- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom Arthur on 27 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, as part of the guarantee that it provided for the purchase of the Lochaber smelter, whether there were any conditions placed on (a) Alvance and (b) GFG Alliance to submit fully audited accounts every year.
Answer
The requirement for Directors of companies registered in the United Kingdom to prepare and publish annual audited financial statements, subject to certain exemptions, arises from the Companies Act 2006 and not from contractual conditions.
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom Arthur on 27 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the reportedly overdue filing of audited accounts by Alvance and Liberty Steel, whether any conditions, as part of any legal agreements between these companies and the Scottish Government, have been broken.
Answer
The requirement for Directors of companies registered in the United Kingdom to prepare and publish annual audited financial statements, subject to certain exemptions, arises from the Companies Act 2006 and not from contractual conditions.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 27 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact of poor transport links on access to healthcare in rural areas, and what steps it is taking to address this.
Answer
The Scottish Government’s role is to set the strategic policy for the NHS in Scotland, NHS Boards are responsible for service delivery. All Health Boards should consider patient transport needs when they plan and deliver services.
On 30 October, the Scottish Government published the Transport to Health delivery plan which sets out commitments against transport and healthcare across the work of Health and Social Care and Transport Scotland. The plan was informed by the 2019 Transport to health and social care report prepared by the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland (MACS) on behalf of Ministers.
As set out in the plan, we will continue to use the NHS annual delivery plans to re-emphasise the need for Health Boards to consider patient access as part of the care pathway and reflecting the opportunity that is emerging for reducing the number of patient journeys through alternative options.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how it is working to improve access to community optometry services for children living in rural and remote areas.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33695 on 27 January 2025.
In addition, the Scottish Government has not received correspondence with regards access to community optometry services for children living in rural and remote areas.
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
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is taking to ensure that community optometry services are accessible to disabled people.
Answer
The National Health Service (General Ophthalmic Services) (Scotland) Regulations 2006, as amended, do not require community optometry practices to be accessible for disabled people. However, the majority of practices are accessible. Where they are not, the Scottish Government provides an additional fee to practices for the provision of domiciliary care to eligible patients.
- Asked by: Meghan Gallacher, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 17 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Alasdair Allan on 27 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many rural households (a) applied for and (b) received the additional £1,500 funding uplift available for (i) energy efficiency and (ii) clean heating under the Home Energy Scotland Grants and Loan Scheme, in 2024.
Answer
The Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grant and Loan Scheme offers a rural uplift to households in remote rural and island areas, as well off-gas accessible rural areas, in recognition of the higher installation costs often faced by these households. The uplift is automatically applied to qualifying applications at application stage, where the value of measures applied for is greater than standard grant amounts.
The following table shows the number of applications received where at least one measure qualified for the rural uplift, and how many applications were fully paid in the 2024 calendar year.
| Energy Efficiency (i) | Clean Heating (ii) |
(a) Applications | 122 | 1,635 |
(b) Fully Paid | 66 | 1,212 |
If an application received the rural uplift for both the energy efficiency and clean heating grants, they will be counted once under each heading.
In addition, as applicants have 9 months to install the measures and claim their funding, the fully paid category is not a subset of the applications. Fully paid figures will include applications from 2024 and also preceding years. In contrast, some applications received in 2024 will not be paid out until 2025.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 17 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 27 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how funding for healthcare services in rural areas currently compares with that in urban areas, on a per capita basis.
Answer
NHS Board’s baseline revenue allocations are set out annually in the Scottish Budget, as published on the Scottish Government’s website. In addition, resource and capital spending limits are reported in Board’s annual accounts, which are published on their websites.
The Scottish Government allocates funding to territorial NHS Boards based on the NRAC formula. The NRAC formula takes into account factors in addition to population levels, including excess costs of delivering healthcare in remote and rural areas.
Since 2006-07, baseline funding for health and social care has increased by 120% in cash terms and 37% in real terms.
Since 2012-13, over £3.5 billion of additional funding has been committed to those NHS Boards below their NRAC parity levels, ensuring all Boards remain within 0.6% of parity.
More information on the NRAC formula is available at: Resource Allocation Formula in Scotland - Finance - Data & intelligence from PHS (isdscotland.org)
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 17 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 27 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of rural healthcare facilities are currently equipped with digital infrastructure for telehealth consultations.
Answer
Telemedicine can describe a range of different digital solutions to support consultations and engagement with the NHS. As a result, it is not possible for the Scottish Government to set out a conclusive percentage.
It is the responsibility of individual Health Boards to ensure appropriate digital infrastructure is in place. This is in line with commitments within Scotland’s Digital Health and Care Strategy to scale up and embed proven telehealth and remote digital solutions.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 27 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what guidance it provides to law enforcement agencies regarding arrests made in the vicinity of defence-related companies in relation to their operation.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Operational decisions on matters such as this are for Police Scotland with oversight from the Scottish Police Authority. You may wish to contact them directly.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what data it has on the outcomes of community optometry referrals in each NHS board in each of the last five years.
Answer
This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. We would advise the Member to contact relevant Health Boards for this data.