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Scottish Government has provided an unprecedented level of financial support throughout the pandemic to support NHS dentistry. The £50 million of COVID-19 funding was provided directly to NHS dental contractors through the financial support payments. Alongside this, practices have received £35 million of free PPE to support the provision of NHS dentistry.

In addition, £5 million of funding for ventilation improvements and £7.5 million for speed adjusting hand pieces, was made available to NHS practitioners to support recovery and help increase capacity within practices providing NHS dental services. This scope for this funding was subsequently expanded to allow practices to claim for repairs and replacement of a range of dental equipment. This funding was allocated to Health Boards and practices were advised of the process for claiming funding if they wished to submit an application.

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.

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.

In August the average processing time was 8 days and the longest processing time was 10 days.

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

Demand for the Home Energy Scotland (HES) Advice service has risen significantly since the recent energy bill rises and other cost of living pressures have started to put pressure on households.

Earlier this year, we committed to expanding the HES service by 20% and this increase will be fully operational from October. HES capacity has increased in the last three years with the number of households targeted for advice and support rising from 77,000 in 2020-21 to 132,000 this year - an increase of 12,000 on 2021-22.

We recently allocated additional funding for energy advice services in the face of rising bills - £1.2 million to ensure households and businesses get support. This includes £280,000 to expand the Home Energy Scotland Advice Service and a further £198,000 for Home Energy Scotland to provide training to third sector organisations on energy efficiency.

We have also augmented the Home Energy Scotland Energy carer service which visits and supports extremely vulnerable households who would struggle to engage over the telephone or online. This type of work broadens and strengthens the capacity of the advice network but does not generate pro rata increases in numbers of households supported because the level of support required for these households is very intense.

We will continue to monitor demand for the Home Energy Scotland service to ensure it has the capacity to meet demand.

(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.

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.