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The Scottish Government keeps all its policies and programmes under review to support delivery of the outcomes in the National Performance Framework.

The Self-Isolation Support Grant is focussed on supporting those low income workers who are most likely to face hardship. Since it was launched, it has been extended to better reach those it is intended to support. This includes parents or carers of children who are required to self-isolate and people with caring responsibilities for someone over 16 who needs to isolate.

Most people qualify for the Grant because they earn less than 25% above the Universal Credit assessment or earn less than the Real Living Wage. We have protected those on lower incomes by continuing to include the £20 Universal Credit uplift within the calculation of low income despite the payments being removed by the UK Government.

Those workers who are not eligible for the Self-Isolation Support Grant may be eligible for an emergency grant from their local authority. Scottish Welfare Fund Crisis Grants are available to all people regardless of their current benefit eligibility. They are specifically designed to provide a safety net when an emergency situation occurs and there is no other way to cover costs.

In addition, support can be provided via the Local Self-Isolation Support Service which is a proactive outbound call service operated by local authorities. The service calls people who are self-isolating, and who are happy to pass on their details. This service helps with support to access food, medication, and other essentials, whilst also signposting to further advice services. Help can be provided by contacting The National Assistance Helpline on 0800 111 4000 which anyone can contact, and operates between 09.00 to 17.00 every weekday.

This process is currently underway. Health Boards have been asked to submit 22/23 plans linked to activity trajectories and requests for funding, which will be used to allocate resources to address orthopaedic surgery waiting lists.

There is currently no publicly available data regarding how patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE) are managed following an initial episode.

We currently have three Early Cancer Diagnostic Centres (EDCD) live in NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Dumfries and Galloway and NHS Fife. The Centre in NHS Dumfries and Galloway has been operational since 17 th May, NHS Fife since 6 th June, and NHS Ayrshire and Arran since 21 st June 2021.

The University of Strathclyde has been contracted to undertake independent evaluation of the ECDCs, to help inform wider roll-out across Scotland. The full evaluation will cover a two-year period (this is in line with wider UK nations’ evaluation of similar rapid diagnostic centre models), and will report in September 2023. Additionally, an interim report will be provided in September 2022.

Local Authorities have been provided with New Burdens funding to support new processes for gathering supporting information on behalf of clients applying for disability assistance. These new processes introduced a new requirement for Local Authorities to receive, triage, manage and respond to these requests for information from Social Security Scotland for Child Disability Payment.

The funding provided for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 years is detailed below:

The funding allocation is made on the basis of the anticipated level of need to support these processes in each Local Authority. Scottish Government Communities Analysis division have provided forecast estimates for the number of requests for supporting information that each Local Authority may receive.

The estimates for supporting information requests have been created by using actual volumes of applications in Scotland for the DWP equivalent benefit, Disability Living Allowance for Children (DLAC) over the past 5 years as the basis. This data was combined with statistics from the Department for Communities (DfC) which provided a percentage breakdown of cases where additional supporting information was required. This percentage was applied to the Scottish application projections and ratified by Health and Social Care practitioners in Social Security Scotland.

Working with COSLA and the Local Authorities who supported the Child Disability Payment Pilot, the Social Security Programme agreed an appropriate level of funding to support Perth and Kinross Council as a medium sized authority with a mixed urban/rural demographic to act as a median. The funding allocated to all other Local Authorities was based proportionately upon the volume of Supporting Information requests they are expected to receive against the base level of funding agreed for Perth and Kinross Council.

Using this methodology Island Authorities were thought to be unfairly disadvantaged due to the small number of requests they are likely to receive. As such an Island Uprating was agreed to ensure that all organisations received at least £29,000 per annum to adequately resource this new burden. The methodology for funding allocation was approved through the Settlement and Distribution Group and the COSLA Leaders meeting in Autumn 2021.

I welcome Audit Scotland’s review into drug and alcohol services and their recommendations. We agree that more can be done to improve the accessibility and transparency of funding and how it is used.

Currently information on funding allocation is available through various publications including published budgets and I also report to Parliament regularly outlining our progress and funding decisions. We have also recently agreed on eight recommendations with COSLA to implement the Partnership Delivery Framework which underpins the governance of Alcohol and Drug Partnerships, this includes a recommendation requiring Health and Social Care Partnership Chief Finance Officers to be represented at the ADP and provide assurance regarding funding for alcohol and drug services including clear financial reporting. In addition, Public Health Scotland have been tasked with introducing new monitoring to track both the number of and investment in residential rehab placements by ADPs.

A final decision on the number of hubs has not yet been taken. A paper to the Restorative Justice Stakeholder Group, published on the Scottish Government website in 2021, set out a proposal to develop up to 6 administrative restorative justice hubs based on sheriffdom areas, and discussion is underway with our stakeholders and partners on this. The precise number of regional hubs in place by 2023 will be subject to these discussions and a range of factors such as level of demand, and cannot be confirmed at this stage.

Figures for vouchers requested, vouchers issued and installations completed to date through the use of the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme are provided in the following table: