The Scottish Government is required to deliver a balanced budget and outturn in each year. This has been consistently delivered through prudent and effective financial management, balancing fiscal constraints with priorities. In July 2021 Scottish Government launched the Young Patients Family Fund (YPFF), which subsumed the Neonatal Expenses Fund (NEF) to create a single unified fund. These funds are demand led and the Scottish Government has ensured full funding against demand in each year since 2018/19.

The Scottish Government has no plans to review the Young Patients Family Fund (YPFF) in light of the plans to reduce the number of level 3 neonatal units in Scotland. The cost of visiting a child or young person in hospital should not be a barrier for families which is why parents/carers and siblings (under 18) can claim under YPFF, regardless which neonatal unit their baby is being cared for in. The fund helps to offset the cost of: travelling to and from hospital during a child or young person’s inpatient stay; the subsistence required to allow claimants to spend time at the hospital; and any accommodation required by eligible visitors. There are no restrictions on the number of claims an eligible visitor can make.

The new model will see Scotland moving to a networked model of three neonatal intensive care units (NICU) working alongside local neonatal units (LNU) and special care units (SCU), supported by transitional care and community care services. This aligns with existing service models across the UK.

The transfer and repatriation of mother and babies is a normal component of neonatal care provision in Scotland, ensuring babies receive the most appropriate care at the correct time.

In order to support health boards to move forward with detailed implementation planning, the Scottish Government will commission healthcare planning expertise to undertake national capacity and modelling work.

We will now work with all Health Boards affected to plan for and implement this service change over the course of the next year, informed by the testing that has been underway over the last few years.

We will continue to provide funding to these Health Boards to help transition to the new model.

The report from the Perinatal Sub-Group on the outcome of the options appraisal process identified skills maintenance as a key concern for those units no longer categorised as a NICU.

This is based on the expectation that small and sick babies will continue to be delivered unexpectedly out with Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU’s) and require stabilisation and transfer.

Local Neonatal Units (LNU’s) will continue to deliver intensive care and care for babies from 27+0 weeks that need stabilisation and treatment, so both nursing staff and medical staff will continue to have experience in delivering these aspects of intensive care.

The Scottish Government will work with the Scottish Perinatal Network and NHS Education for Scotland to take forward a number of actions to ensure that appropriate learning and development opportunities are available for staff impacted by the changes.

Following the testing period the Early Implementer Boards noted that no negative feedback was received from families about the process. However, due to only a small number of babies being transferred this made it difficult to achieve the depth of parent feedback hoped for.

In order to capture parent representation in the Options Appraisal and Best Start Programme Board decision making process, the Chief Executive of Bliss sits on our Best Start Programme Board and was a participant in the options appraisal process, representing the views of neonatal families.

As part of the next phase, Scottish Government will be consulting with families in the affected areas on implementation of the proposals, so that we can take account of their concerns when the pathways and processes for the new model of care are designed. This will affect a very small number of families however it is important that we hear the voices of those families to input into design of service delivery.

The Best Start emphasises parents as key partners in caring for their baby and aims to keep mothers and babies, and families together as much as possible in the crucial early weeks, with services designed around them. We have a number of measures already in place to support families with babies in neonatal care:

• Providing accommodation for parents to stay on or near neonatal units and facilities within the unit to encourage kangaroo skin to skin care and early support for breastfeeding;
• Roll out of the Young Patients Family Fund (formerly the Neonatal Expenses Fund) to support families with the costs of travel, accommodation and food whilst their baby is in neonatal care; and
• Repatriating babies to their local neonatal units as soon as clinically possible

Neonatal units have agreed to continue to seek parent feedback to ensure opportunities to improve the experiences of families are identified on an ongoing basis.

The Scottish Government has not routinely published expenditure for The Young Patients Family Fund (YPFF) as Health Boards have, up to now, been developing mechanisms to ensure the recording of full and accurate YPFF data.

We are continuing to work with NHS Boards to ensure the comprehensive recording of data and we will aim to publish YPFF data routinely following the conclusion of that work.

A breakdown of the unsuccessful applications for the Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund between August 2020 and May 2023 are given in the following table:

Councils are responsible for developing their licensing policies in line with powers and duties under The Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Order 2022, as amended in 2023, and they can add proportionate conditions to address local needs and concerns. We continue to work closely with COSLA, SOLAR and licensing authorities on the implementation and monitoring of the short term lets licensing legislation. We are therefore aware that the City of Edinburgh Council has acted on the Judgement made on 8 June 2023 to revise its local licensing policy and information for applicants. We remain confident that licensing of short-term lets can be operated effectively by councils so as to respect the rights of hosts and guests in short-term let accommodation, and is appropriate for the whole of Scotland.

The Innovative Finance Steering Group was established to support the delivery of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032 by providing strategic advice to the Scottish Government on opportunities for innovative finance models to support the affordable housing sector (Registered Social Landlords and Local Authorities) over the next 9 years. The Group convened at the end of 2022 to agree an approach to governance and its work. Members of the Group participate in horizon scanning to identify priority areas for further development and the group is expected to formally convene later in the year to discuss the opportunities highlighted and exchanged to date.

The group consists of members from ALACHO, SFHA, CoSLA, Wheatley Group, Link, Scottish Futures Trust, Scottish National Investment Bank, Glasgow West Scotland Forum, UK Finance and Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government will publish high level updates on the work of the Group on the Scottish Government’s websites as appropriate and recognising the commercial nature of this work.

Further to the answer to S6W-20732 on 6 September 2023, grant funding arrangements are expected to be agreed with grant applicants in advance of the conveyancing process.

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