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NHS Boards were informed of their individual baseline budget for 2024-25 on 19 December 2023, the same day as the 2024-25 Scottish Budget.

Their baseline budget is further supplemented by Scottish Government directorate funding allocations throughout the year, to arrive at their revenue resource limit for 2024-25. NHS Boards draw cash from the Scottish Government throughout the year as required.

NHS Lothian and Consort Healthcare are in an on-going discussion on areas that have been identified where maintenance and improvement is required. This process is continuing, and NHS Lothian regularly meet and discuss all aspects of their administration with Scottish Government officials to enable support to be offered.

Scotland’s woodland creation planting target is set out in the Climate Change Plan. The plan includes ambitious targets for woodland creation, aiming to increase woodland cover from around 18% to 21% of the total area of Scotland by 2032, with the planting target increasing to 18,000 hectares annually.

Although Scotland faces the most challenging budget settlement since devolution, the Scottish Government remains committed to maximising the important contribution forestry makes in tackling the climate emergency.

We fund woodland creation through the Forestry Grant Scheme, which has made £39.2 million available to support woodland creation in 2024-25.

Woodland creation projects, including both planting and natural regeneration schemes are being approved on an ongoing basis and whilst this funding will not allow us to reach this year’s target, it will help create over 9,000 hectares of new woodland. This will help maintain the level of planting close to the average achieved over the last 5 years and allow for increased planting in the future should funding from the UK Government be forthcoming. Putting this in context, it will still allow Scotland to create more woodland than the rest of the UK combined.

The project agreement for the RIE was signed in 1998 between NHSL and Consort Healthcare. Consort are responsible for the provision of facilities management and lifecycle maintenance works until the end of the Primary Period in December 2027. The Secondary Period begins automatically following the end of the Primary Period, the exact arrangements for the secondary period, which include the possibility of terminating the agreement, will be determined by the ongoing discussions and decisions taken by NHS Lothian and Consort Healthcare, which have not yet concluded.

Since its creation in 2015 to the end of March 2024, LAR Housing Trust has acquired/developed 740 homes for mid-market rent supported by a Scottish Government loan of £55 million. 175 of these were previously National Housing Trust units. Whilst LAR Housing Trust has brought valued diversity to the provision of mid-market rent housing in Scotland, we carefully consider all of our delivery routes to best achieve our objectives and meet our Scottish Public Finance Manual obligations. The Scottish Government has confirmed to LAR Housing Trust that there is no provision for a further low interest rate loan.

Over many years, the Scottish Government has encouraged LAR to leverage in alternative sources of capital. Building on what has been achieved to date, LAR Housing Trust is in an excellent position to innovate and pivot to new opportunities, including making progress on the sites acquired in Granton and elsewhere.

The Scottish Government remains committed to improving the A96. This is despite stark challenges we face as a result of the severe budgetary restrictions imposed by the UK Government including an almost 9% cut in our capital budget.

The current plan is to fully dual the route and as part of this process we are undertaking a transparent, evidence-based review of the programme, which includes a climate compatibility assessment and other statutory assessments.

The significant interest in the review’s initial consultation, with nearly 4,600 responses, generated 11,000 options to improve the corridor. It is only right that appropriate time has been taken in order to properly examine and fully appraise these.

It is expected that the draft outcomes from the Review, including the climate compatibility assessment, will be consulted on in the coming months, before a final decision can be reached.

This is an operational matter for ScotRail.

The Scottish Government does not hold the detail of this funding. Local decisions on how to allocate funding is the responsibility of NHS Boards.

The 2024-25 Budget provides funding of over £19.5 billion for NHS recovery, health and social care – giving our NHS a real terms uplift and providing over £14.2 billion investment in our NHS Boards.

This Budget continues to support prevention and early intervention which is critical to addressing system challenges and longer term reform, with key investment including:

• Supporting investment in excess of £10 billion for the NHS paybill to support the workforce including Allied Health Professionals and which has rewarded NHS staff in recent years during the cost of living crisis. The budget for the NHS workforce is not allocated by workforce group.
• £2 billion for social care and integration, an additional £1 billion compared to 2021-22 spend. This delivers on our Programme for Government commitment to increase social care spending by 25% over this Parliament two years ahead of our original target.
• Over £2.1bn for primary care, which includes funding for Allied Health Professionals, to improve preventative care in the community, supporting the development of multidisciplinary teams in general practice, sustaining NHS dental care through enhanced fees and continuing free eye examinations.
• Supporting spend in excess of £1.3 billion to support mental health services, with £290.2 million direct investment – more than doubled since 2020/21 - enabling record numbers of staff in providing more varied support and services to a larger number of people than ever before.
• Sustaining increased funding to address the twin public health emergencies of drugs deaths and the harms from alcohol, by maintaining our commitment to provide an additional £250 million funding over the life of this parliament to address the drugs death emergency.
• Protecting those most at risk with increased investment of over 55% for our routine childhood and adult vaccination programmes.

We are convinced that hydrogen will play an important role as an energy storage and balancing asset to the wider energy system electricity and gas grids as the share of renewable generation continues to increase.

We published a report in 2023 which can be found here investigating the options for storing energy in the form of hydrogen in Scotland and its potential for reducing curtailment of renewable energy and the role of hydrogen peaking power plants for electricity generation during times of low renewable energy generation.

The study found that hydrogen storage will play an important role in balancing an energy system that has large amounts of intermittent renewable energy. These findings have informed our position and engagement on strategic programme discussions such as the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements (REMA) and Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP) and the ESO Constraints Collaboration project, which is seeking solutions for thermal constraints, which can reduce costs to the consumer or reduce the curtailment of renewable generation.

We recognise the financial challenges faced by all students, including nursing and midwifery students, and know that this has been exacerbated by the current cost of living crisis.

At this juncture, there are no definitive plans to increase the student nurse bursary, however, following the publication of the Royal College of Nursing’s (RCN) report ‘Nursing Student Finance: the true cost of becoming a nurse’ improvements have been made in response to the recommendations within the report surrounding student clinical placement expenses (which include travel and accommodation costs). Those improvements were taken forward in collaboration with the RCN and further work is planned to review the full package of support for those in receipt of the nursing, midwifery and paramedic student bursary. This work will be taken forward in conjunction with the Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce, which will shortly be making recommendations about the education and development of students and the existing workforce as part of its’ wider remit to make Scotland the best place to be a nurse or midwife.

The Scottish Government package of support for Scottish student nurses and midwives is at its highest level and remains the highest level of support available to nursing and midwifery students across the UK. The annual £10,000 bursary is non-means tested and non-repayable. Eligible pre-registration students also receive free tuition and funding for placement expenses – this includes travel and where appropriate accommodation expenses. Furthermore, uniforms, disclosure checks and health checks are also provided.

Students may also choose to explore registering with the Bank of healthcare workers at local NHS Boards which can provide a variety of paid opportunities, indeed many already take this up to supplement their income and experience. Whilst Bank work does not provide guaranteed work, it allows NHS Boards to offer students employment as and/or when the need arises in their local area. Once a student is registered with the Bank some Boards may also offer students a part time fixed term contract at a maximum of 15 hours per week. The opportunities which are available will vary between Boards, depending on their current and future requirements.