Chamber and committees

The salary information relating to the Chief Operating Officer appointment is personally confidential information pertaining to an employee of Abellio ScotRail Ltd.

Once the Chief Operating Officer becomes a public sector employee and in line with the Scottish Public Finance Manual, details of the Chief Operating Officer’s remuneration will be published in due course within Scottish Rail Holdings’ year end accounts. These accounts will be published on Transport Scotland’s website once audited and laid before Parliament.

In line with the Scottish Public Finance Manual, details of the Chief Executive Officer, Scottish Rail Holdings, remuneration will be published in due course within Scottish Rail Holdings’ year end accounts. These accounts will be published on Transport Scotland’s website once audited and laid before Parliament.

Channels of communication between the Scottish Government and Tata Steel UK remain open so both parties are aware the other’s position on this commercially sensitive topic.

There are very strong links between education and health on the matter of mental health and wellbeing in schools.

Formally, the Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Joint Delivery Board, established in 2021, oversee reform across relevant areas of education, health, community and children’s services and wider areas that impact on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. Membership on the delivery board includes a wide range of stakeholders from health and education.

The Mental Health in Schools Working Group was established in 2019 to support the Scottish Government’s ongoing commitment to supporting positive mental health in children and young people in school. The Group has a large membership including national organisations who work to support children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing and representatives from the education and health sector.

The Working Group has sought to establish a comprehensive approach to supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing in schools through a Whole School Approach Framework, published in August 2021. The framework is clear on the importance of a holistic approach to mental health and wellbeing and encourages partnership working with community and health partners.

Our commitment to invest in school counselling services across secondary schools in Scotland, announced in our 2018-19 Programme for Government, is now delivered across all local authorities. The first reporting exercise for the commitment highlighted the various referrals made by schools to health services, including GPs, school nurses and other health professionals. The approach to counselling in schools has been developed and implemented by education officials using resources provided by the health department and progress has been jointly reported to Ministers with portfolio responsibility for both health and education.

Health and Wellbeing is one of the eight curricular areas in Curriculum for Excellence. Its substantial importance is reflected in its position at the centre of the curriculum and at the heart of children’s learning. Mental health and wellbeing has specific experiences and outcomes, within this framework.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving Mental Health services and the Programme for Government commits to ensuring that by the end of this Parliament, a minimum 10% of frontline NHS spend goes towards mental health, with at least 1% going towards child and adolescent mental health services.

We also remain committed to meet the standard that 90% of children and young people begin treatment within 18 weeks of referral. We have allocated nearly £40m additional funding in 2021-22 to NHS Boards to improve CAMHS from our £120m Recovery and Renewal fund. £4.25m of that allocation is directly focussed on offering treatment to those already on CAMHS waiting lists, with a view to clearing all backlogs by March 2023.

We are closely monitoring those NHS Boards with significant performance challenges and supporting the continuous development of their detailed local improvement plans. The creation of these plans is further supported with direct enhanced support from subject matter experts and the sharing of best practice. This support is centred around and supported by the implementation of the CAMHS national service specification which outlines the expectations of the quality of care that families can expect.

NHS Boards who are receiving this enhanced support have provided trajectories to meet the 90% waiting times standard and we are using these to monitor and drive improvements within CAMHS.

The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people is an absolute priority for the Scottish Government.

Education authorities and schools have a wide range of approaches in place to support pupils’ mental health and wellbeing.

Our refreshed Scottish Attainment Challenge, backed by record investment of £1bn in this Parliament, empowers schools and local authorities to drive education recovery and accelerate progress in tackling the poverty-related attainment gap.

We continue to support our local authority partners with £16 million in funding to ensure that every secondary school has access to counselling services.

The Mental Health in Schools Working Group, established in 2019, has overseen the development of a professional learning resource for school staff, published in June, and guidance to support whole school approaches to mental health, published in August. These resources help school staff respond to the range of mental health and wellbeing concerns that young people may experience.

The Scottish Government also published the Mind yer time and Aye Feel resources which provide sources of support and information for children and young people.

Regulations amending the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 were made today.

The Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Amendment (No.3) Regulations 2022 amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 (“the principal regulations”) and will take effect on 28 January 2022 at 05.00 am.

