Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-34343

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 17 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much each NHS board has paid out from the £1 million investment in bursaries for GP trainees who stay in rural and island areas for their training.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. The Scottish Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme (TERS) offers a one-off payment of £20,000 to GP trainees who commit to undertaking their training in selected areas and programmes. NHS Education for Scotland (NES) are responsible for issuing the bursaries, which are paid directly to the GP trainees.

Question reference: S6W-34344

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 10 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many so-called Golden Hello payments for new GPs each NHS board has made in each since these were introduced,

Question reference: S6W-34324

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 28 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that all rural areas across Scotland have reliable signal coverage for smart meters before the Radio Teleswitch Service ends on 30 June 2025.

Question reference: S6W-33322

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 29 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-26773 by Maree Todd on 7 May 2024, whether its position regarding potentially establishing an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) taskforce remains the same.

The Scottish Government is not currently planning to establish an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) taskforce.

However, we are undertaking a range of actions to improve access to diagnosis and support for people with ADHD.

The Scottish Government is working with NHS Boards, community partners, and the National Autism Implementation Team (NAIT) to improve access to diagnosis, by supporting local health partners to develop, enhance and redesign existing local neurodevelopmental services.

We are working with NAIT to implement Adult Neurodevelopmental Pathways across Scotland. By implementing a single diagnostic pathway for autism and ADHD, and by adopting a stepped care model, we hope to ensure that diagnostic and post-diagnostic support is provided in a timely and effective fashion.

We also provide funding to NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to deliver training resources to meet the needs of staff working in ADHD services across health and social care. These include webinars on ‘Assessing ADHD’ and ‘Understanding ADHD in Girls and Women’, which are available to all NHS and Social Care staff via an online knowledge hub.

Question reference: S6W-33320

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 28 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what controls exist regarding pricing structure at public electric car recharging stations, in light of reports that the cost of recharging at home is approximately 7p (off peak) to 24p (standard rate) per kWh, while the cost of using a public charger varies from around 79p to 85p per kWh.

The Scottish Government has no direct control over pricing at public electric vehicle (EV) charge points and regulation of EV chargers is reserved to the UK Government. The tariffs on the Scottish Government funded ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) EV charging network, which now represents less than half of Scotland’s public charging network, are set by the 400 individual charge point owners, including all of Scotland’s local authorities.

There are several different factors that shape the cost of public EV charging including wholesale electricity prices, a higher rate of VAT (20%) on public EV charging than domestic electricity (5%), the cost of purchasing or leasing the land on which public charge points are located, the cost of network connections and supply upgrades, and the cost of installing, operating and maintaining the charge points. Higher powered rapid chargers tend to cost around 50% more to install and operate than slower chargers and this is reflected in the higher tariffs for energy from these charge points.

The Scottish Government’s vision for the future of public EV charging was published in June 2023 and it sets out the expectation that pricing across the entire public charging network is fair, sustainable and allows for the ongoing growth and maintenance of the public charging network. However, both VAT and energy market policy remain reserved to the UK Government, therefore the Scottish Government cannot take all of the action it would like to in order to support Scottish consumers.

Question reference: S6W-33219

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 27 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will list the applications that were successful in the latest round of the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund, broken down by NHS board.

The list of successful applicants for Year 3 of the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults was published in November 2024. This provides details of the local authority where the organisation is based, the name of the project and the amount of funding awarded by the local This Sector Interface.

The list of successful applicants can be found within the following link.

Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults Projects awarded funding Year 3 - 2023/2024

Year 4 of the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults opened for applications on or before 30 September 2024 and is well under way. Third Sector Interfaces will submit their End of Year reports in Spring 2025. A full list of the successful applicants will be published thereafter.

Question reference: S6W-33218

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 27 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what criteria were applied to the latest round of the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund.

The Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults is distributed in all 32 local authority areas of Scotland by Third Sector Interface (TSI) organisations who, working in collaboration with other local partners, are responsible for determining and allocating the funding to local community initiatives which support mental health and wellbeing.

TSIs are provided with overarching national guidance for the Fund, which is set by the Scottish Government in consultation with TSIs and the Fund’s National Oversight Group prior to each funding round.

The guidance sets out the broad parameters for how funding should be allocated to community organisations, including criteria around who can apply and what type of project can be funded; in line with the Fund’s aim to tackle mental health inequalities and benefit grassroots groups. The guidance is reviewed annually based on feedback and evidence emerging from monitoring and reporting on the Fund, which is collated by the Scottish Government.

Crucially, it is designed to be flexible in order to allow local partnership groups to identify their own priorities for spend within the terms set out and in line with their local partnership plans.

Question reference: S6W-33991

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 January 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 7 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason there is reportedly no statutory requirement on the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to monitor large battery storage unit sites.

Question reference: S6W-33978

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 January 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 7 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-32906 by Alasdair Allan on 16 January 2025, whether it has asked the UK Government to introduce a compensatory scheme for people who have installed underfloor foam insulation under the EC04 scheme.

Question reference: S6W-33979

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 January 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 7 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-32906 by Alasdair Allan on 16 January 2025, whether it has asked the UK Government to introduce a compensatory scheme for people who have installed spray foam insulation in lofts under the EC04 scheme.

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