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The Scottish Government is refreshing the non-statutory guidance for Local Child Poverty Action Reports (LCPARs) to support local authorities and health boards to deliver focused reporting on their actions to support priority families. CRER and other stakeholders representing priority families have been consulted in drafting the guidance. This is part of our work with stakeholders to strengthen targeted action for priority groups. We welcome the opportunity to work with CRER to enable a greater focus on BME families in our national and local practice and reporting.

The Scottish Government, in collaboration with other national partners, review LCPARs and engage with local authorities and health boards, offering feedback and sharing learning across areas. This process provides a further opportunity to support local focus on the six priority family groups.

The non-statutory guidance also highlights that the intersectional approach needed to support priority families is best served by person-centred, holistic action. We will continue to support local leads to engage directly with priority families in their areas who have direct experience of poverty to understand, design and deliver the tailored support needed.

We awarded a contract through a competitive tender for independent VAT advice from Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP. AAB have been commissioned to provide advice and support to Scottish Government employees on VAT implications, to produce an options paper exploring the VAT implications of different NCS scenarios, and to produce a final report on the considerations of VAT and eventual outcome. This work is ongoing.

The challenging funding landscape and difficult choices facing the Scottish Budget in coming years have only worsened since publication of the Resource Spending Review. As a result of inflation, the Scottish Government’s budget is now worth around £1.7 billion less than when it was published in December.

It is clear that Fair Work, including fair pay, is more important than ever in the context of the cost of living crisis, and we will use all the levers we can to support those most affected.

In the current economic climate, we recognise, most recently in the publication of the Emergency Budget Review, that there are a number of cost pressures on Scottish Government budget and associated contracts including inflation, energy costs and increases to the real Living Wage. We have undertaken a risk-assessment of our key current contracts and framework agreements and are working closely and sensitively with suppliers through this period to manage those contracts.

We understand the importance of fair and stable funding for the third sector and the benefit of this for longer term planning and development. As we continue to work through the impact of the recent and upcoming UK Government announcements on our ability to deliver the spending plans as set out in the Spending Review in May. We are also considering the appropriate level of detail and timing of financial information we can provide in the longer-term.

After competitive tender, a contract was awarded to Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP to obtain expert independent advice on the implications of VAT on the NCS and associated Care Boards. This work is ongoing. We will engage with the wider sector and HMT prior to any decision being taken which would have a VAT impact.

We awarded a contract through a competitive tender for independent VAT advice from Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP. This was through Public Contracts Scotland.

After competitive tender, a contract was awarded to Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP to obtain expert independent advice on the implications of VAT on the NCS and associated Care Boards. This work is ongoing. No decisions have been made at this point and a full understanding of the impact of all options will be considered.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10530 on 28 September 2022. The Scottish Government has committed to publishing further information on the recruitment of Staff to the National Treatment Centres, as part of the NHS Scotland Workforce Statistics, from 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 NHS Recovery Plan Update published on 4 October provides an overview of progress during the first year since its publication and identifies key risks, such as high levels of uncertainty on the future trajectory of Covid-19 and its potential for increased Covid related pressures on the system, and mitigations. However, the ambitious targets to increase planned care capacity set out in the NHS Recovery Plan remain a key commitment.

Of the additional 55,000 inpatient / daycase procedures by 2025/26 committed to in the NHS Recovery Plan, 40,000 is expected to come from the National Treatment Centres (NTCs). In 2023, three NTCs in NHS Fife, NHS Forth Valley and NHS Highland are due to open, along with the completed expansion of the NHS Golden Jubilee University National Hospital. In the first year of opening, these centres are projected to deliver an additional 12,250 procedures. This is in addition to the procedures delivered at the National Eye Centre which opened in November 2020.

In addition to the NTCs, we are working closely with the NHS Boards and the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) on accelerating implementation of improvement programmes across all NHS Boards to maximise capacity, reduce variation and increase theatre efficiencies, including Active Clinical Referral Treatment and Patient Initiated Review, freeing up additional capacity in the NHS system. We are also developing ‘Once for Scotland’ pathways, harnessing all opportunities to deliver patient care in the right place and closer to home, this includes maximising day case procedures to avoid any unnecessary stays in hospital.

We are continuing to work closely with Boards with NTC projects currently under development and will define when the additional capacity will come on stream as part of the ongoing business case development.

The Scottish Government is committed to the recruitment of a minimum of 1,500 additional clinical and non-clinical staff to support the operation of Scotland’s National Treatment Centres (NTCs).

NTC recruitment is the responsibility of NHS Boards. It is therefore for each of the NTC Host Boards to provide detail regarding their recruitment plans and progress.

The Scottish Government however has committed to publishing further information on the recruitment of staff to the NTCs as part of the NHS Scotland Workforce Statistics, from 2023.

The latest statistics on average number of available, staffed hospital beds, including for acute specialties, is published in ‘Table 4 - beds.xlsx’ within Public Health Scotland’s annual acute hospital activity and NHS beds publication (available under the ‘Data files’ heading on this Public Health Scotland web page: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual-annual-year-ending-31-march-2022/ ).