Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government is currently developing proposals on bovine EID and aims to consult on this issue in late 2023/early 2024. Scottish Ministers will consider the findings of the consultation and alongside wider implications, such as the UKIMA before reaching a preferred position on bovine EID.

The Scottish Government is actively engaged with a number of industry groups on electronic identification in livestock, including the Bovine EID Industry Working Group. The Scottish Government has also supported a pilot on bovine EID, looking into the effectiveness of different technologies. The findings were published in a report by ScotEID on 15 September 2023.

The launch of our National Mission on Drugs in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way. Many of the milestones are being delivered through the National Mission and others are being picked up as part of more recent Government commitments.

The Medication Assisted Treatment standards published on 31 May 2021 and are a set of standards aimed at providing a framework to ensure that MAT is sufficiently safe, effective, acceptable, accessible and person-centred to enable people to benefit from treatment for as long as they need it.

The standards are evidence based and were developed through extensive consultation with multiagency partners that deliver care, and, with the individuals, families and communities with experience of problematic drug use.

The Scottish Government has committed to full and sustained implementation of MAT standards 1-10 in community and justice settings by April 2026. To help local areas achieve this, the MAT Implementation Support Team (MIST), based within Public Health Scotland (PHS) is supporting the roll out of the standards ensuring local areas have systems, protocols and procedures in place to be able to continuously improve services based on evidence.

In order to demonstrate implementation of the MAT standards, local areas provide process, numerical and experiential evidence to MIST which helps to inform an annual National Benchmarking Report, published by PHS. Process evidence includes formularies, clinical guidelines, care pathways, standard operating procedures, policies and other supporting documentation.

The National Benchmarking Report for 2022/2023, published in July 2023 reported that the 29 ADP areas assessed against each of the 10 MAT standards, 66% (96/145) of MAT standards 1–5 were fully implemented and 88% (127/145) of MAT standard 6–10 were partially implemented.

The launch of our National Mission on Drugs in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way. Many of the milestones are being delivered through the National Mission and others are being picked up as part of more recent Government commitments.

The Partnership Delivery Framework to Reduce the Use of and Harm from Alcohol and Drugs which was approved by COSLA Leaders and Scottish Ministers in 2019, sets out clear arrangements for quality assurance and quality improvement work to be undertaken at a local level.

The Drugs Death Taskforce recommended in their final report, Changing Lives , that; The Scottish Government should develop a National Specification outlining the key parts of the treatment and recovery system that should be available in every local area, ensuring it also delivers on the principles of quality, choice, access and parity of treatment with other health conditions.

We have made a commitment in our Cross Government Plan that we agree that a National Specification for services would help set these requirements out more clearly. This would also provide more accountability, particularly for those with lived and living experience and their families who will be able to see clearly what they can expect to be available in the treatment and recovery system.

We are working with partners to scope out the components of a Specification for further development and consultation. This process will need to involve a range of local and national partners and most important amongst those will be people with experience of using the services and their families.

Rights, Respect and Recovery sets a clear expectation that all people accessing services with a substance use condition should receive holistic, person-centred care. MAT standard 9 builds upon this, stating that ‘all people with co-occurring drug use and mental health difficulties can receive mental health care at the point of MAT delivery.’ The government is taking forward a number of measures to ensure that people with co-occurring mental health and substance use conditions receive this joined-up care.

We have funded Healthcare Improvement Scotland to test new models of care in five health boards – Tayside, Grampian, Lanarkshire, Greater Glasgow & Clyde, and Lothian.

The government also published a rapid review into mental health and substance use services in November 2022. This included a literature review, a survey of practitioners in substance use services, and a set of recommendations.

Finally, the government has recently commissioned Healthcare Improvement Scotland to produce an exemplar protocol which will set out how mental health and substance use services should work together. This will build on existing best practice and support local areas to implement the recommendations from the rapid review and the criteria of the MAT standards.

The area of forest that has been felled in Scotland is not monitored on an annual basis. Scottish Forestry is the Scottish Government agency responsible for the regulation tree felling and monitors the area approved for felling each year. After approval for felling is issued, the landowner has flexibility to decide on the timing of felling.

Felling approvals are issued in a number of ways, including as standalone Felling Permissions, where felling is approved for a two year period, and Long-term Forest Plans, where felling is approved for a ten year period. Local Authorities may also approve felling as part of planning permission, but these figures are not collated. As approvals can be valid for over several years, the area of forest felled in a particular year is not available.

For the last seven years, including private sector approvals and forests managed by Forestry and Land Scotland, the areas approved for felling are as follows. Of this area, 96-98% is for conifer forest:

The Scottish Government published a new national Specification for Psychological Therapies (PT) and Interventions on 29 September 2023. This follows a two-year period of development working closely with partners, including the workforce, and other key stakeholders.

We have worked in collaboration with Public Health Scotland (PHS) to revise the waiting reporting guidance for PT and PHS have re-issued the Waiting Times data definitions guidance document which will help to improve accuracy of reporting against the PT waiting times standard. This applies to the delivery of PT as set out in the new Specification. The updated guidance document will be fully operational by 1 April 2024.

Scottish Government officials and Professional Advisors will continue to support NHS Boards to improve reporting of PT waiting times through the established engagement processes. We will work with data analysts and PHS to ensure improved information reporting is carried out consistently across Scotland.

The Scottish Government recognises that evidence is important in supporting policy design, monitoring progress and evaluation of impact. Our refreshed Tobacco Action Plan will be published in Autumn this year and is based on a wide range of evidence. This has included and will continue to include input from Public Health Scotland and Scottish Government Analysts. In addition, evidence requirements will continue to be considered and updated as plans around refreshed tobacco actions progress. Further detail on evidence will be published later this year.

Current PHS analysis on smoking attributable deaths and smoking attributable admissions can be found on the PHS website - Smoking attributable deaths - ScotPHO and Smoking attributable admissions - ScotPHO

The Programme for Government 2023-24 set out major new commitments on childcare including how we will test, for the first time, what an all-age childcare system will look like for Scotland in six councils.

We will work closely with those communities, our partners, and providers to consider how the early learning and school age childcare workforce can support these systems, and what they will need to do so. This will include consideration of regulatory issues, qualifications and professional development, which will take time to do fully and is why we will now set out our plans in 2024.

In the meantime, we will continue to work with the Framework Steering Group and other partners to support delivery of the actions being developed as part of the original plan. We have, for example, already developed a range of new learning resources, implemented a Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) fee waiver and are starting work on a new national portal for professional learning.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21623 on‎ 29 September 2023. 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