Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government places the upmost importance on planning accordingly to balance its budget. We originally assumed 3% per cent for pay awards at the time of the Budget, and a 2% +1% phased multi-year approach was confirmed as part of our 2024-25 Pay Policy.

The 3% was based on a range of judgements including affordability and on known funding at the time under the previous UK Government. The UK Government’s Autumn Statement was the worst-case scenario for Scotland and caused further uncertainty about future funding for public services from UK Government.

Stabilising economic conditions were also taken into account with inflation forecast to reduce to 2%. To those who believe we should set out our pay metrics earlier, it is worth remembering the UK Government does not set out its pay policy for the public sector and does not share the workings of the Pay Review bodies with us.

The Scottish Parliament agreed the general principles of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill in April. In advance of the dates for Stage 2 of the Parliamentary process being agreed, I am proposing to make some amendments to the Bill.

On 9 October the Scottish Government published its response to the independent review of the Victim Notification Scheme (VNS), which signalled our intention to use the Bill to deliver reforms to the VNS that require primary legislation, to ensure we reform the VNS as quickly as possible.

I have already made clear my willingness to amend the provisions that enable a time-limited pilot of single judge rape trials. I recognise, however, that there is not enough cross-party support at this time for such a pilot, irrespective of the model. In the interests of building as much consensus as possible, I will no longer pursue this policy and bring forward relevant amendments to remove it from the Bill. I remain committed to exploring the impact of rape myths and improving access to justice for rape victims. As part of this work, I will bring forward amendments to allow for research to be carried out into jury deliberations, which is currently heavily restricted by the Contempt of Court Act 1981.

I also intend to bring forward amendments at Stage 2 so that Scotland retains a 15 person jury in criminal trials. After reflecting carefully on the Criminal Justice Committee’s recommendations, and on the evidence, I believe that the most prudent approach to jury reform, including the abolition of the not proven verdict, is to seek support for a model with two verdicts (guilty and not guilty), 15 jurors, and a two-thirds majority requirement for conviction.

I have written to the Criminal Justice Committee to provide further detail about the planned amendments.

I am pleased to announce that the third Annual Report on our progress towards implementing Scotland’s Vision for Trade is being published today and is available at: www.gov.scot/isbn/9781836019084

The Report sets out how the Scottish Government has applied its principles to international trade policy matters, covering the period from July 2023 – October 2024.

Since our last Annual Report, published in Summer 2023, we have taken a range of actions to improve the international trading environment for businesses in Scotland, including stepping up our direct engagement with the business community, supporting the resolution of individual market access barriers and using standards and regulation to support businesses. For example, we collaborated with the British Standards Institution on the introduction of a new voluntary whisky standard which empowers distillers in Scotland to trade internationally.

We are using our principles-based approach to trade to create more opportunities for people to participate in our economy, for example by gaining a better understanding of the cause, impact and potential measures to address the a clear gender export gap, whereby businesses led by women are less likely to export than those led by men.

The tragic events unfolding globally demonstrate why taking such a principles-based approach, with concern for human rights at its core, is so important.

Many trade levers sit with the UK Government, and we are committed to working constructively with the newly-elected UK Government in furthering our shared trade interests.

The expansion and retention of our specialist genomic workforce is an important part of the Scottish Government’s genomic medicine strategy and is critical to the delivery of both diagnosis and treatment across the NHS.

The Scottish Strategic Network for Genomic Medicine is working to capture not only our current workforce needs but those of our future service as we move towards an expansion in testing.

In doing so, we are working closely with NHS Education Scotland, our partners across the UK and national networks, acknowledging the many interdependencies between genomics, pathology and radiology in delivering diagnostic information needed by clinicians.

Equitable and consistent access to appropriate and timely diagnostic services and expertise are core requirements within the NICE NG47 guidelines cited within the recent Blood Cancer UK Action Plan.

We are aware of a gap analysis carried out by the Haematology and Transfusion Scotland and Scottish Strategic Network for Genomic Medicine networks on the genomic testing needed in Scotland, and we are working to address this as part of the overall implementation of the Genomics in Scotland strategy.

Work is also underway to better support integrated diagnostic reporting through the development of a national Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) in a programme of work led by a consortium of NHS Boards.

The reply to the 2024 PQ S6W-30359 was interpreted as seeking cost information for the Digital Waste Tracking project. The Electronic Duty of Care (edoc) system was a wholly separate project to the ongoing “Digital Waste Tracking” project. As such, edoc was not referred to in the response to PQ S6W-30359 on 16 October 2024.

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

The anticipated full year spend (12 months from opening, not the financial year) is £2.3 million. This funding is largely to cover the staffing of the facility. Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership have funded the building works and furnishings.

The Scottish Government is aware of the impact that branch closures are having on people in Scotland, particularly in rural areas and our island communities.

We know that some people are waiting too long for treatment, and we remain determined to provide the necessary support to drive improvements in waiting times. Across NHS Scotland, patients who require urgent care continue to be prioritised across services.

NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde have confirmed the average waiting time for an urgent neurology new outpatient appointment at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) is currently 20 weeks, however there are a small number of patients whose waiting time will be markedly longer than average due to an upgrade of their status from routine to urgent.

The Board have recruited additional consultants to the service which will deliver additional capacity at the QEUH site for general Neurology waits. They have also implemented Patient Focused Booking (PFB) into Neurology services to ensure optimum use of outpatient capacity and additional headache slots are being supported by GPs with special interest (GPSI), helping to free-up the consultant team to focus on general neurology longest waits.

More widely, NHS Scotland’s Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) has developed a strong clinically-led Specialty Delivery Groups (SDG) for Neurology which promotes multidisciplinary team working, and supports local adoption of service improvement programmes. The Neurology SDG has strong links with the National Advisory Committee for Neurological Conditions and includes third sector representation. The group has made considerable progress implementing Active Clinical Referral Triage (ACRT) pathways and Discharge Patient Initiated Review (PIR), helping to free-up capacity across NHS Scotland and support sustainable solutions for the future.

As part of the Cancer Action Plan for Scotland 2023-26, Scottish Government committed to “Invest in improving the pathways of less survivable cancers, particularly hepatocellular carcinoma and pancreatic cancer. This will shorten the time to staging and agreeing treatment options.”

Scottish Government invested in a pilot Scottish Care and Coordination Service for Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Cancers (SCOT HPB) as a potential way to achieve this action. Scottish Government commissioned the Scottish Cancer Network (SCN) to review the pilot to consider lessons learned and potential options for future delivery.

Following this and further expert engagement, we are considering how best to continue to improve patient pathways for those with Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary cancers in an equitable, evidenced and sustainable way.