- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 07 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 17 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-34347 by Maree Todd on 28 February 2025, what its position is on whether its Psychiatry Recruitment and Retention Working Group (a) is a sufficient response to the reported workforce crisis in psychiatry and (b) will result in the reported workforce crisis in psychiatry being resolved, and, if so, by when; through what means; how many new psychiatrists this will require, and where these psychiatrists will be sourced from.
Answer
It is important that we work closely with leaders in the Psychiatry profession to address the challenges they are currently facing and the Psychiatry Recruitment and Retention Working Group are currently working towards producing a series of recommendations which will be presented to Ministers in Spring 2025.
Whilst the working group has been ongoing, the Scottish Government has worked in partnership with the profession on a range of measures to support recruitment and retention in psychiatry. This has included funding and supporting recruitment stands at the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) international congress events (2023 and 2024); working with NHS Education for Scotland (NES) colleagues on improvements to psychiatry webpages to increase engagement and on the promotion of vacancies; ensuring that the specific challenges facing psychiatry were considered by the Medical Locums Task and Finish Group and; supporting the Centre for Workforce Supply (CWS) in their direct work with NHS Health Boards to address challenges in filling vacancies and on the promotion of careers in Scotland.
We also continue to work with NES and the RCPsych to encourage medical students to consider a long-term career as a psychiatrist. This work includes the Choose Psychiatry campaign, undergraduate taster sessions and improved psychiatric placements at Foundation level. Recruitment into Core Psychiatry has improved drastically in recent years, with the exception of one unfilled post in 2020, 100% of entry level posts have now been filled for the fourth consecutive year (up from 63% in 2018).
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 07 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 17 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-34348 by Maree Todd on 28 February 2025, what its position is on the extent to which it is responsible for the use of locum psychiatrists in NHS Scotland, in light of its authorities and powers regarding the relevant labour market and regulatory conditions, and its authorities and powers regarding the direction of NHS boards.
Answer
The deployment of medical agency staff, including locum psychiatrists, is a matter for individual NHS Scotland Health Boards. Health Boards should always be seeking to secure best value whenever they enter into arrangements regarding use of locums in order to maximise the impact that investment has on the quality and availability of patient care.
To address specific challenges in the recruitment and retention of permanent psychiatrist posts in Scotland, we have established a Working Group which is actively considering locum usage. The specific challenges facing psychiatry have been considered by the Medical Locums Task and Finish Group. The Psychiatry Working Group will make a series of recommendations and are expected to report to Ministers in Spring 2025.
Scottish Ministers have a number of mechanisms open to them to drive improvements in the delivery of services across NHS Scotland, with powers of direction under the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978 being just one of those.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 27 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-34608 by Shona Robison on 11 March 2025, whether it is aware of any policy decisions having an impact on the fiscal burden on local authorities as a result of (a) non-teaching staff in educational services increasing individual staff costs and (b) a requirement for a quantity of non-teaching staff to deliver the same educational service, and, if so, how it has factored any such increased burden into its decision-making regarding (a) any such policies and (b) its policies relating to local government funding.
Answer
Answer expected on 27 March 2025
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 20 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-35094 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 5 March 2025, whether it has the capacity to (a) identify the number of distinct recipients removed from the claimant count for Adult Disability Payment in a given time frame and (b) break such data down by cause of removal.
Answer
Answer expected on 20 March 2025
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 20 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-34365 by Shona Robison on 28 February 2025, whether it will provide a breakdown of its annual spend on contingent workers since 2021-22 by (a) project, (b) directorate and (c) contract name.
Answer
Answer expected on 20 March 2025
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 5 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many recipients of the Adult Disability Payment have been removed from the claimant count in 2024-25 due to (a) the claimant removing themselves, (b) a review identifying fraud, (c) a review identifying a change in health circumstances, (d) death and (e) the claimant moving out of Scotland.
Answer
Official statistics for Adult Disability Payment are routinely published by Social Security Scotland, including information on the number of recipients. Social Security Scotland does not publish statistics on clients leaving the Adult Disability Payment caseload.
Social Security Scotland will continue to review the value of the statistics produced and will take account of users’ needs when developing future publications, in line with Code of Practice for Statistics.
The latest Adult Disability Payment official statistics publication can be found at: https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications/statistics. The next release of Adult Disability Payment statistics, covering the period to the end of January 2025, is due to be published on 18 March 2025.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 5 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many staff are currently employed by Social Security Scotland to identify fraudulent applications.
Answer
It is the responsibility of all Social Security Scotland colleagues to identify and prevent fraudulent applications being awarded.