The Amendment Regulations amend exemptions from face covering requirements in the principal regulations which exempt a person from face covering requirements in certain indoor places where a specific distance is maintained between the exempted person and other people or where they are separated from other people by a partition. This changes the distance to be maintained between persons who are not wearing face coverings from at least two metres to at least one metre – this includes

• employees and volunteers in certain places
• a person leading an act of worship in a place of worship
• a person leading a funeral, marriage ceremony or civil partnership registration
• parties to be married or entering into a civil partnership
• a person performing, presenting, addressing a public gathering, making a speech or acting as a panel member and;
• a person performing or rehearsing for a performance where certain circumstances apply.

The Regulations also amend the requirement that a face covering must be worn in any indoor communal area in a workplace, where there is no partition, or where people are not otherwise separated by a specified minimum distance, to change the specified minimum distance between persons who are not required to wear a face covering from at least two metres to at least one metre.

The Regulations also exempt a person travelling on a ferry, who is not outdoors, from wearing a face covering where a distance of at least one metre is maintained from other persons, as opposed to at least two metres.

The Regulations have been published at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/id/ssi/2022/29 .

I can confirm that we have published our report this morning, and the review report is available at www.gov.scot/publications/storm-arwen-review .

The review is the result of a wide range of local debriefs which took place in the aftermath of Storm Arwen. The Scottish Government has used this information, from those involved at the frontline of the response, to develop a range of recommendations which we hope will support the evolution of our resilience planning. I would like to express my thanks to those who participated in this process, during what has been a time of considerable pressure across the sector.

The Scottish Government welcomed the Commissioner’s latest progress report which demonstrates that we continue to make good progress in delivering the recommendations made by the previous Veterans Commissioner. I am delighted that, of the recommendations against which an assessment was provided, there are now no outstanding ‘red’ recommendations and only seven ‘amber’. The majority of the remaining ambers are from the 2018 paper on veterans’ health.

The Armed Forces Personnel & Veterans Health Joint Group brings together NHS Champions, representatives of the Serving community, veterans organisations, Scottish Government officials and other stakeholders. It is a key vehicle through which the Commissioner’s recommendations are delivered and its current priorities to address the outstanding recommendations include establishing a network for Veterans who have suffered Service-related injuries. This involves engaging extensively with key stakeholders and colleagues in NHS England to learn from the set-up of their Veterans Trauma Network, while recognising the distinct differences in the Health Board structure in Scotland. The Group is also connected to the implementation of the principles that underpin the Mental Health and Wellbeing Action Plan which ensure that the Armed Forces and Veterans community can access mental health and wellbeing services throughout Scotland.

We are also aware of the interlinked nature of the inequalities that veterans can face and these sit at the heart of the Joint Group's varied priorities. We recognise the positive role that employment has on mental wellbeing and broader socio-economic and health inequalities and we continue to work with partners to develop resources to support veterans to gain employment within the NHS and promote the NHS as a post-Service career.

We will continue to prioritise the delivery of the outstanding recommendations and look forward to contributing to the Commissioner’s next progress report later this year, which we expect will include his most recent recommendations on Employment, Skills and Learning and Housing, plus any recommendations made in his upcoming paper on Health.

While many aspects of employment law and particularly pay legislation are reserved to the UK Government, promoting fair pay is a key element of the Scottish Government’s Fair Work policy. Scottish Ministers believe that all workers should receive a fair pay for the work they do, regardless of their age and status.

The Scottish Government is committed to using all the levers it has at its disposal to promote fair work practices across Scotland including payment of the real Living Wage. We firmly oppose the inappropriate use of zero hours contracts and other non-standard types of employment that offer workers minimal job or financial security. We have set out our position in our Fair Work First approach and within our National Tourism Strategy; Outlook 2030 which states our commitment to support and enable the adoption of fair work practices in Scotland’s tourism sector.

The Scottish Government has made a clear commitment to promote collective bargaining through the inclusion of an employee voice indicator, measured by collective bargaining coverage, within the National Performance Framework. Our Fair Work Action Plan confirms our subsequent commitment to work with the STUC to achieve increased coverage focusing on four key sectors one of those being hospitality.

The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting strong Trade Unions in Scotland for the benefit of workers and our economy and have provided funding of £250,000 for the last six years to STUC to help unions embed the Fair Work Framework in workplaces in Scotland.

We also support Unite’s FH Charter which helps to promote fairer working practices for its members and all workers across the wider hospitality sector as Scotland recovers from Covid and beyond.