- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Ruth Charteris on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to increase the number of prosecutions of alleged perpetrators of modern slavery.
Answer
The Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 provides a clear and cohesive set of criminal offences which are properly aligned with international standards and definitions of trafficking and exploitation which enables the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) to take prosecutorial decision based on the facts and circumstances of each individual case reported to them. This includes the power to commence confiscation proceedings where convictions are achieved in order that perpetrators face a credible risk of being convicted and sentenced proportionally to the seriousness of their crimes.
Scottish prosecutors work with other countries through Joint Investigative Teams to tackle cross border human trafficking cases and, since 2016, COPFS and the prosecution services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have signed a set of commitments with the overarching goal that the prosecuting authorities in the United Kingdom will work closely together and with law enforcement partners to disrupt networks, prosecute traffickers and safeguard victims’ rights.
- Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Food Standards Scotland about updating the definitions of (a) alcohol-free and (b) low alcohol products in Scotland.
Answer
The Scottish Government has the lead for alcohol policy in Scotland. However, Food Standards Scotland (FSS) has responsibility for the policies surrounding general food labelling in Scotland and work closely with policy officials across the four nations on these issues.
FSS launched a four-week consultation on 23 October 2018 to assess the current understanding and use of the descriptive terms ‘low alcohol’, ‘non-alcoholic’, ‘alcohol-free’ and ‘de alcoholised’ but unfortunately this work was paused due to matters relating to EU exit.
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Matheson on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what the current average daily demand for electricity is in Scotland; what it projects the demand will be in 2030, and whether it will provide the evidence on which this projection is based.
Answer
The current average daily demand for electricity in Scotland (a 12-month rolling average figure, for the 12 months ending November 2022) is 70.4 GWh. This data is from National Grid Electricity System Operator’s data explorer and is published on Scottish Energy Statistics hub here: Scottish Energy Statistics Hub (shinyapps.io) . This is an average figure, within a minimum-maximum range (for the same period) of between 45-100 GWh.
There are no projections available on the daily demand for electricity in 2030.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, which health and social care organisations it has provided support to in order to have access to the basic resources required to develop as digital organisations.
Answer
Scottish Government consistently provides funding and support to all Health Boards. We also fund work within the Alliance, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and others.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, what it has done to streamline the information governance landscape setting out the roles of key organisations within health and care.
Answer
The Scottish Government has undertaken extensive engagement with stakeholders across health and care, including health boards, the research community, industry and many other stakeholders, in order to understand the information governance landscape and identify opportunities for improvement.
The executive summary of our Information Governance review was published on 1 April 2022. As a result of the recommendations from the review, The National Information Governance Programme had been established to streamline the Information Governance landscape with focus on the following key areas:
- Co-designing options for a more balanced, federated IG model
- Improving the Information Governance maturity across the Health and Social Care Ecosystem
- Empowering People in digital and data
- Delivering the right Information Governance tools
- Co-designing transformative participatory public engagement models and
- Enhancing transparency
Furthermore, the Scottish Government recently funded and launched Research Data Scotland ( RDS). RDSis working to create a new Researcher Access Service that will provide streamlined lawful, fair and safe access to health and care data for the public good.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, how much it has invested in information governance and cyber skills within health and social care.
Answer
The Scottish Government is supporting staff to develop digital skills through the Building Digital Skills and Leadership Programme.
Specifically, to support IG and cyber security across health and social care, the Scottish Government has provided funding to NHS boards for programmes of work specifically relating to Information Governance and Security. For example:
- The National IG Programme
- The Digital Workforce Programme
- NIS Competent Authority for Health.
This is in addition to bespoke spends on this topic area, such as the Public Sector Cyber Upskilling fund, which was targeted at Emergency Services, Local Authorities, Health Sector, SEPA and Scottish Water.
As these programmes often rely on appropriate use of allocated funding to NHS boards, we do not hold information centrally on the amount specifically on the development of information governance and cyber skills.
For more information on the Building Digital Skills and Leadership Programme, I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14150 on 2 February 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 .
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, what it is doing to develop digital services in support of those in receipt of care at home.
Answer
Scottish Government is doing a range of things to support care at home. Delivery is ongoing, as set out in the annual delivery plan for Digital Health & Care (see Care in the Digital Age: delivery plan 2022 to 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ). An update will be published later this year with delivery priorities for 2023/24, and will include an overview of progress against existing commitments.
In addition, key work is being taken forward through the digital telecare programme, being led by Local Government Digital Office (LGDO), to safely transition over 180,000 users of telecare in Scotland from analogue to digital telephony connections. This offers significant opportunities to look to further develop this service with more advanced technologies and better use of data. This has, to date, included the development of key resources for local areas through a developed digital telecare playbook.
As well as delivery aims set out in the healthcare framework for care homes - My Health, My Care, My Home - healthcare framework for adults living in care homes - gov.scot ( www.gov.scot ), further work is being taken forward through the national Technology Enabled Care (TEC) programme’s digital in social care activity - Digital Social Care | TEC Scotland.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to its last conducted digital maturity exercises in the health and care sector, which areas were identified as areas for improvement, and what funding was allocated to support these.
Answer
Despite the digital maturity assessment taking place in 2019, the findings were not made available until early 2020. Unfortunately, much of the work planned to take forward the learning from the assessment was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As referenced in question S6W-14135 on 2 February 2023, we will take forward the new digital maturity programme in 2023 to re-establish those areas of key priority.
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 .
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how often it (a) reviews and (b) publishes its
approach to ensuring any new technologies used in health and care comply with
its technical, data and design standards, and when it last did so.
Answer
There are existing organisations that evaluate new technologies including Scottish Health Technologies Group. Scottish Government operates a robust governance structure to review and support compliance of new and existing technologies. All programmes are required to comply with UK standards including those set by MHRA and ICO.The 2022-23 Delivery plan sets out further ambitions for our approach to digital futures.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has developed a safety case for all major health and care systems, and, if so, what approach it followed to design these.
Answer
Currently, several key national programmes have undertaken safety cases - this includes the national vaccination programme and work on Connect me (remote health monitoring). More broadly, we are currently developing our national policy approach to safety cases within digital health and care. This will be developed in line with national work being taken forward through the Scottish Patient Safety Programme.