Social Security Scotland has a zero tolerance to fraud and use a combination of system controls, processes and colleague awareness to prevent it. Mandatory fraud prevention and identification training is provided to all colleagues when they join the organisation.
In support of this Social Security Scotland has a dedicated Counter Fraud branch to further support the organisation in mitigating fraud risk.
Social Security Scotland carefully considers the information on counter fraud activity that can be placed into the public domain to ensure that any information released does not undermine the ability of Social Security Scotland to prevent and detect crime and protect the public purse.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 28 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how its draft Budget for 2025-26 will (a) address the reported crisis in the provision of services for people with neurodevelopmental conditions and (b) improve the (i) timeliness and (ii) quality of diagnosis, treatment and support for (A) children and (B) adults with neurodevelopmental conditions.
Answer
This year, we allocated £123 million to NHS Boards to improve the quality and delivery of mental health and psychological services, including neurodevelopmental services, for both adults and children and young people.
Baselining this funding within NHS Board’s core budgets from 2025-26 will allow NHS Boards and IJBs greater stability and improved longer term financial planning, increasing their ability to support longer-term sustainable improvements and reform.
The Scottish Government is also providing more than £16.2 billion in financial year 2025-26 for Health Boards to deliver front line and other key services.
We are continuing to work closely with NHS Boards and other partners, including local authorities and the third sector, to develop and redesign services to improve access to diagnosis and support.
For example, we know that 78% of autistic adults supported have reported improved wellbeing as a result of accessing community support services funded through our £1 million Autistic Adult Support Fund. The £15 million we have invested annually in local authority community-based mental health supports has also benefitted many neurodiverse children and young people.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 28 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many contractors it has employed in each portfolio area in each year from 2021-22 to 2024-25 to date.
Answer
The following data provides the requested breakdown. Please note, for workforce purposes, the Scottish Government People Directorate defines a contractor as temporary workers, typically brought in under a service contract which has been let to an organisation to deliver a specific product.
A contractor is one subset of our wider Contingent Worker classification.
A Contingent Worker is defined as non directly employed workers that are engaged in any capacity for the Scottish Government, such as contractors, inward secondment and temporary agency workers.
Please also note that workforce data is held within DG areas rather than by Ministerial portfolios.
Headcount of Contingent Workers recorded as Contractor by DG
DG | 31-Mar-22 | 31-Mar-23 | 31-Mar-24 | 30-Sep-24 |
DG COM | 548 | 545 | 376 | 346 |
DG CORP | 229 | 124 | 162 | 149 |
DG ECON | 9 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
DG EJ | 11 | 12 | 4 | 6 |
DG HLTHSC | 31 | 30 | 13 | 12 |
DG NZ | 150 | 136 | 142 | 145 |
DG SE | 11 | 15 | 11 | 9 |
DG SEA | . | 3 | 1 | . |
All | 989 | 869 | 711 | 668 |
It is also relevant to note that data showing expenditure on contingent workers (provided in S6W-34366) cannot be directly compared with the number of contractors (requested in S6W-34364 and S6W-34365 on 28 February 2025). The two data sets have been extracted from different systems and therefore cannot be viewed as directly connected, due to different hierarchical structures and definitions.
The Scottish Government implemented an Oracle Cloud enterprise resource planning system in Autumn 2024, replacing our legacy HR and Finance systems. Though the data capture of temporary workers remains an area requiring some further development, the implementation of a combined HR and Finance system will improve the data we hold on workforce costs.
The Scottish Government has prioritised a reduction in the contingent workforce such as contractors and consultants, as it has reduced its workforce size. This approach has been in partnership with recognised Trade Unions. The number of contingent workers is now 39% lower than in March 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.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 28 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken to ensure that funds currently being spent on locum psychiatrists are redirected into sustainable, permanent psychiatry roles that will improve workforce conditions.
Answer
Spend on locum psychiatrists is managed locally by NHS Health Boards. It is our expectation that Boards should always be seeking to secure best value whenever they enter into arrangements regarding use of locums.
We recognise that the use of temporary staff in an organisation as large and complex as NHS Scotland will always be required to ensure vital service provision. However we are taking forward work in partnership with NHS Health Boards, overseen by two national oversight groups, to agree measures designed to reduce our reliance on agency staff, with a view to filling more shifts with staff in either NHS substantive or bank roles.
To address specific challenges in the recruitment and retention of permanent psychiatrist posts in Scotland, we have established a Working Group which is actively considering locum usage and complements the work ongoing nationally. The working group will make a series of recommendations and is due to report to Ministers in Spring 2025.
