Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-15375 on 10 March 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 .

The Scottish Government does not hold the requested information regarding interim care plans.

The Scottish Government does not hold the requested information regarding interim care placements beyond their agreed end date.

In July 2022, I announced ambitious targets to eradicate long waits in planned care. This included a target to clear waits of over a year for an outpatient appointment in most specialities by the end of March 2023.

Significant work has already been progressed to identify immediate and longer term sustainable solutions to support NHS Boards, including NHS Ayrshire and Arran, to clear their remaining long waits, which have been exacerbated by the impacts of the global pandemic.

This includes mutual aid arrangements to clear the long waits within the Gastroenterology and Diabetes & Endocrinology services in NHS Ayrshire & Arran, and additional support for Dermatology and Ophthalmology.

The Centre for Sustainable Delivery is also working with all Health Boards to accelerate implementation of high impact changes, including Active Clinical Referral Treatment and Patient Initiated Review. These improvement programmes will not only support delivery of the targets, but they will also provide sustainable solutions for the future.

In addition to this, the Scottish Government has provided over £660,000 additional funding to support diagnostic capacity nationally, and have ensured that the health budget for 2023-2024 exceeds £19 billion to support recovery and vital reform.

The programme costs for administering the ebike loan scheme are set out below. In financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20, the scheme was part of the Low Carbon Transport Loan and programme costs were covered from one budget.

The Scottish Government is clear that the continued under-representation of minority ethnic teachers, at all levels, is unacceptable and requires continued action. Through our Diversity in the Teaching Profession and Education Workforce (DITPEW) working group we are taking a range of specific steps - all of which are predicated on engagement with minority ethnic people with anti racist and educational expertise - to meet the 4% target. These include:

• Appointing 2 minority ethnic, senior education professionals to co-chair the DITPEW working group and drive forward Professor Arshad's recommendations. DITPEW working group members also have lived experience of racism, professional experience in education and in developing anti-racist practice.
• Working with the General Teaching Council for Scotland to develop the new National Race Diversity Lead post which is supported by SG funding in 2022-24. It sees the postholder working across local authorities, regional improvement collaboratives and schools, to facilitate increased racial diversity within the teaching profession.
• Working with Dr Khadija Mohammed, Associate Dean of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at University of the West of Scotland in the development of an anti-racist framework for Initial Teacher Education (ITE) providers. The framework's aim is to ensure that minority ethnic ITE students have an anti-racist experience from initial application stage through to becoming a newly qualified teacher.
• Working with minority ethnic teachers to deliver sessions through the Developing the Young Workforce Live platform, aimed at encouraging minority ethnic children and young people to consider teaching as a career.

Key to informing the development and delivery of these ambitions is the annual Scottish Government Diversity in the Teaching Profession Data report, which will be published at the end of March.

ILF Scotland’s projected available reserves at the end of March 2023 are £2.7 million, however there is a £0.9 million commitment included in this figure. Final figures for 2022/23 will be published in ILF Scotland’s Annual Report, later in the calendar year.

The Zero Waste Scotland website pages for the Scotland Deposit Return Scheme were launched in May 2019. Data on the number of visits to these pages has been made available to the Scottish Government for the period between September 2019 to 9 March 2023, totalling 348,175 visits across this period. These pages received 21,176 in 2019 (from September), 45,956 in 2020, 72,053 in 2021, 97,691 in 2022 and up to the 9 March 111,299 visits in 2023.

The Scottish Government spent £886 on the MCS Certification Fund in the 2021-2022 financial year, and £14,987 so far over the 2022-2023 financial year as set out in the table below. The total spend since the scheme started until 15 February 2023 is £15,874. This scheme has helped increase the total number of MCS heat pump installers in Scotland by around 10% (calculated using MCS Scottish heat pump installer data from: https://datadashboard.mcscertified.com/InstallationInsights ) with 17 gaining MCS certification through the fund over the scheme’s lifespan.

The Scottish Government continues to monitor the overseas recruitment and considers this to be on track. As announced in October 2022 up to 750 overseas nurses, midwives and allied health professionals are to be recruited by the end of March 2023 and it is our aim to publish the results of that exercise shortly after.