Chamber and committees

Since its inception, the Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund (RTIF), which was established to support critical infrastructure at rural pinch points, has provided £14.5 million of grant funding to support development of facilities such as car parks, waste disposal and toilet provision.

The fund has supported 66 projects across 15 local authorities and both national parks. A full list of successful applicants and projects are published online: Rural Development Fund - Funding | VisitScotland.org

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-05896 on 7 February 2022. 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

Oversubscription to the UK Foundation Training Programme occurs on an annual basis as a result of there being more applicants than available places. The rate of oversubscription is influenced by various factors, the most prominent of which being changes made by the UK Government to the Shortage Occupation List. These changes mean that overseas applicants are eligible to apply to the programme, and can outperform UK graduates when competing for an established place.

However, regardless of the extent to which the programme is oversubscribed, there has to date been a UK-wide intergovernmental commitment to ensure all UK medical school graduates are able to secure a place on the Foundation training programme if they are eligible and wish to do so. This is essential in order to ensure that medical school graduates are able to achieve full GMC registration, which takes place after trainees complete the first year of Foundation training.

The Scottish Government will therefore continue to fund Scotland’s share of oversubscribed places in 2022. Discussions remain ongoing with NHS Education for Scotland regarding the number of required places, and funding will be provided to ensure that every eligible Scottish medical school graduate is given the opportunity to enrol in the UK Foundation Training Programme.

The Vaccination Transformation Programme covers all routine immunisations that are delivered in Scotland. From the 1 st of April, NHS territorial Health Boards have responsibility for the delivery of vaccination programmes, with models varying across Scotland to align with local requirements. This allows Health Boards the flexibility to arrange vaccination centres at community venues, delivering through existing health teams (such as Midwives or Community Pharmacies), or establish new clinics to meet local needs. Some Health Boards may continue to utilise GP practices to provide vaccination services by local arrangement.

Health Boards and Health & Social Care Partnerships are responsible for considering local health needs and taking population growth and infrastructure expansion into account when providing general medical services.

The Scottish Government's NHS Capital Investment Group meets on a monthly basis to consider investment proposals submitted by Health Boards.

We currently have no plans to issue revised guidance for the High Hedges (Scotland) Act 2013. Application of the legislation and associated guidance is the responsibility of local authorities and my officials will continue to engage with them to ensure that the legislation (supported by the guidance) is being applied in the manner intended by Parliament when the law was passed whilst identifying current best practice. Lady Carmichael in her judgement endorsed the 2016 guidance (since fine-tuned in 2019) and application of the legislation.

Information on cases of Anglophobia is not held centrally. Data is published on the number of police recorded hate crimes that include an aggravation for race. The characteristic of race in the hate crime legislative framework includes race, colour, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins. If an offence was motivated by prejudice based on Anglophobia (i.e. anti-English prejudice) it would therefore be recorded by the police as an offence aggravated by race.

The Scottish Government published a study on the characteristics of police recorded Hate Crime in February 2021. This included: (i) information on the number of racially aggravated hate crimes recorded by Police Scotland from 2014-15 to 2019-20 (shown in the following table), and (ii) a more detailed study of the characteristics of these cases in 2018-19 (based on a large scale review of crime records). Based on the findings of that more detailed study, Table 17 of the publication provides a breakdown of what prejudices were shown by the perpetrators. This suggested that 6% of racially aggravated hate crimes in 2018-19 included an anti-English prejudice. This would equate to an estimated 210 crimes. Please note, some of these crimes may include multiple racial (or other aggravation) prejudices.

A second study into the characteristics of police recorded hate crime is due to be published later this year. This will provide the same type of detailed disaggregated data and information on police recorded hate crimes for the year 2020-21.

Table: The number 1 of racially aggravated hate crimes recorded by police in Scotland, 2014-15 to 2019-20

Scottish Government lawyers provide legal services and advice to the Scottish Government and its agencies only. As such, Ukrainian-speaking lawyers have not been specifically recruited in order to assist the resettlement process.

To support the settlement process of Ukrainian refugees, the Scottish Government has provided £36,000 to JustRight Scotland to provide free, confidential legal advice to Ukrainians and their family members seeking safety in Scotland. We have also provided £7 million to Local Authorities to meet longer term needs. In addition, we have provided £1.4 million to the Scottish Refugee Council for the expansion of its Refugee Integration Service.

Since May 2020, the Scottish Government has invested over £48 million in our Connecting Scotland programme, which provides people on low incomes with a device, connection with unlimited data for two years, as well as training and support. Since programme launch 60,000 digitally excluded people in total have been brought online. We are now working on an extension to the programme to reach 300,000 people by the end of this Parliament.

The programme is part of our wider package of support to help everyone in Scotland benefit fully from the advantages of the digital world – from broadband connectivity to digital skills training and support for schools and business.

The Scottish Government does not collect data on the cost to local authorities for housing homeless households in temporary accommodation. This information would need to be requested from each local authority directly.

Funding for local authorities is provided by way of a block grant. It is the responsibility of each local authority to manage their own budget and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, including any funding to combat homelessness, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.