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On the 3 September 2024, the Scottish Government pre-budget fiscal update outlined "other" savings measures of £27.7M in the Health and Social Care budget, with funding redirected to support emerging pressures within Health and Social Care, not used for wider SG spending.

The breakdown is as follows:

The service the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) provide is based on a medical and mobility requirement and the Patient Needs Assessment (PNA) is designed to identify the patients who have the following needs. All patients requesting patient transport are taken through the PNA.

SAS support patients who:

• Require a high level of mobility assistance
• Need specialist ambulance equipment to help them mobilise
• Require oxygen and are unable to self-administer this during transportation
• Have a communicable disease with which travel on public/community transport or in a taxi is not advised, and do not have access to appropriate private transport
• Have undergone a procedure and the potential side effects of the treatment require the assistance of a trained ambulance crew for the return journey
• Have been clinically determined by an HCP as at risk from using alternative transport due to being immunocompromised and do not travel routinely by other means
• They have a cognitive or sensory impairment that requires oversight to safely travel, and no escort is travelling
• Have dementia, mental health conditions that means they are unable to make their own way with alternative transport and could be a risk to themselves or others

More information on Scheduled Care Service can be found on the SAS website at www.scottishambulance.com including information on some other alternative transport providers within the local area. Alternatively, patients/representatives can contact the attending hospital who may be able to provide additional advice on options for travelling to and from any future hospital appointments and if eligible, patients may be able to claim help with travel costs.

The Climate Change Committee were not consulted in advance of the savings in Net Zero and Energy portfolio set out in the Fiscal Statement on 3 September 2024. There is no legislative requirement for Ministers to seek such advice and it is not common practice to do so. The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 sets out when Scottish Ministers must request advice from the CCC as well as when Scottish Ministers must have regard to CCC advice. There is no requirement on Ministers to ask the CCC for advice in relation to financial budgets.

We work closely with partners, including through the Older People’s Strategic Forum (OPSAF) on a range of issues related to age equality. This includes the Strategic Action Framework ‘A Fairer Scotland for Older People’, in which Ensuring Financial Security is a priority area. We are running a number of Roundtables throughout Scotland to hear from older people and older people's organisation as part of the refresh of the Framework.

We support projects that enable older people to live independent and fulfilling lives. Our Equality and Human Rights Fund provides over £2.2M to support older people’s organisations and age equality projects and programmes. We also launched a £3.8m Social Isolation and Loneliness Fund on 8 March 2023 which funds 53 projects supporting people at risk of social isolation and loneliness.

Where a publicly funded resident under the National Care Home Contract qualifies for transport from the NHS to attend for a clinical appointment/ treatment the provider will, where practicable, ensure this is arranged. For the avoidance of doubt, the cost of providing transport for the resident to and from scheduled medical appointments, as well as emergency admissions to hospital are not covered in the Council’s Approved Rate and are not therefore the responsibility of the provider where they are being paid that rate.

In the absence of free provision by the NHS, transport to the following may also be provided, but shall be charged in addition to the price charged for care and accommodation:

• Chiropody
• Opticians
• Dentistry
• Physiotherapy
• Transportation
  and Staff escorts to and from medical appointments

Any private contract between a self-funded resident and a care home may include provision for such transport.

Should the Scottish Ambulance Service be contacted, to provide consistency, all patients are taken through the Patient Needs Assessment (PNA) to assess their eligibility for ambulance transport. SAS ask the PNA questions to allow them to fully understand the patient’s needs and to confirm if they require ambulance transport. From this, SAS can then identify the correct resource required. If the caller indicates the patient can get out and about independently or can travel with the assistance of an escort, SAS will seek to understand what is preventing them from getting to their appointment. If there is a clear clinical or medical need, SAS will look to support this request; otherwise, patients will be signposted to alternative transport options specific to where a patient resides. SAS will always ask that if a patient is able to use other means of transport, this is considered the first choice rather than the Scottish Ambulance Service. A patient or representative is advised at the beginning of the call that if they disagree with their decision then they can ask for their request for transport to be put to appeal and this will be answered by a SAS supervisor.

An FCDO official was not present at this meeting. This is in accordance with standard practice for my meetings with Members of the European Parliament. FCDO officials were of course informed of the visit and programme in the normal way.

Scotland’s agricultural land and farming sector have a critical role to play in Scotland’s food security, producing food for consumption in Scotland, and increasing our economic resilience through exports of food and drink worth £7.6 billion in 2023.

National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) Policy 5 (Soils) sets out that development proposals on prime agricultural land, or land of lesser quality that is culturally or locally important for primary use, as identified by the local development plan, will only be supported in limited circumstances. This includes for the generation of energy from renewable sources where there is secure provision for restoration and the layout and design of the proposal minimises the amount of protected land required.

All development proposals are subject to site specific assessments.

We are open to considering if any factors are new and will make recommendations for future management on that basis. The consultation in summer 2025 will gauge public opinion on the closure in light of the best available evidence on environmental and socioeconomic factors to help us understand relative impacts to date, as well as those forecasted should the closure be maintained in the future.

We will also be publishing a report on the 2024 closure in due course which will contribute to the available consultation package.

Putting in place the remaining fisheries management measures remains a top government priority. We want to achieve this as soon as possible, however developing the evidence based and effective fisheries management measures for over 180 sites is a complex and challenging process.

We launched the 8-week consultation on proposed fisheries management measures within Scottish 20 offshore marine protected areas (MPAs) on 19 August 2024.

Social, economic and environmental impact assessments are currently being undertaken for inshore MPAs and we will consult within the current Programme for Government timeframe.

As reflected in Scotland’s Cancer Strategy for Scotland, published June 2023, we are committed to “expanding and evaluating Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Services (RCDS) to ensure population-based coverage”.

To date, we have five fully operational RCDSs across NHS Scotland, with our Programme for Government committing to establish a sixth service in 2024/25.

The University of Strathclyde’s independent evaluation provided an incredibly positive assessment of the Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Service innovation, as they are finding cancer faster.

The Scottish Government and the whole of the public sector faces a financial position that is extremely challenging. The utmost importance is placed on balancing the Scottish Government’s budget each financial year, and it is always necessary to ensure resources are used economically, efficiently, and effectively, and increased additional scrutiny is being applied to expenditure.

Despite financial pressures, colleagues in the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) continue to work with territorial health boards and regional networks across Scotland to embed the learning from the University of Strathclyde’s evaluation report and support them to develop full business cases.