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The SPCB provides support to staff who suffer from recurrent illnesses, including migraine.  The SPCB recognises that most people with migraine can manage their condition and work effectively, with the right information and support in place.  Managers and MSPs, in their capacity as employers, are encouraged to create a positive workplace culture, including holding regular conversations with team members about wellbeing so that additional support needs can be identified.  

Members, their staff, and SPS staff also have access to a range of health and wellbeing related policies, advice and services including the Parliament’s Occupational Health Service, which can provide workplace assessments or referral to medical specialists.  The SPCB is also committed to providing a Safe place of work and fully complies with workplace health, safety and welfare requirements including ensuring the availability of water, good lighting, good ventilation and a reasonable working temperature. 

The SPCB also provides support to individuals including:

• Reasonable adjustments including the provision of assistive equipment;
• Localised adjustments to reduce brightness in individual work areas;
• Health and wellbeing training, including stress awareness and managing your physical working from home arrangements;
• Free eye tests;
• Adjustable DSE workstation equipment;
• stress risk assessments, as required;
• Quiet working space in the Holyrood building;
• A good mix of natural and electric lighting and an environment which is free of excessive noise and odours.
  

Staff can also access flexible working arrangements, including flexible working hours and time off for medical appointments. 

When compared to the Migraine Trust’s definition of a migraine-friendly employer the Parliament is well placed.  However, the SPCB continues to review the support it provides to staff.

Transport Scotland has not held any discussions with Highland bus operators regarding providing extra bus services at times when ScotRail is operating a temporary timetable. The temporary timetable currently in place is an operational matter for which ScotRail is responsible for. The temporary timetable aims to provide the best possible service to as many passengers as possible with the available resources.

The Scottish Government allocated £93.5 million in funding to support bus services in 2022-23. This includes temporary additional recovery funding to bus operators, including those in the Highlands, through the Network Support Grant Plus. And I am pleased to confirm that the Scottish Government is making a further £25.7 million in recovery funding available to support bus services across Scotland.

The SPCB undertook to consider this and can advise that the central register of interests for SPCB staff who are members of the Parliament’s Leadership Group is now publicly available, as of this week.  The register can be found here.  The SPCB considers that publication of declared interests for Leadership Group members is in the public interest for reasons of transparency and maintaining trust and confidence.  As before, Leadership Group members will be required, on an annual basis, to review their register of declared interests.

Data from the 2014 Healthy Living Survey was one of the components used to determine 2022-23 Pupil Equity Fund allocations for Primary 1 to 3 pupils.

In 2015 the Scottish Government introduced free school meals for all Primary 1 to 3 pupils. The 2014 Healthy Living Survey therefore represents the last dataset fully capturing how many pupils were registered for FSM on income-based criteria before universal entitlement.

We have listened to headteachers and provided certainty to support long term planning to build on the excellent work we know headteachers are doing by setting PEF allocations for the next four years. In response to fluctuating demand brought on by the pandemic, we have increased allocations to £1225 from £1200.

Officials continue to review possible alternatives to Free School Meal data, and a decision on which datasets will be used will be made at the end of that four-year cycle.

The Transport Scotland, Scottish Transport Statistics 2020 reported 66 publicly available electric vehicle charge points in the Dumfries & Galloway Boundary Area. This figure has increased in 2021 to 80 publicly available charge points in the Dumfries & Galloway Boundary Area. The 2022 statistics will be released in January 2023.

We don’t routinely collect or analyse data on a constituency area basis, and there may be additional commercially financed and operated charge points that aren’t routinely captured in the Scottish Transport Statistics.

Domestic Abuse remains a high priority, and Police Scotland are committed to proactively target perpetrators and to protect victims and their families from the harms of domestic abuse. Police Scotland have a well-established National Domestic Abuse Taskforce to target perpetrators and local domestic abuse investigation units are located in the 14 divisions throughout Scotland.

Despite UK Government austerity we have invested over £10 billion in policing since the creation of Police Scotland in 2013, and remain committed to working closely with both the SPA and Police Scotland to ensure we continue to have a safe, protected and resilient Scotland. We have made a total investment across the justice sector of over £3.1 billion in 2022-23 to further strengthen and reform vital services.

Under the implementation of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, the Scottish Government provided £825,000 to support the training of 14,000 police officers and staff, and advanced training of 700 Domestic Abuse Champions to embed training and sustain organisational change. Officers are now much more aware and informed around the dynamics of domestic abuse. Police Scotland are also undertaking Divisional Reviews on their policing response to domestic abuse across the country, which includes partnership and multi-agency engagement.

As of close of business on 20 June 2022 a total of 410,721 cards had been issued under the Young Persons Scheme (YPS) through the National Entitlement Card scheme and Transport Scot Pass Collect mobile application.

The Improvement Service is responsible for the application process and issue of the National Entitlement Cards. They are being supported by Scottish Government to work with local authorities to identify and support improvements to both online and offline processes to maximise the uptake of scheme and increase accessibility for children and young people. I met with the Improvement Service in late April to make clear our expectations for delivery of the scheme and to ensure they continue to streamline the online process. I will shortly be writing to local authorities seeking assurance on their processes for handling offline applications and providing support if needed.

Transport Scotland also launched the Transport Scot Collect App on 28 February which allows existing Young Scot cardholders aged 16 and over to add the free travel product onto their existing card.

ScotRail has not undertaken an economic impact assessment on what is a temporary timetable change. There is positive progress being made on pay negotiations with ASLEF in Scotland, and I am hopeful that additional services will be added in the near future.

The number of passenger complaints received by ScotRail, through their official complaints process, is set out on the following table for the period 1 and 30 April 2022. The complaints may involve accidents that occurred before 1 April 2022.

The average recorded number of complaints per period for previous years is as follows:-

2019-2020 - 1,664 complaints

2018-2019 - 2,064 complaints

The figure of 1,144 complaints for April 2022 is lower than the above period averages.

ScotRail do not record staff complaints and therefore the information is not available.

I am pleased to confirm the publication today of the Scottish Government’s third thematic report on implementation progress following Dame Elish Angiolini’s Final Report.

The thematic progress report shows that 44 recommendations are now complete which represents more than half of the non-legislative recommendations. This demonstrates that partners’ collective actions are laying foundations to deliver transformative change of the complaints, investigations and misconduct framework. This is supplemented by our current live consultation on legislative proposals which is another step in that journey.

I commend Police Scotland, the Scottish Police Authority, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland for their continuing efforts and progress to date.