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The Scottish Government partially funded the creation of a Priority Setting Partnership to agree the top 10 priorities for future research on ME/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and we are considering, with partners, how best we can progress these priority areas in Scotland. To help facilitate this, the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office is currently inputting to a newly-formed UK-wide working group on research into ME/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome through the UK Clinical Research Collaborative.

The Chief Scientist Office operates open competitive funding schemes for applied health research projects and fellowships across the wide range of NHS and health challenges in Scotland. These schemes are open to consideration of applications addressing priorities for research on ME/CFS that have been identified by the recent Priority Setting Partnership. Applications to these schemes are assessed through independent expert peer-review with funding recommendations made by independent expert committees.

The Scottish Government co-funds and participates in the Perinatal Audit and Perinatal Mortality Review Tool as part of Mothers and Babies, Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (MBRRACE-UK).

The Scottish Government continues to support implementation of The Best Start programme, in partnership with senior leaders and clinicians, and evidence suggests that Best Start interventions such as continuity of carer are particularly important for women and babies who may experience inequalities in health outcomes. Scotland has a programme of work underway to tackle racialized inequalities in health outcomes, and NHS maternity services are part of that work. Scotland also participates in the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Race Equality Taskforce .

This information requested is not held centrally.

The independent economic regulator, the Water Industry Commission for Scotland (WICS), produces the average charge data in Scotland. In England and Wales, Water UK provides the data to Discover Water. Both average charges are produced independent of water companies and represent the best comparator available.

As set out in the response to S6W-08912, the Final Determination explained that the Commission would expect that its charge caps would allow Scottish Water’s annual revenue in the final year of the current regulatory control period to be no less than £1,392m (as set out in page 10 of the Final Determination). This level of revenue was based on assuming an average charge cap of 1.5% a year above inflation over the regulatory control period 2021-27.

The Final Determination set a maximum amount of charges of CPI + 2% on average for each year of the regulatory control period. As set out in the Final Determination, the difference between the CPI + 2% and the CPI + 1.5% each year on average was to cover any additional costs that Scottish Water incurs in selecting an investment option that has a higher net present value than the lowest financial cost option, after allowing for externalities such as carbon, natural and social capital. This is the allowance of £132m set out in pages 9 and 15 of the Final Determination. This money would only be used where such projects had been thoroughly appraised. The minimum revenue expectation did not take account of this allowance.

We are still modelling potential structures based on updated scheme membership data and plan to engage with the Scheme Advisory Board on these shortly. The previous proposals we consulted on put forward broadly similar rates for lower earners to those in the contribution structure implemented in England and Wales.

When developing the structure, protecting lower earners from large increases in contribution rates is a key driver but has to be balanced against the legal imperative to begin to reduce the very highest rates and flatten the contribution structure. The biggest challenge in comparing against the rates in England and Wales is that there is a bigger yield shortfall to recover in the Scottish scheme, principally due to workforce demographics.

All payments as part of the national contractual framework are published annually. The latest iteration can be found at SHOW - Scotlands Health On the Web - Publications, including payments for non-activity based services delivered as part of the Pharmaceutical Services Remuneration Global Sum.

Health Boards can recover remuneration in line with the measures available as set out in the National Health Service (Pharmaceutical Services) (Scotland) Regulations 2009 and the National Health Service (Discipline Committees) (Scotland) Regulations 2006.

The Scottish Government along with the BMA and other stakeholders provide evidence to the Doctors and Dentist Review Bodies (DDRB) who make an independent recommendation on pay uplifts for medical and dental staff across the UK.

We take part in this process in good faith and in the knowledge that the DDRB make independent recommendations which can be above or below what participants are seeking. This year, the DDRB have recommended a pay award which we have implemented in full for all Medical and Dental staff.

The Scottish Government welcomes continued engagement with health service unions in developing appropriate proposals on pension issues. We are currently modelling member contribution rate structures for the NHS Pension Scheme (Scotland) and will shortly be consulting with the NHS Pension Scheme Advisory Board before holding a public consultation on proposals towards the end of this year.

Any large infrastructure organisation that provides an essential service requires significant access to cash to maintain its activities and to respond to unforeseen events. Scottish Water’s cash balances each year are largely a function of when the business borrows from the Scottish Government relative to when capital investments are made; unlike similar infrastructure businesses, Scottish Water does not have access to any other credit facilities. Some of that capital investment will be on projects not delivered in the preceding regulatory period. Furthermore, at any point in time Scottish Water has on-going investment projects and hence has contractual commitments with its delivery partners and it must ensure it has sufficient funds to meet those contractual commitments. At 31 March 2022 Scottish Water had contractual capital commitments of £455.6m and at 31 March 2021 this figure was £541.4m, hence my comments in the Scottish Parliament on 18 May 2022 that Scottish Water's cash balance is ''substantially allocated at any time to investment projects''.