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Please see the details of contracts awarded to private companies to undertake work regarding the establishment of a National Care Service in the following table.

Evidence and data play an important part in efficient policy delivery. Our commitment to continue to improve on our data and evaluation efforts is highlighted as part of the revised evaluation strategy to tackle child poverty. The Scottish Government publish child poverty estimates by detailed ethnic group and since March 2022, time series for ethnicity breakdowns have also been published, including for child poverty estimates by detailed ethnic group. The Scottish Government is happy to support CRER – and any stakeholders – with finding our published data and producing ad-hoc analysis.

Whilst recognising the important role of detailed statistical data, our tackling child poverty delivery plan is clear that an intersectional approach is needed to support priority families. Beyond statistical analysis, our action to tackle child poverty is based on a strong evidence base identifying the main drivers of poverty, as the CRER report acknowledges. To design policies that specifically help minority ethnic families, further evidence has been published to widen our understanding. This includes a detailed focus report on minority ethnic families, a summary update on drivers of poverty for all priority family types which fed into the development of ‘Best Start, Bright Futures’ and detailed understanding of what works to tackle child poverty.

After competitive tender, a contract was awarded to Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP to obtain expert independent advice on the implications of VAT on the NCS and associated Care Boards. This work is ongoing. We will engage with the wider sector and HMT prior to any decision being taken which would have a VAT impact.

The challenging funding landscape and difficult choices facing the Scottish Budget in coming years have only worsened since publication of the Resource Spending Review. As a result of inflation, the Scottish Government’s budget is now worth around £1.7 billion less than when it was published in December.

It is clear that Fair Work, including fair pay, is more important than ever in the context of the cost of living crisis, and we will use all the levers we can to support those most affected.

In the current economic climate, we recognise, most recently in the publication of the Emergency Budget Review, that there are a number of cost pressures on Scottish Government budget and associated contracts including inflation, energy costs and increases to the real Living Wage. We have undertaken a risk-assessment of our key current contracts and framework agreements and are working closely and sensitively with suppliers through this period to manage those contracts.

We understand the importance of fair and stable funding for the third sector and the benefit of this for longer term planning and development. As we continue to work through the impact of the recent and upcoming UK Government announcements on our ability to deliver the spending plans as set out in the Spending Review in May. We are also considering the appropriate level of detail and timing of financial information we can provide in the longer-term.

After competitive tender, a contract was awarded to Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP to obtain expert independent advice on the implications of VAT on the NCS and associated Care Boards. This work is ongoing. No decisions have been made at this point and a full understanding of the impact of all options will be considered.

We awarded a contract through a competitive tender for independent VAT advice from Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP. This was through Public Contracts Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to questions S6W-11493 on 26 October 2022 and S6T00915 on 25 October 2022.

The answer to Topical Question S6T-00915 can be found here: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/search-what-was-said-in-parliament/meeting-of-parliament-25-10-2022?meeting=13939&iob=126317#16180

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

The NHS Recovery Plan Update published on 4 October provides an overview of progress during the first year since its publication and identifies key risks, such as high levels of uncertainty on the future trajectory of Covid-19 and its potential for increased Covid related pressures on the system, and mitigations. However, the ambitious targets to increase planned care capacity set out in the NHS Recovery Plan remain a key commitment.

Of the additional 55,000 inpatient / daycase procedures by 2025/26 committed to in the NHS Recovery Plan, 40,000 is expected to come from the National Treatment Centres (NTCs). In 2023, three NTCs in NHS Fife, NHS Forth Valley and NHS Highland are due to open, along with the completed expansion of the NHS Golden Jubilee University National Hospital. In the first year of opening, these centres are projected to deliver an additional 12,250 procedures. This is in addition to the procedures delivered at the National Eye Centre which opened in November 2020.

In addition to the NTCs, we are working closely with the NHS Boards and the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) on accelerating implementation of improvement programmes across all NHS Boards to maximise capacity, reduce variation and increase theatre efficiencies, including Active Clinical Referral Treatment and Patient Initiated Review, freeing up additional capacity in the NHS system. We are also developing ‘Once for Scotland’ pathways, harnessing all opportunities to deliver patient care in the right place and closer to home, this includes maximising day case procedures to avoid any unnecessary stays in hospital.

We are continuing to work closely with Boards with NTC projects currently under development and will define when the additional capacity will come on stream as part of the ongoing business case development.

The latest statistics on average number of available, staffed hospital beds, including for acute specialties, is published in ‘Table 4 - beds.xlsx’ within Public Health Scotland’s annual acute hospital activity and NHS beds publication (available under the ‘Data files’ heading on this Public Health Scotland web page: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual-annual-year-ending-31-march-2022/ ).

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10530 on 28 September 2022. The Scottish Government has committed to publishing further information on the recruitment of Staff to the National Treatment Centres, as part of the NHS Scotland Workforce Statistics, from 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