Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government is aware of financial challenges faced by the Scouts and the Boys’ Brigade both in terms of costs associated with running their outdoor education centres and their wider youth work. In response we have alerted both organisations to the fact that Social Investment Scotland have up to £5m available in fully flexible, 0% interest loans starting at £50,000. This is in addition to providing £1.2 million during 2020/21 through the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention & Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund to youthwork organisations including the Scouts and the Boys’ Brigade. Furthermore, the Scottish Government is pursuing a package of non-financial support aimed at ensuring that organisation such as the Scouts and Boys’ Brigade can resume normal business as quickly as possible following the lifting of lockdown. We have committed to:

• Working with YouthLink Scotland, to develop sectoral specific guidance for community learning and development. This is being developed in conjunction with local authority, third sector organisations and union representatives. We hope to launch this guidance in the coming weeks to safeguard the health and wellbeing of volunteers, staff and young people as restrictions are eased further.
  

• Commissioning the Scottish Advisory Panel on Outdoor Education (SAPOE) to set up a sub-group tasked with developing detailed guidance for schools and local authorities on ‘post covid’ visits to outdoor education centres, such as those run by the Scouts and Boys’ Brigade. SAPOE will also collate and communicate evidence of the educational value of visits to outdoor education centres.

• Facilitating a meeting between representatives of outdoor education centres and the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES). This meeting will give outdoor education centres access to strategic decision makers within local authorities and will provide a platform from which outdoor education centres can discuss the potential for:

- experienced outdoor education centre staff to support local authority employed educators to take learning outdoors during the education recovery phase;

- outdoor education centres to be used to provide space for learning at a safe physical distance; and

- the use of outdoor education centres to provide immersive, fun and curricular relevant outdoor experiences that can improve the physical and mental wellbeing of young people transitioning from lockdown.

On 4 June 2020, I announced the Framework for Recovery of Cancer Surgery to assist NHS Scotland prioritise those most in need of cancer treatment. The Framework sets out how health boards should prioritise cancer surgery as NHS Scotland resumes more services following the pandemic.

We are also utilising capacity within the Private Sector to provide a safe and secure COVID free environment for cancer surgery.

The Scottish Government is doing everything it can to ensure we have sufficient numbers of staff on the ground who are well supported in these challenging times.

Alongside setting up a Health and Social Care Covid-19 Recruitment Portal, accessible through the NHS Careers website, we are taking the following mitigating actions:

• re-introduction to the workforce of those leaving the medical and nursing practitioner registers in the last 3 years;

• redeploying existing staff from non-clinical areas to clinical roles where possible.

We recently published our framework for re-mobilising our health services, Re-mobilise, Recover, Re-design. The framework sets out how Health Boards will follow national and local clinical advice to safely and gradually prioritise the resumption of some paused services over the coming weeks and months, as well as retaining sufficient capacity for COVID-19.

As services are restarted, patients will be seen on the basis of their clinical need, and NHS Boards will take account of all national guidance and policy frameworks, including those relating to infection prevention and control, testing and the provision of PPE, to ensure the safety of all patients.

However, coronavirus will be with us for some time to come, and restarting paused services have to be measured against the need to keep the virus under control, continuing to protect the NHS, and save lives.

The Scottish Government expects consequentials amounting to £58 million from the UK Government’s announcement for care homes, and this funding will be passed on in full. However this amount has not yet been confirmed by the UK government.

None the less, the Scottish Government is providing support to care homes through its initial funding of £50 million to address immediate social care pressures. Detail of funding for the North East Scotland parliamentary region is set out in the following table.

The Scottish Government is continuing to work closely with Integration Authorities and care homes and will provide further funding so that care homes have the resources needed throughout this pandemic. This includes additional support for delivering the Living Wage and ensuring necessary funding for sick pay where employees are ill or self-isolating. Further detail of funding will be made available in the Autumn Budget Revision.

It is not correct that 50% of NHS Grampian employees cannot be fitted with FFP3 masks. One particular new FFP3 mask has been trialled by a number of health boards, and the initial face fit testing has shown a high failure rate (50%). As NHS boards, including Grampian, have a wide range of mask types available, this is not the same as saying that 50% of staff cannot be successfully face fit tested.

In Grampian, 5621 staff who may be (or may have been) required to wear an FFP3 mask have been tested on at least one FFP3 mask. Of those, 921 staff (16.5%) did not obtain a pass on the mask they were tested on. It should be noted that not everyone in that 16.5% figure will have been tested on all the masks available.

Staff who cannot be fitted with an FFP3 are excluded from aerosol generating procedures, which is often possible as part of the skills mix.

It has always been the principle within hospital settings to have a range of FFP masks available to help support finding the right fit for a range of faces. Normally there are at least three different FFP masks available in NHS Scotland supply, all with a high fit rate and high quality. During the peak period of COVID-19, that supply variation of FFP increased to a mix of 7 known and trusted FFP mask products. The supply of a larger range of masks that suit a broader range of faces has helped provide even greater choice for supporting variance in face shapes during the face-fit testing process on the front line.

In addition to this, the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland is now working with NHS NSS on using research and innovation to make long term improvements to the FFP mask design and manufacturing process. Samples of masks that have a good face-fit pass rate have been passed on to NMIS, who are using scanning and digital fitting methods to quantify what defines a “good face-fit” for a range of face sizes, large and small. This innovative work is ongoing and will complement the established face-fit testing process.

We know from research carried out in 2018 that barriers to completing an online application include people preferring paper, or having no computer or no broadband.

Each year we work with area offices and the RPID customers who continue to return paper applications to encourage more of them to submit their applications online. Each year, more are doing so.

We have written to everyone continuing to submit paper applications that they will only be able to submit their SAF online from 2022 and provided guidance on how to get online and how to submit their application form.

We will continue to support such customers to move to applying online for the 2021 and 2022 SAF window, using Digital Assist appointments, clear guidance, and contacting affected customers early, setting out what support is available.

Our key priority at this time remains protecting the lives of everyone in Scotland as we continue to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. However, where it is possible to do so, our consultants continue to advance design work on the A96 Dualling programme, whilst complying with the Government’s physical distancing guidance. While we continue to progress as much as we can during this time, it is not possible to progress some preparatory work, such as public engagement events and site surveys.

In terms of the Inverness to Nairn (including Nairn Bypass) scheme a Public Local Inquiry took place in October / November 2018 to consider objections received and not withdrawn. The Reporters submitted their report to Scottish Ministers in October 2019 and this is under active consideration.

The Preferred Option for the Hardmuir to Fochabers section was announced at a series of public exhibitions in December 2018 with the detailed development and assessment of the preferred option ongoing. In October 2019 two ground investigation contracts were awarded on the scheme, each worth £1.2m, which will help inform the development of the preferred option. Ground investigation site work has temporarily been ceased due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Route option assessment work on the section between East of Huntly and Aberdeen is also well underway. Once the current pandemic crisis is over and we can return to business as usual, we will re-evaluate the arrangements and timescales for identifying a preferred route option on this section.

Construction of the schemes that make up the programme can only commence if each scheme is approved under the relevant statutory procedures and thereafter a timetable for their progress can be set.