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In accordance with the requirements of the Railways Act 1993 and the Scottish Ministers’ Franchising Policy Statement, consideration is being given to the successor arrangement for the continued provision of Caledonian Sleeper services.

Scottish Ministers have to work within the relevant current legislation, principally the Railways Act 1993, which neither we, nor the Scottish Parliament have powers to change.

We intend that the current service level commitment will be maintained under any new contractual arrangement.

Thanks to the progress we have made with widespread vaccination and new Covid treatments, which have reduced the severe health harms of the virus, the purpose of testing has changed from population-wide testing to reduce transmission to targeted testing to support clinical care. As a result, most people in Scotland no longer need to test for Covid.

Some people do remain at higher risk – primarily people who are immunosuppressed. These people should continue to follow the advice of their GP or specialist clinician, who best know their health condition and individual circumstances. Those that have a health condition which means they’re eligible for Covid treatments can continue to access testing.

Following a meeting with the Isle of Rum Community Trust on Wednesday 2 nd November, I agreed that more time is necessary to work with the community to try and secure a positive future for the Castle, that can be supported by the community on the Isle of Rum. Any changes to the vehicle servitude rights in front of the castle would in any case require the agreement of the Isle of Rum Community Trust.

The Scottish Safer Buildings Accord is an ambitious attempt to secure the cooperation of Scotland’s leading developers to address the cladding problem. It is a complex and commercially sensitive negotiation. The Scottish Government has held productive discussions with Homes for Scotland and developers in recent months and subject to satisfactorily concluding negotiations the Accord will be agreed and signed in the coming weeks.

The £53 million announced as a saving was intended to support additional employability activity around child poverty in 2022-23. At a time of acute labour shortages, historically low unemployment and soaring inflation, we have taken the view that we must prioritise money in people’s pockets now over spending on employability which is unlikely to result in immediate benefits for individuals, but this is not a decision we have taken lightly. However, this decision will not result in services people are already accessing being reduced. We have maintained our core investment in employability this year, with over £82 million available to ensure those who require support will continue to receive it.

Our commitments in Best Start Bright Futures were made over the lifetime of the plan. Whilst this decision will have an impact on the numbers we aimed to support this year, our commitment to ensuring employability plays its part in tackling child poverty remains. Employment outcomes are subject to a time lag depending on the length of time an individual requires support. In addition, our services are voluntary, demand led, and based on the principle of supporting people into the right job at the right time – low quality jobs that are quickly gained will not necessarily lead to an increase in household income and a reduction in poverty.

We recognise the importance of improving labour market outcomes for females and we monitor the influence of PACE support through a major survey every two years. The most recent 2022 PACE Client Experience Survey report was published in September 2022,

https://www.gov.scot/collections/partnership-action-for-continuing-employment-pace/

The report shows that female clients were more likely than males to have gone straight to paid work for an employer which may suggest a desire to get a job quickly rather than hold out for a ‘better job’. Female clients were also much more likely to go into part-time work which tends to be lower-paid and require fewer skills; also fewer females than males are actively looking for jobs with greater responsibility or higher skill levels, likely to be due to these jobs not tending to be available part-time or in the sectors within which they typically work.

PACE Advisers assist female clients by helping them to break down barriers to accessing better paid work/sectors. We will seek to ensure as many females as possible access this service and if appropriate are directed to the Women Returners programme. This programme provides one-to-one bespoke support, advice and access to opportunities for women aged 25 and over who have been out of the labour market for six months or more and want to restart their career journey.

A refreshed Fair Work Action Plan, due to be published in the next few months, will refresh and take forward our commitments in our Gender Pay Gap Action Plan making explicit that addressing gender pay gaps is a key element of Fair Work.

Whilst responsibility for recruitment and retention of pharmacists in community pharmacies is a matter for individual community pharmacy contractors, Scottish Government is increasing the number of pharmacist pre-registration training places by 120 over 5 years from December 2019, to create the opportunity for more pharmacists to enter the profession. To date we have increased places by 66, with the remaining places due to be available by 2024-25.

In addition to ensure the competencies required of pharmacists to meet future workforce demands, the pharmacy regulator, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), has introduced new standards for the initial education and training of pharmacists to ensure pharmacists are equipped for their future roles. These changes include: incorporating the skills, knowledge and attributes for prescribing in order to enable pharmacists to independently prescribe from the point of registration; introducing a new set of learning outcomes to assess the full five years of education and training (undergraduate and pre-registration) and which can link into post-registration education; and making the fifth year of initial education and training a pre-registration foundation training year with strengthened supervision and support and collaborative working between higher-education institutions, statutory education bodies and employers.

In order to aid retention of pharmacists in community pharmacy we have developed a Community Pharmacy NHS Post Registration Foundation Programme, which sees up to 130 places made available for a two and a half year programme for early career pharmacists. The programme is an experiential learning programme designed to develop confidence in pharmacy practice specific to Scotland, building on the skills and resilience established during the pre-registration Foundation Training Year. A Scottish NHS community pharmacy contractor will employ post-registration pharmacists qualifying in the summer of each year as pharmacists in a permanent role.

The Scottish Government values the important role of those working in Scotland’s third sector to tackle tough social issues at source. We recognise the challenges faced by the third sector in the current cost crisis and we will ensure the sector is not excluded from any financial support made available to the public or private sectors.

The Scottish Government is doing what it can with its limited powers to ensure people receive the help they need. We are already providing significant support for households to mitigate the impacts of the cost crisis. By the end of March 2023, we will have invested almost £3bn in a range of measures for households, supporting energy bills, childcare, health and travel, as well as social security payments that are either not available anywhere else in the UK or are more generous, such as the Scottish Child Payment.

The Scottish Government has developed a website as a ‘one stop shop’ to help those struggling with the cost of living crisis. The website provides information on the wide range of advice and financial support available to people to meet rising energy, housing and other costs. The new website address is http://gov.scot/costoflivingsupport

Of the 750 additional NHS nurses, midwives and allied health professionals NHS boards collectively have told Scottish Government the number of international recruits they could accommodate, (a) up to 53 were indicated by NHS Ayrshire and Arran and (b) up to 217 by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.