Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government has announced investment of £580m in ports and vessels to support and improve Scotland’s ferry services over the next five years, as part of our wider Infrastructure Investment Plan, unveiled in February 2021. This builds on this Government’s commitment to our island and remote communities which, since 2007, has seen us invest more than £2bn in the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Service, the Northern Isles Ferry Service and the supporting vessel and harbour infrastructure.

As part of these investment plans, the MV Utne arrived in Scotland last week from Norway and transferred to CMAL on Monday 22 November. MV Utne will undergo modification works and is expected to enter service during the summer 2022 timetable. The announcement (14 September) of the extension of the Islay vessel invitation to tender for a second vessel is welcome and these major additions to the fleet and the resulting cascade effects will bring real benefits across our island and remote communities and businesses in the coming years.

The proposed May 2022 timetable, which is subject to review of consultation responses, would provide more seats on every day of the week compared to the current timetable.

Figures for December 2019, current capacity and the proposed May 2022 timetable are shown below.

The proposed May 2022 timetable will (a) result in approximately 26,000 tonnes less CO2 emissions from ScotRail’s fleet per year than the pre-pandemic December 2019 timetable, representing a 12.5% reduction.

The proposed timetable will (b) provide around 593,000 seats per weekday and has been designed to accommodate more than 100 million passenger journeys per year. For context, when the current franchise began, the timetable provided 505,000 seats per weekday and 93.8 million passenger journeys were carried.

ScotRail has confirmed that, (c) as a business, it is currently sized to operate the planned Fit for the Future timetable. As with all businesses, it will need to manage the challenges of a post-pandemic economy, and ScotRail will ensure sufficient staff will be available to meet the Fit for the Future timetable, which will see more trains operating than now.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04124 on 24 November 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

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

This year the Scottish Government has made available £12 million to support the wellbeing of the health and social care workforce. This includes £8 million from the NHS Recovery Plan to provide ongoing wellbeing support alongside an additional £4 million for practical, emotional and evidence-based psychological support to help staff as they respond to winter pressures.

The Scottish Government’s national resources are available to support the mental wellbeing of paramedics. These include the 24/7 National Wellbeing Helpline, the National Wellbeing Hub, Coaching for Wellbeing, the Workforce Specialist Service and additional funding for psychological interventions and therapies specifically for the workforce.

On 21 September 2021 the Cabinet Secretary announced additional funding of £20 million specifically for the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) to help improve response times, alleviate pressures and improve staff wellbeing. Some £500,000 of this funding is being used to provide additional welfare for crews and a range of wellbeing initiatives, such as personal resilience packages and a dedicated wellbeing team.

The Scottish Government publishes information on “Homelessness assessment decisions” which provides data on the number of homeless applications which are assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness. Information has been collected and is available by local authority for the years 2002-03 to 2020-21.

The data can be found in Table 11 of the Main Tables (June 2021) associated with the latest Homelessness in Scotland: 2020-21 publication.

There is a range of digital and non-digital routes available to access COVID-19 Status Certificates, and currently the choice to obtain a certificate is voluntary.

The data processing complies with data protection principles of lawfulness, fairness and transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, security and accountability as per the Data Protection Act 2018. As the processing of data is necessary for the purposes indicated in the privacy notice , an opt out is not applicable.

I have written to the political group leaders of North Lanarkshire Council to advise them of the existing flexibilities and additional support that we provide as part of our Area Based Schemes. These include a higher intensity of grant-in-aid for households in extreme fuel poverty or where there are other relevant factors, for example where there are additional delivery costs due to a non-standard construction type.

I have also encouraged the Council to contribute to the review of our Area Based Scheme (ABS) guidance for 2022-23. We have asked every council in Scotland to provide evidence about any changes in delivery costs in their area. We will continue to seek the views of local authorities and COSLA about the funding and delivery of our Area Based Schemes.

I am not aware of further Ministerial correspondence from local authorities about this scheme during October or November. However Scottish Government officials routinely discuss and where necessary agree a higher intensity of grant-in-aid for some ABS projects facing additional delivery costs.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04198 on 25 November 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