issues and are unable to routinely accept new patients onto their lists. We expect Health Boards to work with practices as constructively and as flexibly as is appropriate to help manage these situations and ensure that all patients have access to GP services.

The latest SQA data shows that the total number of entries into STEM National Qualifications at Higher have increased every year since 2019, with entries in 2024 being 3.4% higher than 2023.

Work has been ongoing since 2017 to implement the STEM Training and Education Strategy, which is designed to ensure ongoing take up of STEM subjects. This includes providing funding to organisations and programmes such as SSERC and the Raising Aspirations in Science Education (RAiSE) Programme, to equip practitioners with the skills, knowledge and confidence to create inspiring STEM learning experiences.

In addition, the Scottish Government funds the Young STEM Leader Programme which inspires young people to take up STEM subjects, as well as initiatives such as Maths Week Scotland which promotes numeracy as an essential life skill.