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Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-18899

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 21 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) the evaluation process is and (b) tools are used to assess the efficacy of Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs, which is a centrally funded organisation.

All grant funding allocated from the drugs policy division is subject to Scottish Government’s robust grant management process, outlined in the Scottish Public Finance Manual (SPFM). The Scottish Public Finance Manual (SPFM) provides guidance on the proper handling and reporting of public funds.

The SPFM also provides guidance on appraisal and evaluation techniques and procedures. The Green Book, Appraisal and Evaluation in Central Government published by HM Treasury provides more detailed guidance on the principles, techniques and procedures applicable in relation to appraisal and evaluation.

The objectives, milestones and outcomes - aligned to the National Mission Outcomes Framework - are clearly set out in the grant agreement between Scottish Government and the grant recipient. To ensure grant funding meets the agreed outcomes and provides value for money, grant evaluations are undertaken at regular intervals, and again once the project has ended to evidence whether the grant has been a success.

Question reference: S6W-18895

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 21 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been allocated to the Scottish Drugs Forum in each year since 2014.

Funding allocated to Scottish Drugs Forum for both core and specific project is presented in the following table. Information prior to 2017-18 is unavailable as it was deleted in accordance with our standard records management practice, before the date of your request. Therefore, funding allocated to the Scottish Drugs Forum from 2018-19 has been provided.

Funding allocated in financial year 2021-22 has been provided, however it is also publicly available at: National Mission on Drugs: annual report 2021 to 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Table: Total funding allocated to Scottish Drugs Forum by financial year, from
‎ 2018-19 to 2022-23

Financial Year	Funding Allocated
2018-19	£812,617
2019-20	£802,508
2020-21	£818,507
2021-22	£2,007,808
2022-23	£1,413,769
Total	£5,855,209

Source: Scottish Government Enterprise Accounting System (SEAS) records.

Question reference: S6W-18900

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 21 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) the evaluation process is and (b) tools are used to assess the value for money of funding allocated to the Scottish Drugs Forum, which is a centrally funded organisation.

Question reference: S6W-18898

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 21 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) the evaluation process is and (b) tools are used to assess the value for money for funding allocated to Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs, which is a centrally funded organisation.

Question reference: S6W-18896

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 21 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much central and core funding has been allocated to Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs in each year since 2014.

Central and core funding are the same funding category, therefore, the funding provided below excludes funding related to specific projects. Core funding allocated to Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs is presented in the table below. Information prior to 2017-18 is unavailable as it was deleted in accordance with our standard records management practice, before the date of your request. Therefore, core funding allocated to the Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs from 2018-19 has been provided.

Funding allocated in financial year 2021/22 has been provided, however it is also publicly available at:

National Mission on Drugs: annual report 2021 to 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Table: Total funding allocated to Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs by financial year, from 2018-19 to 2022-23

Financial Year	Funding Allocated
2018-19	£108,735
2019-20	£160,000
2020-21	£160,000
2021-22	£160,000
2022-23	£168,000
Total	£756,735

Source: Scottish Government Enterprise Accounting System (SEAS) records.

Question reference: S6W-18893

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been allocated to the Technology Enabled Care programme in each year since 2015.

Question reference: S6W-18892

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been allocated from its 2023-24 Budget to the Technology Enabled Care programme to date.

Question reference: S6W-18891

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the budget allocated to the Technology Enabled Care programme was used to fund the Overdose Alert and Response Technologies: State-of-the-art Review by the University of Stirling.

Question reference: S6F-02256

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 June 2023

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6W-18968

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 19 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the Scottish Public Health Observatory update, Estimated numbers of people prescribed opioid substitution therapy in Scotland, published on 30 May 2023, what measures are being taken to address any issues associated with Community Health Index (CHI) capture for opioid substitute therapy, in order to ensure more accurate figures for the number of people prescribed these medications.

Following initial discussions, a small number of NHS boards have approached the Pharmacy Service Improvement Team in Practitioner Services Directorate within Public Health Scotland over the past 2 years to obtain data from the Prescribing Information Store (PIS) of the Corporate Data Warehouse, in conjunction with prescriptions images held, and asked for assistance/analysis to support them to increase their levels of CHI capture for OST prescriptions.

Based on various discussions, analysis and findings, the following conclusions were made on the scenarios and conditions that lead to poor CHI capture:-

EMIS Prescribing System – it was noted that the CHI number prints correctly on GP10(SS) stationery, however, on Nurse prescriptions, GP10N(SS) stationery, the CHI number is printed with spaces, e.g. 0 2 0 2 2 0 x x x x and, therefore, the CHI number is not in the correct format to be captured successfully.
Prescribing locations:-
In primary care, there are a number of GP10(SS) printed prescriptions from GP Practices with no electronic support/barcode and the CHI number may not be captured via ICR as a result of the other scenarios detailed below.
In specialist addiction clinics, there is a wide variation across NHS Boards on how these services have been set up locally and the prescription stationery they use to prescribe, e.g. some specialist clinics operate out of primary care and use GP10(SS)/GP10N(SS) stationery and others use hospital locations and use Hospital Based Addict Prescription pads (HBPA) or printed stationery (HBPA(SS)). It was noted that a significant number of printed HBPA prescriptions also had the CHI number in the incorrect format with spaces and the CHI number was not being captured. However, this has recently been addressed in NHS Ayrshire & Arran.

There are other scenarios that result in poor to no CHI capture when prescriptions are scanned via intelligent character recognition (ICR) for remuneration to community pharmacies and these include:

The quality of printed output, e.g., low toner/ink and the CHI number is not captured.
Misaligned or obscured CHI number - if this is not printed in the correct position of the prescription form or is obscured by handwriting.
The Pharmacy Practice stamp in the CHI area is obscuring part of the CHI number.
Handwritten CHI numbers – there is a very poor ICR capture rate of handwritten CHI numbers.
No CHI number printed or incomplete CHI number, where only a DOB has been provided.

Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland are actively considering options to resolve the issues outlined, which focus on updating current systems to improve the consistent formatting of prescriptions, consequently improving the automated capture of information.