The provision of allotments is the responsibility of local authorities as set out in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, Part 9.

In accordance with section 121 of Part 9 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, local authorities report annually on the provision of allotments in their areas. The legislation clearly defines the mandatory information to be included in the annual allotment reports including, but not limited to;

• the location and size of each allotment site,
• the number of allotments on each allotment site,
• the rent payable,
• the number of people on the waiting list and how many have been waiting 5 years or more,
• the number of allotments on each allotment site that are accessible by a disabled person,
• the number of allotments adjusted to meet the needs of a tenant who is a disabled person,
• the income received, and expenditure incurred, by the authority in connection with allotment sites,
• such other information as may be prescribed.

Reports are available online from each local authority. The Scottish Government does not collect this information centrally and does not hold historic data on allotment provision.

The number of unpaid carers who receive short breaks or respite is reported in the accompanying tables of the Scottish Government Carers Census . This collection only covers unpaid carers who have a support plan and/or receive support from local services, rather than the total caring population. Table 1 below does not include data from 2018-19, as it is not comparable to subsequent years.

Table 1: Number and percentage of people who received short breaks or respite in 2019-20 to 2021-22 (all areas submitted) (Source: Carers Census, Scottish Government)

The Scottish Government’s target is to deliver 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, of which at least 70% will be available for social rent and 10% will be in our remote, rural and island communities.

Our long term plans recognise that changing circumstances or unforeseen events may require us to adapt, and we intend to carry out a review at the mid-point of the 110,000 target period (2026-27), to assess if current plans should continue unchanged or be adapted.

To note that the homes delivered through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme take various forms including; new build homes, rehabilitation projects, conversions and off-the-shelf purchases of both new and second hand homes, as identified in Strategic Housing Investment Plans (SHIPs) prepared annually by local authorities.

The health and welfare of children waiting for paediatric appointment remains a priority for the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on blood tests, nor paediatric phlebotomy appointments. This information will lie with NHS Lothian.

We meet regularly with all Health Boards, including NHS Lothian, to discuss any challenges impacting activity and to provide any necessary support. As part of these discussions we have engaged with the Board on this issue. NHS Lothian are working to increase the number and timeliness of appointments available, while any urgent requests are addressed as a priority.

We continue to work closely with all NHS Boards to maximise capacity and reduce the time people are waiting for appointments and treatment. We have already seen a huge effort by our NHS to clear long waiting times, with the number of new outpatients and inpatient/day-cases seen in the quarter to March 2023 at the highest level since the start of the pandemic.

The Scottish Government is working with the energy sector to plan for a multi-skilled workforce, one that can benefit from opportunities across the energy system. Our oil and gas workers, and their vital skills, will be essential to the transition. Workers, and trade unions, will be at heart of everything we do.

Scotland’s green jobs revolution is underway and a recent report from the Universities of Strathclyde and Warwick provided an initial estimate that up to 100,000 roles are ‘new and emerging’ green jobs in Scotland. Although the researchers regard this as an upper estimate, it is encouraging to see a strong indication of green jobs in Scotland.

While we do not hold data on job flows from the oil and gas sector to the renewables sector at present, the Office for National Statistics undertakes an annual Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy survey. This provides estimates of renewable FTE employment statistics in Scotland.

As the table below shows, there were 28,300 full time equivalent jobs in Scotland in the low carbon and renewable energy sectors in 2021.

Following publication of the Capital Spending Review and a subsequent review of the health portfolio’s capital programme, all projects that were in construction at the time of the review have continued to be progressed, including:

• National Treatment Centres at Forth Valley, Golden Jubilee (Phase Two), Fife and Highland Health Boards
• The Baird Family Hospital and ANCHOR Centre project
• The upgrade of the Edinburgh Cancer Centre and the new national secure adolescent inpatient service in Irvine
• The Glasgow Primary Care Hub project

The review also included a commitment to a doubling of expenditure on maintenance for the health capital programme, in line with the recommendations of the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s Medium Term Financial Strategy will be reviewed in Summer 2023 to deliver an overall, affordable prioritisation of the capital programme to 2026-27. The outcome of this review will inform any reprofiling of capital projects for health and social care infrastructure.

The following table shows the number of a nimals involved in injury collisions that were hit in the carriageway.

Scottish Government Directors General wrote to the chief executives of most public bodies in early 2023, setting out expectations for sustainable and impactful public services. As part of this, public bodies were encouraged to consider where savings and benefits can be achieved by working together, including for example through shared approaches on estates. Public bodies have since provided feedback and we expect Directors General to write again shortly.

The Resource Spending Review re-affirmed the Scottish Government commitment to minimise cost and maximise best value in relation to the Scottish public sector estate, which includes to increase co-location, collaboration and the interoperability of offices. A new programme of public sector property improvement work, being the Single Scottish Estate, is helping with delivery of these commitments and will support publicly-funded bodies to, where appropriate, co-locate as well as with other ways to optimise the estate footprint. I wrote to Chief Executives of public bodies on 24 May to update them on this work.

Data on the number of people accessing alcohol treatment services in Scotland is available from Public Health Scotland’s “National Drug and Alcohol Treatment Waiting Times” series of reports. It includes specific figures on the number of service users who have completed a wait to commence specialist alcohol treatment.

It is published by Public Health Scotland and covers the period from 01 April 2011 onwards as earlier data is not available.

The reports covering the period from April 2011 to September 2019 can be found via the URL link below:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/ .

The reports covering the period from October 2019 to December 2022 can be found via the URL link below:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/

Although the data is publicly available online, in order to answer the above question, it is necessary to combine extracts from multiple reports. Results have been presented in Table 1. Not all necessary data, however, is available to answer the question fully, which explains blank boxes in the table.

Table 1. Number of service users who have completed a wait to commence specialist alcohol treatment

The Scottish Government has established a Strategy Steering Group to oversee the development and delivery of a Palliative and End of Life Care Strategy, and aims to publish a draft strategy for consultation by the end of 2023.