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The total full time equivalent staff employed on Home Energy Scotland at the end of July is 208. This figure includes:

• All staff within each Home Energy Scotland advice centre working on Home Energy Scotland activity, and teams and specialists managed directly by the Energy Savings Trust including the Extended Hours team, renewables specialists and private sector landlord advisors.
• All staff within Energy Saving Trust who are covered by Home Energy Scotland funding.
• Management time within the centres and Energy Saving Trust allocated to management of Home Energy Scotland.

The number of Home Energy Scotland Loans that were accepted/rejected in 2020-21 and 2021-22:

The number of Home Energy Scotland Loan applications received during 2020-21 and 2021-22 were:

As at August 2022, the number of Home Energy Scotland Loan applications currently awaiting processing is 303.

It is not possible to produce statistically relevant data on average processing times for applications. Each application varies in complexity, with survivors and applicants requiring differing levels of support to complete the application and a dependency on other organisations to complete the required verifications around care settings and any previous relevant payments made.

We recognise that, for some applicants, the process is taking longer than they expected. We continue to work with them, and partners, to look at ways to improve the scheme and remain committed to ensuring it continues to be swifter and less adversarial than taking court action.

Applicants have 6 months from receipt of offer of payment to accept or decline the offer. As of week commencing 29th August 2022, redress payments totalling £4,868,548 have been made.

(a) Since Scotland’s Redress scheme was launched in December 2021, 1,468 survivor applications and 88 next of kin applications have been received, as of week commencing 29 th August 2022.

(b) 189 redress applications have been passed to Redress Scotland for consideration and, of those, 136 have had an initial determination made.

The information requested on how many dental nursing vacancies currently exist across Scotland, broken down by NHS board is not held centrally by The Scottish Government.

Since 1 May 2021, significant progress has been made on the National Treatment Centre (NTC) Programme.

The National Eye Centre at NHS Golden Jubilee, which opened in November 2020, has providing significant additional capacity cataracts procedures to patients across Scotland. This has been achieved through the accelerated opening of theatres ahead of the previous phasing plan in the final business case.

Construction work continued at NTC - Highland; NTC - Fife and the second phase expansion of the Golden Jubilee University National Hospital.

In June 2022,construction work started on the inpatient ward for NTC - Forth Valley at Forth Valley Royal Hospital.

These four centres will open on the following dates:

NTC Fife - January 2023

NTC Forth Valley - January 2023

NTC Highland - April 2023

NTC Golden Jubilee Phase 2 - June 2023

In addition, on 13 May 2022 NHS Ayrshire & Arran the purchased Carrick Glen Hospital in Ayr to be re-developed as NTC – Ayrshire & Arran, due to open in 2025.

The business cases for the remaining NTCs in NHS Grampian, NHS Tayside, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Lothian, including in new Edinburgh Eye Pavilion, are under development.

The Scottish Government is committed to the recruitment of a minimum of 1,500 additional staff to support the operation of Scotland’s National Treatment Centres (NTCs) and is supporting a range of activity to achieve this.

This includes support for domestic and international recruitment activity, growth in domestic training pathways for registered medical professionals and new youth employment and apprenticeship opportunities in a variety of non-registered roles, designed to attract individuals who may not have originally viewed NHS Scotland as an employer of choice.

Work is also being undertaken to upskill existing NHS staff through bespoke in-house training programmes delivered via the NHS Scotland Academy, thereby directly supporting career progression and retention for existing staff, and providing access to a variety of new roles that the NTC programme will offer. Through these initiatives we are also supporting boards with backfill arrangements.

NTC Recruitment is the responsibility of each NHS Board. It is therefore for each NTC Board to provide details of recruitment activity planned for their Centre.