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Person-centred, safe and high-quality care for mothers and babies throughout pregnancy, birth and following birth can have a marked effect on the health and life chances of women and babies, and on the healthy development of children throughout their lives. This can help to mitigate the impact of inequalities and deprivation and their long term health and other consequences for families.

We continue to prioritise improvements to maternity and neonatal care through the implementation of The Best Start programme, in partnership with senior leaders and clinicians. For women who experience multiple disadvantage, as well as those with additional complex needs, we know that continuity of carer from a primary midwife is likely to be particularly important. That is why we have included women and families from lower Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintiles, as well as those from minority ethnic communities, as priority groups for the introduction of continuity of carer.

The Scottish Government has commissioned Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) to lead a national review to understand any contributing factors to the increase in neonatal mortality during 2021-22. This review will assess and determine whether there are any themes, underlying causes or safety factors that have contributed to the increased neonatal mortality rate from both a clinical and system perspective.

This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland (RoS). She advises me that that, as of 31 January 2023, there are 88,826 dispositions undergoing registration.

RoS received and processed over 655,000 applications in 2022, of which 90% were completed in 20 days.

In the Land Register the legal effect of registration backdates to the date on which the Keeper entered the application onto the application record (the date of receipt) and properties undergoing registration can still be transacted upon in the usual way.

Since the Best Use of Timber Awards were established in 2012, Scottish Forestry has allocated £6,000 each year towards the delivery of the awards, with the exception of 2020 when the awards did not take place due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Architecture and Design Scotland does not allocate funding for the project other than staff resource.

An Accelerated National Innovation Pathway has been established to standardise and facilitate the adoption of health and care innovations. The Scottish Health Technology Group also supports standardisation by providing robust governance and advice. Digital technologies are required to meet clinical safety standards such as Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) and compliance with MHRA regulations.

Scotland’s first Data Strategy for health and social care will articulate further national principles and deliverables around the ethical use of data. The strategy is due for publication this year

The next evaluation is planned for the end of the current funding cycle (to March 31 2026) and will include all funding that has been allocated from within the Climate Justice Fund. The evaluation will cover whether or not the funding has achieved it’s strategic objectives, and whether the Fund as a whole is continuing to demonstrate best practice in delivering climate justice against the three pillars of justice that were adopted following the previous evaluation.

The impact of material switching is outlined in Section 7 of the Final Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) which was published on 22 December 2021. You can access the document here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/deposit-return-scheme-scotland-final-business-regulatory-impact-assessment/ .

Despite the UK Government stepping back from COVID funding from 2022-23, there remain COVID related pressures and costs across the system. The 2022-23 health budget provides for test and protect, PPE and the ongoing vaccination programme, including costs relating to delivery of Covid-19 vaccinations and the extended seasonal flu vaccination as well as staff, venues and storage. The £147.471 million represents the net of these costs once partially offset by income related to dental and miscellaneous services which is also included in this budget line.

The 2023-24 budget confirms our ongoing commitment to invest in social care and increasing the sustainability of the sector ahead of implementation of the National Care Service.

The 2023-24 Stage 1 budget presented, at level 4, a total investment of £1.2 billion in Social Care support and National Care Service (NCS) delivery. This total represents a social care spending increase of over £800 million compared to 2021-22, demonstrating that we are well ahead of our trajectory to increase spending by 25% (£840 million) over the life of the Parliament.

The £1.1 billion expenditure line supports a number of areas including an additional £100 million for adult social care pay up to £10.90 per hour, £344 million of existing funding to support pay, £124 million for care at home investment, £60 million for the Carers Act and funding to support inflationary uplifts for Free Personal Nursing Care Rates. We note the Report on the Financial Memorandum published on 1 December by the Finance and Public Administration Committee and are currently revising the NCS Financial Memorandum. This will provide more detail on expected spend in 2023-24 and beyond.

The draft budget for rail passenger services for (a) 2023-24 is £458 million, as published in December and remains subject to the Parliamentary approval process.

The following table sets out (b) budget against expenditure and explanations for variances that are included in the published outturn statements within the Scottish Government consolidated accounts each year.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information as this module is owned and hosted by NHS Education for Scotland.