Chamber and committees

The Ready Scotland website – ready.scot – is a core part of our public-facing communications work to help make Scotland more resilient to emergencies. It provides up to date, accessible and comprehensive information on a range of threats and risks, including flooding, to help people in Scotland to prepare for and respond in ways that keep themselves safe and help others in their communities to stay safe.

The Scottish Government works closely with resilience partners to respond to and also prepare for significant incidents, providing information regularly through its own website and social media channels, and also working with resilience partners to disseminate information more widely.

This includes working with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scotland's national flood forecasting and warning authority which runs Floodline Scotland and works closely with local communities to strengthen resilience, prepare for and reduce the impacts of increased flooding.

The Communications Sector, which includes resilience of the telecoms network, is reserved and the responsibility of the UK Government.

There are no specific obligations on telecoms operators to disclose assets that are at risk of flooding or a single point of failure to the Scottish Government.

However there is a broad requirement for telecoms operators to mitigate and minimise, in accordance with good industry practice, the number of single points of failure within the Network.

The Scottish Government works closely with the UK Government, telecoms operators and owners to ensure Scotland’s telecoms networks are resilient to a variety of risks, including flooding and other climate change related factors.

In 2020, we published the ‘Keeping Scotland Running’ Guidance Suite, which seeks to support the delivery of Scotland’s Critical Infrastructure Resilience (CIR) Strategy. This Guidance Suite comprises seven separate guidance documents designed to equip and enable CIR stakeholders to work together to build resilience across the critical infrastructure sectors in Scotland. Two of these guides specifically look at Building Resilience to Natural Hazards and Building Resilience to Climate Change (Adaption).

Our approach to building resilience to the impacts of climate change more widely is set out in the statutory Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme 2019-2024. One of the high level outcomes the Programme is structured around is that “Our society’s supporting systems are resilient to climate change”.

As part of our civil contingencies risk assessment work, the Scottish Government’s Resilience Division works closely with resilience partners, including the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the Met Office, to assess climate change risk. This work includes the development of the Scottish Risk Assessment (SRA), which is designed to supplement UK Government’s National Security Risk Assessment. Together these documents assist Scottish responders and policy makers in understanding the most significant civil contingencies emergencies which Scotland may face over the next two to five years. The current SRA includes six new risk assessments themed around major impacts from climate change, as well as a dedicated climate change overview chapter.

A national study on the impacts of climate change on NHS assets was undertaken by Health Facilities Scotland (HFS) in 2016. This included flood risk assessments of 240 key sites utilising SEPA flood risk data. A follow up review of the sites identified as being at high risk of flooding was undertaken by HFS in 2021 and recommendations were made to the respective NHS Boards.

In addition Health Boards are working to complete Climate Change Risk Assessment and Adaptation Plans for their areas later this year. This work includes identifying any sites at risk of flooding both now and in the future as a result of climate change and preparing plans to mitigate those risks.

The Scottish Government issued a letter to adult care homes on
‎ 24 March 2022 outlining updates to guidance including visiting. The Scottish Government fully expects care homes and local health protection teams to support people living in care homes to have visits from loved ones, unless there are truly exceptional circumstances. During an outbreak, care home residents can see one of their three named visitors once a day. The letter with updated guidance can be found on the Scottish Government website via the following link: Annex 1 - Coronavirus (Covid-19): changes to guidance for adult and older people care homes - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government will continue to work with Public Health Scotland and the care home sector to review the remaining recommendations in adult care homes.

Ministers have not visited any care homes in their official capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic, but have closely monitored the situation throughout. Both the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and myself took office in May 2021, partway through the pandemic.

I was previously scheduled to undertake two care home visits, however these had to be postponed for safety reasons due to a COVID outbreak and the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron. The safety and protection of residents and staff is paramount in such situations. In my role as lead for Social Care policy, I have regularly spoken to a range of stakeholders from the sector including family and sector representatives. I have also spoken to care home staff and managers. I will be rescheduling care home visits in due course.

Of the professional advisers:

• the National Clinical Director, last visited a Glasgow Care Home on 21 st February 2021 and prior to the pandemic made a visit to a care home in October 2019;
• the Chief Social Work Adviser has not visited any care homes in her official capacity during the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic she visited David Walker Gardens care home in Rutherglen on 5 th August 2019;
• the Chief Medical Officer, who was appointed in December 2020, has not visited any care homes in his official capacity during the pandemic.

The Scottish Government monitors the size of the challenge ahead by consideration of climate projections, flood mapping, modelling and analysis carried out by a number of key, expert partners such as the Met Office, SEPA and Scottish Water.

We recognise that our urban areas in particular face mounting challenges with surface water drainage and related flooding. This is why we must ensure that communities and places are water resilient and set-up for the climate challenges ahead. This will require a concerted effort across all sectors to ensure that new development is appropriately sited and designed and that existing buildings can transition to managing rainwater through blue green infrastructure instead of sewers reducing the pressure on our drainage systems.

The Scottish Government has been clear that fair work practices sit at the heart of Green Freeports. All applicants are required to set out their strategy for embedding fair work across the Green Freeport area. Any application which does not show a clear commitment to fair work practices will not be supported by the Scottish Government.

The manner in which P&O decisions have been communicated is completely unacceptable. Scottish Ministers expect all businesses to apply fair labour practices and treat their staff with respect. P&O Ferries have fallen well short of that standard.

The ScotWind outcome is a great opportunity for Scotland to deliver green energy, bring supply chain benefits and to support our just transition objectives.

Over the next few years each project will go through consenting processes, respond to geographical and technological requirements, and find a route to market. There are several variables to be managed across these processes, including aspects such as grid connection and the impact of offshore wind developments on various environmental receptors.

Furthermore, ScotWind promises to be transformational in delivering wider economic supply chain benefits to help power Scotland’s green recovery right across the country. As part of this, the introduction of the Supply Chain Development Statement will enable ongoing dialogue between the offshore wind and public sectors to enable strategic infrastructural planning so that Scotland can maximise the potential benefits from this exciting new era of investment for the Scottish economy.

The Scottish Government is not currently investigating trauma and abuse experienced by disabled people specifically. However, the Scottish Government published our Learning/Intellectual Disabilities and Autism: Towards Transformation Plan in March 2021. The plan looks at the actions needed to shape supports, services and attitudes to ensure that the human rights of autistic people and people with learning/intellectual disabilities are respected and protected and that they are empowered to live their lives, the same as everyone else.

Through the Towards Transformation Plan the Scottish Government, and our partners, have established a Gender Based Violence Steering Group to reduce incidences of violence and empower women with disabilities to have safe and loving relationships. This Gender Based Steering Group is developing an action plan, working with disability organisations to lead and support efforts to eliminate gender-based violence.

Since the publication of Engender's Our Bodies Our Rights: Identifying and removing barriers to disabled women's reproductive rights in Scotland report in 2020, the Scottish Government has refreshed our keys to life strategy.

The keys to life strategy promotes the rights of people with a learning disability to be protected against gender based violence. The NHS Health Scotland Advisory Group has a Gender Based Violence programme which published draft guidelines for frontline staff in 2019. The guidance will help staff identify signs that someone may be at risk of gender based violence and respond appropriately.