Questions and answers

Question reference: S5W-34418

Asked by: Dr Alasdair Allan, MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 3 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it will give to extending financial support to businesses in areas subject to Level 3 restrictions, such as the Western Isles, whose income has been adversely impacted by mainland Scotland going into lockdown.

Question reference: S5W-34872

Asked by: Dr Alasdair Allan, MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 29 January 2021
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 1 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many new and enhanced opportunities it will create through the Young Person’s Guarantee, and how it will track young people participating in these opportunities.

Following the launch of the Young Person’s Guarantee on 5 November 2020 I can confirm that through our additional investment of £60 million in 2020-21 we have provided funding for around 18,000 new and enhanced existing opportunities to support young people in Scotland, building on our substantial existing investment in education, employability and skills. These opportunities will include up to:

11,000 opportunities through local authorities;
5,000 places in college;
1,400 new apprentice pathways; and
Support for 1,300 vulnerable 16 and 17 year olds through third sector provision from Inspiring Scotland and the Princes Trust/Barnados/Action for Children consortium which provides support for care experienced young people.

Suppressing COVID-19 and ensuring the safety of our communities and Scotland’s workforce rightly remains our priority but we understand the economic impact this is having particularly on the ability of many employers to recruit.

Despite the ongoing restrictions, we are continuing to work closely with our delivery partners to maximise the number of young people being supported into these opportunities and to enable local partnerships to respond flexibly to meet the needs of young people during this challenging time. This has meant for example more emphasis being placed on providing virtual skills training and mental health support during this time.

We are working with partners to develop a rigorous measurement and evaluation framework to show how the Guarantee is delivering a range of different opportunities to support young people. As part of this process, we published the young person’s labour market dashboard on 28 January. Young person’s local authority labour market dashboard - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . This new, interactive tool has been developed to provide a summary of labour market measures for those aged 16 to 24 by local authority . This dashboard along with the annual Participation Measure produced by Skills Development Scotland will help us to measure and target opportunities and support.

We are working with Skills Development Scotland, HM Revenue & Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions to examine ways we can improve data sharing to enhance reporting of the Participation Measure and better understand what activity young people are engaged in.

The early success of the Young Person’s Guarantee will be maintained next year. Additional investment of £125 million will go towards the Young Person’s Guarantee, the National Transition Training Fund and other initiatives, ensuring the future workforce has the skills needed for a green recovery and supporting those at risk of long term unemployment. This includes personalised employment support and retraining for those who have been made unemployed or are at risk of redundancy due to the pandemic. This is in addition to our already significant investment in Education, Employability and Skills.

Question reference: S5W-34726

Asked by: Dr Alasdair Allan, MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 January 2021
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Fergus Ewing on 22 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the early payment of Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) funding this year, whether it will provide an update on when and how convergence 2020 money will be distributed.

I am very pleased that LFASS 2020 payment runs commenced 2 months earlier than 2019 system payments, continuing our pattern of improvement. LFASS payments go to nearly 11,000 of our farmers and crofters, but because of EU rules the 2020 payment is only 40% of the 2018 rate. I promised previously that we would find a way to make up that shortfall.

Therefore, I can announce that we are now in a position to start paying out the £71.8m of convergence 2020 money. These payments will start to appear in bank accounts by the end of the month and will benefit around 18,000 farmers and crofters. The distribution methodology to be used is similar to last year and has been agreed with stakeholders. Further details will be available on the Rural Payments website. This money rights a historic wrong and will help to support our farmers and crofters through these challenging times.

Question reference: S5O-04967

Asked by: Dr Alasdair Allan, MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 January 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it has been engaging with Gaelic-speaking communities on the future of the language.

Question reference: S5W-34052

Asked by: Dr Alasdair Allan, MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 14 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 14 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to ensure that residents of Uist and Barra have access to vaccinations for COVID-19.

Effective provision of Covid vaccination to the citizens of Scotland regardless of geographical location is a key aim of the Covid Vaccination programme and the Scottish Government are working with health boards to ensure this happens. We have received confirmation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) that the undiluted Pfizer vaccine can be transported by boat. The MHRA confirmation will now enable us to get the vaccine to these communities and local Health Boards are liaising with us on the practicalities and timescales for this. In addition the Oxford vaccine has less rigorous storage and transportation limitations so we are confident that vaccination delivery to rural and island communities shouldn't be impacted.

Question reference: S5O-04902

Asked by: Dr Alasdair Allan, MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 January 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what is being done to tackle loneliness and social isolation resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Question reference: S5W-34019

Asked by: Dr Alasdair Allan, MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 5 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it is ensuring that epilepsy training across Scotland meets industry standards, in order to ensure that all people with epilepsy are safely and appropriately cared for.

A framework of legislation protects the rights of individuals receiving care. The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people with epilepsy should be treated as an individual with their human rights fully respected, protected and fulfilled.

We remain committed to improving neurological care and support in Scotland, including for people with epilepsy, as set out in the National Framework published at the end of last year. This includes the commitment to promote and support the implementation of Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) General Standards for Neurological Care and Support 2019. These standards articulate what people with neurological conditions should expect to receive in terms of high quality care from the health and social care organisations that support them. It is intended that organisations use these standards to demonstrate that they are delivering high quality care and support. Discussions to explore introduction of quality assurance arrangements that would be based on self-assessments and peer reviews were being taken forward with HIS. These have been paused owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and will be resumed as soon as possible.

The Neurological Framework and neurological standards also support implementation of the Health and Social Care Standards which set out the expectation that care should be based on relevant evidence, guidance and best practice. This should include consideration of SIGN guideline No. 143 – diagnosis and management of epilepsy in adults, and the Epilepsy Specialist Nurses Association (ESNA) best practice guidelines for training professional carers including the administration of emergency, or ‘rescue’, medication.

Scrutiny and evaluation of the quality of care in a registered service includes whether the right staff are recruited and appropriately trained, skilled, and resourced to carry out their role. Any identified concerns around this would usually be reported by the Care Inspectorate to the Health and Social Care Partnership to then consider further.

The Scottish Government expect Health Boards to ensure their staff are appropriately trained and developed for their roles, as per the Staff Governance Standard. The standard complements the training expectations set out in individual professional and regulatory requirements and all NHS medical professionals have a professional obligation to undertake continuous professional development to remain up-to-date and meet the requirements set by the their regulatory bodies, for example the General Medical Council.

Question reference: S5O-04884

Asked by: Dr Alasdair Allan, MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 December 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what issues will be covered in its upcoming review of the Patient Travelling Expenses Scheme.

Question reference: S5O-04866

Asked by: Dr Alasdair Allan, MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on BiFab.

Question reference: S5O-04830

Asked by: Dr Alasdair Allan, MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 December 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact of the devolution of Crown Estate revenues to coastal communities.

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