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The Scottish Government has not undertaken an assessment of catamaran vessels in the past year. Any such assessments have been undertaken by Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL) supported by independent naval architectural consultancy.

As was widely reported at the time, CMAL gave detailed consideration to the opportunity to purchase a catamaran already under construction. This was not pursued primarily due to concerns that the vessel would not meet regulatory requirements for service on the Clyde and Hebrides services, a decision endorsed by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government is refreshing the non-statutory guidance for Local Child Poverty Action Reports (LCPARs) to support local authorities and health boards to deliver focused reporting on their actions to support priority families. CRER and other stakeholders representing priority families have been consulted in drafting the guidance. This is part of our work with stakeholders to strengthen targeted action for priority groups. We welcome the opportunity to work with CRER to enable a greater focus on BME families in our national and local practice and reporting.

The Scottish Government, in collaboration with other national partners, review LCPARs and engage with local authorities and health boards, offering feedback and sharing learning across areas. This process provides a further opportunity to support local focus on the six priority family groups.

The non-statutory guidance also highlights that the intersectional approach needed to support priority families is best served by person-centred, holistic action. We will continue to support local leads to engage directly with priority families in their areas who have direct experience of poverty to understand, design and deliver the tailored support needed.

We awarded a contract through a competitive tender for independent VAT advice from Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP. AAB have been commissioned to provide advice and support to Scottish Government employees on VAT implications, to produce an options paper exploring the VAT implications of different NCS scenarios, and to produce a final report on the considerations of VAT and eventual outcome. This work is ongoing.

The Scottish Government's Infrastructure Investment Plan, which was published in February 2021, sets out the government’s infrastructure priorities for the period from 2021 to 2026. The Infrastructure Investment Plan is available online at A National Mission with Local Impact: Infrastructure Investment Plan for Scotland 2021-22 to 2025-26 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Under the Infrastructure Investment Plan the Scottish Government is:

• Doubling the annual funding for maintenance over 5 years, investing over £1 billion in enhancing or refurbishing existing facilities, and modernising key equipment.
• Investing over £220 million in the Baird and Anchor project in Aberdeen which brings together all Maternity, Neonatal, Reproductive Medicine, Breast and Gynaecology services in the Baird Family Hospital and consolidates Haematology, Oncology and Radiotherapy Day and Outpatient services in the ANCHOR Cancer centre.
• Delivering a programme of investment in National Treatment Centres in Clydebank, Inverness, Livingston, Aberdeen, Tayside, and Kirkcaldy.
• Upgrading the Edinburgh Cancer Centre, building the new national secure adolescent inpatient service in Irvine and replacing the St Brendan’s facility in Barra.
• Investing in the provision of a new health and social care community hub in Parkhead that will replace 10 different buildings across Glasgow northeast area.
• Investing over £50 million to modernise our radiology equipment nationally, and over £100 million to upgrade and replace our ambulance fleet.
• Investing £25 million in the system development required to build on the 50-fold increase in patient use of NearMe digital healthcare services.

The Scottish Government published its winter resilience plan on 4 October. This sets out a range of actions we are taking to support our health and social sector throughout the winter period - Health and social care: winter resilience overview 2022 to 2023 - gov.scot.

The COVID-19 Four Harms group continue to meet fortnightly to review and consider the overall threat level of Covid-19 in Scotland guided by evidence provided by the Chief Medical Officer. The group are ready to respond to any surge in infections, outbreaks or variant of concern and have contingency planning in place.

For all scenarios we know that effective and timely delivery of the seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccines is crucial, and our winter vaccination programme is now well underway. As of 30th October 2022, 2,420,721 Autumn/Winter Vaccines have been administered in Scotland – 1,214,300 COVID-19 vaccines and 1,206,421 adult flu vaccines. Over 87% of older adult care home residents, and 80% of over-65s have received their COVID-19 booster thus far.

We continue to monitor RSV as part of the Public Health Scotland’s surveillance programme and currently have no evidence to suggest that we are facing an RSV epidemic this winter. NHS Board winter plans take into account the predicted surge of seasonal flu, RSV and Norovirus activity that can happen between October and March and have adequate resources in place to deal with potential outbreaks across this period.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02957 on 12 October 2021 . 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 is quite clear that the relevant costs of cladding remediation will be met by developers through the Scottish Safer Buildings Accord. The Scottish Government will prioritise its spend on buildings where the developer no longer exists.

The Scottish Government have been in dialogue with NHS Highland on the matter raised. NHS Highland have confirmed that they will honour the two tier agreement in respect of facilities management colleagues working on behalf of NHS Highland at New Craigs Hospital. This will ensure that these staff are on terms and conditions that are no less favourable than the Agenda for Change equivalent. The Health Board are now working with Robertson Facilities Management and local trade union representatives to ensure a smooth transition.

It is the responsibility of local authorities through their Local Housing Strategy (LHS) to determine the appropriate housing required in their area, informed by a Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA).The HNDA is a policy neutral evidence-base which helps inform LHS outcomes and priorities for future housing and related service delivery, including specialist provision, to meet the needs of a range of equalities groups. All local authorities are required to carry out an Equalities Impact Assessment when developing a LHS.

10 November 2022

Mark Griffin (Central Scotland) (Scottish Labour Party): To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-10687 by Shona Robison on 20 September 2022, and in

Housing Need and Demand Assessments (HNDA) were introduced in 2008 as part of the broader Local Housing Strategy process. The process was reviewed in 2014 and updated with revised guidance and an Excel-based Tool. The Guidance and Tool are kept under review and are refreshed regularly in line with the release of updated Household Projections by National Records of Scotland.

In 2020, the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence undertook ‘An illustrative pilot of the HNDA Tool in the context of Northern Ireland’ the report from this exercise concluded that “the Scottish Government’s HNDA tool is an analytical model that is underpinned by a clear rationale. Its potential as a means to facilitate scenario planning and promote inter-organisational collaboration means its application in the context of Northern Ireland has much to commend it”.