Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the question S6W-00316 answered on
‎17 June 2021 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

Social isolation and loneliness can affect all ages, stages and groups in our society and we know significant events such as addiction can lead to a situation where isolation compounds the challenges of recovery. That is why the Scottish Government carried out wide stakeholder engagement, community events and consultation to hear people’s views when developing our 'A Connected Scotland' Strategy.

To support people with problematic alcohol and drug use into treatment and recovery, recognising the impact that loneliness and isolation can have, the Scottish Government funds third sector partners, including the Scottish Recovery Consortium, the Scottish Drugs Forum and Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs to address loneliness and isolation through family support, peer support and recovery communities.

In the last few months the publication of new Medication-Assisted Treatment Standards, and significant additional investment or £250 million over 5 years in alcohol and drug support will further increase this work. And in the coming months we will publish a framework for Alcohol and Drug Partnerships, Children’s Services and other local partners, setting out a whole-family approach and family-inclusive practice, which recognises and supports family members to build their own resilience and recover themselves. This will reduce their social isolation and loneliness.

This specific work complements our broader work on social isolation and loneliness across society. We will shortly make an announcement on our planned next steps in relation to our commitment to £10 million funding for social isolation and loneliness work over the span of this Parliament.

The Scottish Government is responsible for coordinating public awareness and understanding of the implications of the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Act 2019. This responsibility extends to the whole of Scotland.

The Scottish Government has taken a variety of steps to raise awareness of the Act as I highlighted in my previous response. These include:

Information about the Act on gov.scot .

Information about the Act on mygov.scot

A dedicated page about the Act on ParentClub

The publication of a news release

Social media activity:

The ParentClub Instagram account - post on the Act

The ParentClub Facebook account - post on the Act

Scottish Government education tweet about the Act

Scottish Government tweet about the Act

The creation and publication of promotional materials about the Act for parents and carers, and for children and young people

The publication of an Easy Read factsheet about the Act

Writing to organisations, including local authorities and health boards, with information about the Act:

May 2020 letter

October 2020 letter and framework document

Arranged for information about the Act to be included in Ready Steady Baby

More generally, the Scottish Government is committed to supporting parents. The Scottish Government has run a marketing campaign which promotes positive parenting. This can be seen on the ParentClub website .

Working with the Implementation Group formed by the Scottish Government to consider work required to implement the Act, we will continue to explore options for raising public awareness and understanding about the removal of the defence.

SEPA has not yet published information on its Compliance Assessment Scheme results for 2019 and expect to publish the results later this year. As such, no discussions have been held with SEPA or Ineos in relation to the assessment.

The draft result for Ineos Kinneil Terminal was included in the information stolen from SEPA in the cyber attack and was subsequently published in the press. The information stolen was an draft of this assessment - and had therefore not been subjected to all the necessary verification processes to finalise the assessment.

The Scottish Government continues to follow the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) guidance for the rollout of our vaccination programme.

The JCVI has from the start advised a rollout of COVID-19 vaccination targeting the most vulnerable first, resulting in an age based rollout, with the oldest, and those with conditions which make them susceptible to COVID-19 being offered vaccinations first.

COVID-19 vaccinations are now open to everyone over the age of 18, who can register for a vaccination online via NHS inform here : Registering for a coronavirus vaccine | The coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine (nhsinform.scot)

Health boards are now also offering drop in clinics, with no pre arranged appointment required. Details of which are different per board area, with further information available here : Vaccine drop-in clinics | The coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine (nhsinform.scot)

The Young Person’s Guarantee – Implementation Progress Report was published on 28 July and outlines the progress made against each of the initial recommendations within Youth Guarantee - No-one Left Behind: initial report, published on 2 September 2020. The progress report also provides an outline of the next steps against the commitments made in the supporting Activity Plan and is accompanied by the Key Performance Indicators, which are part of the broader Measurement and Evaluation Framework underpinning the Young Person’s Guarantee. The Framework will support our understanding of the impact of the Young Person’s Guarantee across a range of economic, education and equalities outcomes, enabling the targeting of future resource and to ensure that no young person is left behind.

As Minister for Higher Education, Further Education, Youth Employment and Training, I will be leading this work, alongside Sandy Begbie, partners and stakeholders to continue to build on progress to tackle youth unemployment and to improve the life chances of young people. This includes the delivery of relevant manifesto commitments contained within First Steps , which are to:

• Appoint a Minister specifically tasked with supporting youth employment;
• Invest £45 million through local partnerships to provide training and employer recruitment incentives;
• Fund colleges to deliver around 5,000 more short, industry-focussed courses to help young people train for jobs in key industries;
• Roll-out new school coordinators across the country to support young people access education, work, or training; and,
• Establish a new graduate internship scheme and increase places on volunteering and third sector programmes.

We give careful consideration to representations made by small producers regarding our proposals for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), including most recently in relation to the impact of COVID-19.

We believe that we have taken account of their concerns in our design for DRS, including by introducing an exemption from the annual £360 fee to register with SEPA for producers with a turnover of £85,000 or less.

As set out on page 52 of the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), we expect any impacts on the ability of smaller drinks producers to compete in the Scottish market to be minor. The BRIA is available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/deposit-return-scheme-scotland-full-business-regulatory-impact-assessment-2/documents/ .

It will be for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency as regulator of Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) to assess Circularity Scotland’s performance of its obligations under the DRS Regulations.

We are currently considering our approach to wider monitoring and evaluation of the operation of DRS.

Scottish Government officials regularly meet with Alcohol and Drug Partnerships which allows for discussion on a wide range of issues as part of our shared commitment to reduce drug deaths.

Meetings with officials have taken place in May, June and July 2021. Most recently I met with Cathie Cowan, CEO of NHS Forth Valley, on 6 July discussing drug deaths, MAT implementation, Buvidal and workforce culture. I also met with Carol Chamberlain, Strategic Lead for South Lanarkshire ADP, on Wednesday 23 June as part of a joint meeting with stakeholders to discuss residential rehabilitation.

The next meeting with all ADPs is scheduled to take place in August 2021 and will focus on funding the national mission to reduce drugs deaths.

While it is reassuring that, during a further national COVID-19 lockdown in Q1 2021, once a decision to treat was made, cancer patients in NHS Forth Valley waited on average four days for treatment. However, the 62 day standard remains challenged and while the overall aim is to recover cancer waiting times performance, our priority - as the NHS continues to remobilise - remains ensuring that vital services are delivered safely to patients based on their clinical priority.

To support the improvement of cancer waiting times, we are now releasing an additional £10 million non-recurring revenue funding across NHS Scotland, of which £545,000 has been made available to NHS Forth Valley.

Recovery and Redesign: An Action Plan for Cancer Services was published on 9 December 2020. The Plan will ensure patients have access to the best possible treatment and care and is monitored and overseen by the National Cancer Recovery Group.

The Scottish Government is in weekly contact with NHS Forth Valley to ensure that patients referred with an urgent suspicion of cancer are moved through the pathway as quickly as possible based on clinical priority and plans are underway to review the boards implementation of the Scottish Government Effective Cancer Management Framework.