Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04586 on 6 December 2021. 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 .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04586 on 6 December 2021. 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 .

Public Heath Scotland publish a weekly COVID-19 statistical report every Wednesday which includes this information. As at 15 November 2021 the COVID Status app had been downloaded over 1.5 million. It is important to note a single user may choose to download the App on multiple devices so this total figure does not represent unique individuals.

As we do not track individual’s use of their certificates, it is not possible to indicate how many people have used their certificate.

For part’s (b) and (c), the Deputy First Minister wrote to the Covid-19 Recovery Committee setting out the information requested in detail. This can be accessed on the Scottish Parliament website here .

We continue to engage with businesses including the hospitality sector about the Covid-19 status certification scheme. We have published the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment which considered the potential impacts on businesses.

Decisions on local staffing requirements and recruitment are the responsibility of individual NHS Boards. However, Scottish Government officials are continually engaging with NHS Boards to identify particular areas of concern.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are delivering a number of campaigns to fill vacancies and to recruit additional staffing. The Board are recruiting 222 Band 3 Health Care Support Workers (HCSW) to their Health and Social Care Partnerships and are targeting the recruitment of a further 200 HCSWs into Acute settings, as well as 20 Band 5 and 20 Band 6 Critical Care nurses. The Board have also recruited over 577 newly qualified nurses who have been commencing throughout October and November with some planning to commence in early 2022.

As a result of local and national efforts to recruit staff in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s staffing levels are up 4.7% or by 1,608.3 whole-time equivalent, since March 2020.

Source: NHS Education for Scotland Official NHS Workforce publication, data at June 2021.

Scottish Enterprise continue to be closely engaged with Peel Ports and are collaborating with them, along with North Ayrshire Council, under a Memorandum of Understanding to advance and secure the delivery at Hunterston of regional and national investment objectives defined in the Scottish Government Inward Investment Strategy and Ayrshire Economic Strategy. Work is progressing across a range of sectors including the Circular Economy to develop a refined position identifying market gaps, industry demand and alignment with the assets of Hunterston PARC. In addition, the Scottish Government is in regular communication with the Clyde Marine Planning Partnership of which Peel Ports is a member.

Due to Covid-19 there have been no visits by senior Scottish Government representatives to the Hunterston industrial site in an official capacity since 1 January 2021. However, the Scottish Government has always taken a keen interest in this development and looks forward to visiting it at some point in 2022.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving Mental Health services and the Programme for Government commits to ensuring that in future, at least 10% of frontline NHS spend goes towards mental health, with 1% going towards child and adolescent mental health services.

NHS Boards draw funding for mental health services from the overall funds allocated to them by the Scottish Government in the Scottish budget. Local budget decisions should reflect the national mental health priority and NHS Boards are expected to work with Integration Authorities and other partners to plan and deliver person centred, safe and effective mental health services which meet the needs of their populations.

NHS Scotland expenditure on mental health, including children and adolescents, is reported in the Scottish Health Service Costs , published annually by ISD Scotland.

Expenditure in each year since 2016 to 2020, the latest available, in NHS Ayrshire and Arran and NHS Greater Glasgow identified as relating to mental health services delivered in hospitals or in the community aimed specifically at children and adolescents is shown in the table below. Funding towards reducing waiting times is not separately identified.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of transparency and is committed to sharing information on progress with the implementation of Dame Elish Angiolini’s recommendations in a way that is meaningful and accessible to a range of audiences.

In June this year, the Scottish Government published its first Thematic Progress Report which details progress under thematic headings to provide an overall picture of developments. This not only includes a narrative, context and additional information about key recommendations but, importantly, also includes a tracker within each theme showing which partner is responsible for each recommendation and what progress has been made.

The Ministerial Group which leads the governance and reporting framework established by Scottish Government, is jointly chaired by myself and the Lord Advocate and held its third meeting on 2 December 2021. The Group plays a vital role in overseeing progress being made towards implementation of recommendations across all partners. At that meeting, the Ministerial Group approved the sign off of several more recommendations as completed and also approved the publication later this month of the next thematic progress report which will show the significant work that has been taken forward.

I will be writing to the Convener of the Criminal Justice Committee and Justice spokespersons to share details once the next Thematic Progress Report is published on the Scottish Government’s website.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of reported incidents that may be homophobic in nature. Data is available on the number of police recorded hate crimes that include an aggravation for sexual orientation, the vast majority of which were found to be for prejudice towards the gay and lesbian community in 2018-19.

The Scottish Government published a study on the characteristics of police recorded Hate Crime in February 2021. The table below shows the number of sexual orientation aggravated hate crimes recorded by Police Scotland from 2014-15 to 2019-20, for (a) North Ayrshire, (b) Inverclyde and (c) Scotland. The number of hate crimes with a sexual orientation aggravation presented below is higher than the figures provided in the aforementioned study. This is because the table also includes hate crimes that have multiple aggravations (one of which is sexual orientation).

The study also looked in more detail at the prejudice shown by perpetrators. In the vast majority (94%) of sexual orientation aggravated hate crimes in 2018-19 the perpetrator showed prejudice towards the gay and lesbian community. In over two-thirds (69%) of crimes the words used or actions taken by the perpetrator showed a prejudice towards the gay community, with a further quarter (25%) showing prejudice towards the lesbian community. In 2018-19, the study showed that 39% of sexual orientation aggravated hate crimes had a Police Officer as a victim. Due to the sampling design, information at local authority level is unable to be calculated.

A second study into the characteristics of police recorded hate crime is due to be published in 2022. This will provide the same type of detailed disaggregated data and information on police recorded hate crimes for the year 2020-21.