Chamber and committees

The recruitment of the additional school counsellors will be funded entirely by the Scottish Government. We are currently working with local government partners to identify the level of funding required to support this work.

The Delivery Plan for all of the mental health commitments in the Programme for Government 2018-19 will be published by 21 December 2018.

31 of the directly SG-funded link workers are employed on a fixed term contract.

Of these, 13 in Edinburgh are on fixed term contracts of 18 months. The Integration Authority intends to sustain these posts at the end of the current procurement period.

The other 18 are in Glasgow, and have had varying lengths of contract as the programme has developed. The current funding arrangement ends on 31 March 2019, but Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) will be procuring the service on a four year framework to run from 2019-20 onwards. Glasgow City HSCP is committed to the continuing delivery of a community link worker programme through third sector providers.

Outwith the SG-funded cohort described above, we are aware from research undertaken in 2017 that a range of approaches have developed and been funded locally. The Scottish Government does not hold information on the average length of contract for link workers, social prescribers, community connectors or others in comparable roles that may be employed or contracted by GPs, local authorities, health boards, the third sector or other employers.

Of the 56 directly SG-funded link workers in post, 31 are employed on a fixed term contract. 13 of the fixed term posts are in Edinburgh and 18 in Glasgow.

There are 56 directly SG-funded community link workers in post covering 72 practices in 6 locations across Scotland.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collects, processes and publishes data about Higher Education delivered at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK, including statistics on university staff.

HESA does not hold the requested information on registered disabled members of staff.

The following table shows the percentage of staff self-declaring disabilities at Scottish HEIs since 2012-13. Numbers may not exactly add to 100% due to rounding.

Percentage of staff at Scottish HEIs with disabilities

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-18613 on 24 September 2018. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

The creation of 350 school counsellors in school education across Scotland is part of a package of measures to ensure that children and young people get the support that they need. We are commencing work with partners in local government to implement this commitment quickly and will invest £60 million to deliver this across Scotland.

We will produce a Delivery Plan on all of the Programme for Government mental health commitments which will set out the specific actions and resource required to implement the actions as quickly as possible.

I will soon be meeting Haemophilia Scotland and the Scottish Infected Blood Forum to discuss the clinical review group's recommendations. Some of the group's recommendations are already implemented, but, for those which are not yet implemented, if the Scottish Government agrees to take them forward in full, they will be implemented by the Scottish Infected Blood Support Scheme, managed by NHS National Services Scotland.

We will work with our partners in local government to deliver the commitment set out in this year's Programme for Government. All local authorities will be offered the training which will complement the range of mental health strategies that are already in place within schools and local authorities.