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I refer the member to the Scottish Governments National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care, where we committed to developing a Remote and Rural Workforce Recruitment Strategy for Health and Social Care by the end of 2024. An update on the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care will be published later this year.

The Scottish Government does not hold official data on the unregistered workforce. However we do know that there were at least 4,869 Personal Assistants (PA’s) providing social care support to adults who were in receipt of either Self-directed support option 1 or from Independent Living Fund Scotland in 2021.

This data was captured from those Personal Assistants who applied for the Scottish Government Covid-19 thankyou payment which can be found here PA Programme Board Resources - Self Directed Support Scotland | Self Directed Support Scotland (sdsscotland.org.uk) .

A PA Programme Board was established in 2021 with a membership from the public, third sector and organisation’s representing disabilities. A co-produced Work Plan was developed which includes objectives to understand, grow and support the PA workforce including developing better research of this little known workforce.

The Personal Assistant workforce are employed by the person with social care needs or their family. The employer may also use funding from a variety of public sources as well as self-funding, as such there is no locus for SG to mandate the collection of this data. However, there will be an option to count all those non family member PAs from 2024 onwards as this workforce must be PVG checked from that date.

There has been a successful application for a PHD funded by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science. This position will start in October and will research PA assistance for disabled people, changing labour markets and social care reform. The PA Programme Board will be a collaborative partner with Glasgow University.

In 2022-23 the Scottish Government spent £2,761,815 on health and social care staff wellbeing. In addition to this, the Scottish Government intend to spend a further £1,397,475 on health and social care staff wellbeing in the remainder of this financial year.

We do not hold a detailed breakdown of spending at the level requested.

The Connecting Scotland programme aims to ensure that people in Scotland have access to digital services by providing them with opportunities to access and utilise devices, connectivity, skills, and support effectively. To date, the Scottish Government has committed over £48m to Connecting Scotland, through the Programme for Government and Winter Package for Social Support.

This is a matter for the Scottish Social Services Council. The information requested is not held centrally.

This is a matter for the Scottish Social Services Council. The information requested is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government reviewed the Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS), Health Protection (HP) and Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Workforce in 2022, as part of the work formulating evidence towards the recently published ‘Infection Prevention Workforce: Strategic Plan 2022-2024’. The plan is about building capacity and capability of AMS, HP (with relevance to IPC) and IPC workforce in all health and care settings, to enable recovery and development. It reflects on the need for planning post pandemic across all health and care, and as part of the wider system infection management needs. Following a situational analysis, recommendations in the plan include:

• identifying the current specialist workforce across health and care to assess and address demands (current and future) and potential service gaps, to allow for succession planning and sustainability.
• reviewing and addressing current IPC capability within the AMS and HP Workforce.
• reviewing current educational and career pathways and identify key priorities in order to meet future and evolving needs to support service delivery.
• progressing the work for a national surveillance eSystem for IPC within secondary care, with the support of local and national stakeholders.
• identifying the requirements for new/emerging local/national specialist roles, which will support phased implementation of a sustainable workforce.
• that each Board should consider whether services should be led by a clinical leader with a focus on AMR, HAI and IPC and with accountability to the executive team within a board, or partnership, to ensure safe and effective clinical service delivery.

Since its inception in 2014, the annual budget for the Commissioner’s office has been £250,000. This is funded by the Scottish Government and covers the Commissioner’s remuneration, support staff, office and IT requirements and general running costs. The draft budget published on 15 December proposed increasing this to £280,000 in Financial Year 2023-24.

The UK Government has since funded the appointments of the UK Independent Veterans Advisor and the Wales and Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioners for which the Scottish Government do not receive any Barnett Consequentials.

In relation to veterans healthcare, the Scottish Government has developed a scheme to help General Practices to identify and recognise the circumstances of veterans and their families . This is currently in the pilot phase of the programme.

In addition, the application form for Adult Disability Payment asks clients about their possible entitlement to Armed Forces Independence Payment, War Pensioners’ Mobility Supplement and War Pension Constant Attendance Allowance. Where appropriate, clients are then directed to Veterans UK for further advice.

We are also engaging with Scotland’s Housing Network’s Local Housing Strategy Group to encourage local authorities to identify the housing needs of the veterans and Armed Forces community. This will include local authorities sharing examples of best practice.

Finally, during 2022, the Scottish Government supported the UK Government work to undertake a scoping study for provision of digital verification of veteran status and contributed to the project’s Discovery Phase. We will continue to support the work as it progresses which will make it easier for all veterans to identify as such when accessing services and support.

The ‘Welcome to Scotland’ guide was first introduced in 2018 to provide practical information to Service personnel and their families who are moving to or already living in Scotland, on topics such as housing, education, healthcare and employment. It is not specifically targeted at veterans or their families but it is promoted to the veterans community through the Veterans Scotland newsletter.

The guide is refreshed annually and we work with the military in Scotland, the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces Families Federations to develop and promote its use.