Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21629 on 2 October 2023. 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 committed to implementing the recommendations of the Pathways report.

In this financial year we have:

• Continued to provide funding to Women’s Enterprise Scotland, Investing Women and Business Women Scotland to allow existing programmes to continue ahead of a shift to competitive funding in future years;
• Renewed funding to Scotland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, with a further round of the Scottish Ecosystem Fund, widened to offer support to projects that address the Pathways review’s key themes; and
• As the first phase of work to develop Pre-Start and Pop-Up business supports we have launched the £1.5 million Pathways Pre-Start Fund allocating funding to projects that offer pre-start support and advice to individuals or groups, with emphasis on widening access to primary carers and under-represented groups.

The Scottish Government will work with our agencies and delivery partners to further develop proposals for the report’s core recommendations on pre-start centres and pop-up business supports, incorporating the knowledge gained from the Ecosystem and Pathways Pre-Start funds with the intention to allow broader services to commence in 2024.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21476 on 2 October 2023. 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 remains confident that the Low Emission Zone (LEZ) is delivering a reduction in harmful emissions and look forward to receiving confirmed statutory air quality reports from Glasgow City Council in due course. Air quality is generally good in Scotland with all our automatic air quality monitoring stations reported to be meeting the air quality objectives in 2022. However there are localised areas within Glasgow’s city centre where poor air quality remains an issue. The enforcement of Glasgow’s LEZ only began on 1 June 2023. It is therefore too early to determine the impact of the LEZ on annual air quality targets for Glasgow.

The response to question S6W-21286, answered on 13 September 2023, notes that as a result of the devolved settlement and the Scottish Government’s powers, along with the interaction with reserved tax and benefits, it is not possible to deliver the Parental Transition Fund as originally envisaged.

As set out in the Medium-Term Financial Strategy, the current financial situation facing the Scottish Government is amongst the most challenging since devolution. Tough and decisive action must be taken to ensure the sustainability of public finance, whilst also strengthening the immediate support available for households impacted by the cost of living crisis. On this basis, the £5 million made available for the Parental Transition Fund in 2023-24 has been reallocated to help meet the previously announced increased investment in the Fuel Insecurity Fund to address the need for immediate help with fuel costs and to support the Scottish Government’s path to balance.

The launch of our National Mission on Drugs in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way. Many of the milestones are being delivered through the National Mission and others are being picked up as part of more recent Government commitments.

Quality improvement methodology is being embedded across Scotland through the implementation of the Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) standards.

The MAT Standards Implementation Support Team (MIST), based within Public Health Scotland, was set up to support local areas to build improvement-based capacity and capability so that they will be able to implement and sustain the MAT standards locally.

MIST helps local areas with quality improvement work which has focused on establishing that local areas have written procedures in place, have numerical information and data available and have a means in place to gather experiential data. All of which are required to help drive improvement.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) is also supporting local areas and works closely with MIST in providing practical quality improvement assistance and advice to local areas.

HIS will shortly begin delivery of its full quality improvement assistance to local areas to build on the first phase of quality improvement work MIST has undertaken. HIS also provides close links between its other relevant workstreams on residential rehabilitation, prison healthcare and mental health and addictions services.

Alcohol remains a priority for Scottish Government and we are treating our policies to reduce alcohol and drug deaths as twin public health emergencies in Scotland.

This is why we established a National Mission to improve and save lives, at the core of which is ensuring that every individual has access to, and choice in the type of recovery and treatment they need.

We are working to ensure people with alcohol use disorder receive the care and support in the same way that people can access for problematic use of drugs. The forthcoming Alcohol Treatment Guidelines will help ensure support for alcohol treatment, in a similar way to how the Medication-Assisted Treatment Standards ensure this for people impacted by opiates.

Following publication of the UK-wide guidelines it is our intention to draft a paper on specific alcohol treatment standards for Scotland.

Through our National Mission we are investing in residential rehabilitation that will benefit people experiencing alcohol and/or drug addiction.

At present, we have no plans to establish and evaluate tests of change for alcohol treatment in the justice system.

The Scottish Prison Service is currently refreshing its Alcohol and Drug Recovery Strategy, this will ensure alcohol intervention and support are included in any recovery pathway planning across our establishments. It is anticipated that the strategy will be published later this year.

We are also supporting the UK Government on reviewing and updating clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment. The guidance will look to introduce new approaches to treatment and will apply to a broad range of settings including justice settings. The guidelines are expected to be published for consultation this year.

Following finalisation of the alcohol treatment guidelines, Scottish Government will review and use these to ensure that our justice systems are providing consistent and good care to those with problematic alcohol use.

The regulation of the energy sector is reserved to the UK Government.

Planning enforcement powers are held by local authorities. Planning authorities can take action to issue a fixed penalty notice or seek prosecution through the Scottish courts. Local authorities are required to keep a publicly available register of enforcement notices.

We are unaware of any fines issued by the Scottish Government to power companies in the last five years; and the Scottish Government does not hold any relevant data relating to our agencies.

The Scottish Government thanks Audit Scotland for a thorough, clear and wide-ranging report on Adult Mental Health Services in Scotland. Ministers recognise how closely some of the content of the report mirrors our vision, outcomes and priorities that we set out in our Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy. We will now take the time to carefully consider both the specific recommendations and the wider substance of the report. We will publish the Delivery Plan for our Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, together with our Workforce Plan, this Autumn, which will set out the actions we will take to address many of the issues set out by Audit Scotland.

The Scottish Government will shortly publish Core Standards for Mental Health Services, which will be implemented first in adult secondary services, as well as the National Specification for Psychological Therapies and Interventions. The aim of the standards and service specification is to ensure that individuals, their families and carers know what they can expect from mental health services, and from psychological therapies in particular. These standards are measurable and will provide a basis for continual improvement through enabling greater accountability and scrutiny.

The implementation of the standards will initially be supported by a self-assessment. The self-assessment will encourage reflection, learning and exchange regarding best practice and the identification of areas for improvement.

The implementation of the Core Standards for Mental Health Services and the National Specification for Psychological Therapies and Interventions will be further supported by Public Health Scotland’s 2023-24 review of the Mental Health Quality Indicator Framework. The scope of the review includes new measures that arise from these recent publications, with the aim to improve the general monitoring of the quality, outcomes and experiences of mental health services.