Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not believe there is a need to establish a mechanism for members of the public to make representations on applications submitted under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (Scotland) Regulations 2021. Whilst no formal mechanism exists, members of the public can at any time raise concerns with a local authority about persons engaged in or seeking to engage in any statutory licensable activity covered by the aforementioned legislation and local authorities can, if they consider such action to be warranted, investigate or take into consideration any representations made. The 2021 Regulations place a duty on the local authority to consider as part of the application process whether any applicant for a licence is a fit and proper person to hold a licence.

The Scottish Government is not aware of existing scenarios where veterans would be financially disadvantaged as a result of military compensation payments reducing or removing reserved benefit entitlements.

As such, there has not been any examination of whether the Scottish Parliament's existing powers could be used for top-ups or discretionary payments. In scenarios where veterans were being disadvantaged as a result of compensation payments it would be appropriate for this to be remedied at source by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Defence.

During the Scottish Government Debate on ‘Justice and the 16 Days of Action’, I confirmed that after careful consideration we will now move forward with the immediate establishment of a Scottish Government led Governance Group, comprising key stakeholder interests, to enable progress and detailed consideration of the individual and collective recommendations within Lord Justice Clerk’s Review Group report on improving the management of sexual offence cases. That will include the specific issue of a time-limited pilot of single judge trials.

The Scottish Government does not agree that Scotland’s performance in relation to training pharmacists is declining. In fact, since 2020-21 there has been an increase in the overall numbers of students studying pharmacy.

There are approximately 240 students each year who graduate from the two Schools of Pharmacy in Scotland. In 2018 to support the pipeline of new pharmacists we extended the number of NHS pre-registration pharmacists places we funded nationally from 170 to 200. In 2019 we committed to increasing pharmacy pre-registration places again in the Integrated Health and Social Care Workforce Plan. Therefore, by 2024/25 there will be a further 120 pharmacist trainees over 5 years staying in Scotland to complete their pre-registration training.

The Scottish Government continues to work with NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in developing a joint programme to encourage more students, and not just school leavers, to consider careers in pharmacy, including ensuring the output reaches deprived and remote and rural communities.

In addition, both Schools of Pharmacy work towards the widening access targets set by the Commission on Widening Access for universities to drive forward the delivery of equal access in Scotland.

There are also wider initiatives such as The Scottish Wider Access Programme (SWAP). The partnership develops access programmes for adults returning to education, and targets adults who reside in the most disadvantaged areas of Scotland and particularly those who have no, few or out of date qualifications. This can help support people with few suitable qualifications to progress to degree level Pharmacy studies.

The payment of sustainable rates to providers in the private, third and childminding sector to deliver funded early learning and childcare (ELC) is a key aspect of Funding Follows the Child. To support this the landmark multi-year funding agreement reached by Scottish Government and COSLA in April 2018 to fully fund the expansion to 1140 hours includes funding to enable local authorities to pay sustainable rates to providers delivering funded ELC.

In August 2021 alongside the Financial Sustainability Health Check the Scottish Government published updated information ( Overview of local authority funding and support for early learning and childcare providers ) on the sustainable rates that services currently receive from their local authorities. In light of this report and the findings from the Health Check we are working with COSLA and local authorities to progress the actions set out in the Health Check to strengthen the processes by which local authorities set local sustainable rates.

Preparation of detailed timetables is an operational matter for ScotRail, which is responsible for developing operational timetables to meet the overall strategic requirements of the Scottish Government. Ministers, advised by Transport Scotland, will need to be assured that the overall strategic requirements have been met.

The number of households in each local authority that are experiencing fuel poverty is published annually in the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) local authority tables.

The latest published set of tables for 2017-2019 is available at:

Scottish House Condition Survey: Local Authority Analysis 2017-2019 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Local Authority figures are based on a 3-year pooled sample to allow sufficient sample sizes to produce results on each local authority. The figures in the table below show number of fuel poor households, and the fuel poverty rate, based on the last 10 years for North Ayrshire and Inverclyde.

The wellbeing and resilience of Scotland’s social workers have been at the centre of our actions to support the workforce’ recovery from the negative effects of pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, we have emphasised to Boards, Health and Social Care Partners and Local Authorities the on-going need to promote both the physical and the psychological wellbeing of everyone working in health and social care.

We have developed a national package of wellbeing support to address the wide range of needs of the workforce to complement and enhance the support offered by Boards and HSCPs at a local level, as follows:

• This year we have made £12 million available to support the wellbeing of the workforce. This includes £8 million from the NHS Recovery Plan to provide ongoing wellbeing support for the workforce alongside an additional £4 million to provide further support to address winter pressures
• We have developed a national package of wellbeing support to address the wide range of needs of the workforce to complement and enhance the support offered by Boards and HSCPs at a local level.
• This package includes a range of self-care and wellbeing resources offered via the National Wellbeing Hub and 24/7 Helpline, additional funding to Boards for further psychological support, coaching for wellbeing and the Workforce Specialist Service.
• We have partnered with bereavement specialists, Cruse Scotland, to offer a series of pilot workshops for people working in Adult Social Care and Social work to manage their wellbeing.
• Now more than ever, it is critical that staff look after their wellbeing and take the rest breaks and leave to which they are entitled, as well as being given time to access national and local wellbeing resources at work.

The Scottish Government is committed to our Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) being operational as soon as practicably possible. We are working hard with Circularity Scotland Ltd and wider industry to agree a final timescale and clear milestones for delivery, and will announce this schedule to Parliament in due course.

This government has seen a 87.7% increase in the consultant oncologist workforce (from 69.5 WTE in September 2006 to 130.6 WTE in June 2021).

While information on numbers of oncologists according to specialist cancer fields is not centrally held, the numbers of Clinical and Medical Oncology Consultants currently employed in each NHS Board, by Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) and headcount can be found in the medical and Dental dashboard on the NES website available here: Medical and Dental | Turas Data Intelligence (nhs.scot)