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To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to reach its target of investing 1% of the health budget in CAMHS services by the end of this parliamentary session. We are committed to increasing direct investment in mental health by 25% and to working with NHS Boards and other stakeholders to ensure that at least 10% of frontline NHS spend goes towards mental health and 1% goes on child and adolescent services by the end of this Parliamentary session.

The £40 million additional funding this year for improvement across child and adolescent mental health services from the Recovery and Renewal Fund and our plans for increased investment in next and future years will contribute towards delivering the commitment.

This is a matter for individual Health Boards. We do not hold this information centrally.

PPE guidance is developed by infection prevention and control (IPC) experts on a four-nation basis and they maintain that current evidence does not support a change to the current IPC guidance on respiratory protective equipment (RPE). WHO has not changed its position on the route of transmission of COVID-19. It is still transmitted predominantly via droplets and contact with contaminated hands or environment.

FFP3 respirator masks can be worn when working in the respiratory pathway in a clinical area deemed as having an unacceptable risk of transmission by the NHS Board. This would be initiated by an environmental risk assessment and rigorous application of the Hierarchy of Controls (HoC).

The budget for National Records of Scotland is made up from two elements. The core budget for service delivery and the programme budget for Scotland’s Census. The Census Programme budget runs to 2024/25 with peak spend in the years around Census day. Scotland’s Census 2022 ‘goes live’ on 28th February, with Census day being 20th March 2022. Throughout the lifecycle of the Census Programme the budget requirement has fluctuated year on year in line with the requirements to deliver this key digital programme. Over the last two years the budget allocation to NRS for the Census Programme element has been £38.4m and £35.1m for 2020-21 and 2021-22 respectively.

While the Census Programme budget allocation has reduced over the last two years, reflecting requirements for spend, the remainder of the resource funding allocated to NRS, which funds the core operating costs of the organisation, have not seen a similar reduction. Funding for NRS core operating costs has remained stable across the two years.

Since agreement of phased funding, SAS have been actively recruiting staff at pace and increasing vehicles on the ground on a transition basis into priority locations across the country. Seven additional satellite stations have already been established, with a further three still to be established, enabling resources to be spread across busy urban areas to better match patient demand.

Alongside this, the service having been working in partnership to design new rosters. SAS are expecting new rosters to be implemented in April 2022 for the majority of locations across the East and North Regions. The West Region full implementation is expected to be concluded by the end of July.

Recruitment for phase 3 of the review has commenced and will enable SAS to increase their establishment by a further 162 staff as well as further increase our station locations and vehicles on the ground.

The information requested is not centrally available.

NHS Education for Scotland publishes annual data on sickness absence rates and on bank and agency spend for Medical & Dental and Nursing & Midwifery staff. It should be noted that there are a variety of reasons Boards may choose to deploy bank and agency staff and this does not directly represent spending associated with staff absence.

The data can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics website:

NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

Since 2008 the annual Festivals Expo fund has invested over £30 million in the festivals to support innovation, collaboration and artist development. This year funding will also support festival resilience plans following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The recipients of this year’s £2 million Expo Fund were announced on 8th February 2022. The fund is managed by Creative Scotland who have noted that all eligible festivals should receive their contracts and first payments from this year’s fund, by mid-April 2022 in line with timescales from previous years.

The information requested is not collected or held centrally by the Scottish Government and would require to be obtained from Health Boards.

The Scottish Government does not create investment plans for specific healthcare facilities in particular health board areas. The creation and implementation of such plans is properly the role of the local health board, in this case NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. The Scottish Government's NHS Capital Investment Group meets on a monthly basis to consider investment proposals submitted by health boards. The Scottish Government understands that Port Glasgow Health Centre is one of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde's priorities for investment in community infrastructure. However, no proposals have been submitted to the Scottish Government to date. We will review any proposals which are submitted in due course. The member may wish to seek further information directly from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde as regards its plans for the delivery of healthcare facilities in Gourock and Port Glasgow.