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Scottish Government fund 31 third sector organisations throughout Scotland to deliver Support in the Right Direction, offering Advocacy and Brokerage Services, of which there is an administrative element. In financial year 2022-23 Scottish Government invested £2,959,658.23 in the Support in the Right Direction programme.

Part of the Grant tender process for SDS funding includes an assessment criterion that all funded projects should be accessible to anyone who might need social care, which includes disabled people.

Scottish Government has provided £46.6m funding since 2014 to organisations providing a range of support services. All people requiring support through the four Self-Directed Support options can benefit from administrative services. Figures are not available solely for the delivery of options 1 and 2, nor available solely for administrative support.

Information on the delivery of SDS Options 1 and 2 is not held centrally nor is the information on administrative support.

We are currently reviewing processes and systems for gathering such data going forward.

The Scottish Government has no direct plans at present to extend the National Cycle Network (NCN) route 73. Sustrans manage the NCN in Scotland and have set out ambitions to improve and extend the NCN in their 2018 Paths for Everyone Document. The Scottish Government has funded Sustrans with £10.6 million in 2022-23 (increased from the £4 million award in 2021-22) to undertake this work.

The second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) recommends creating new and improving existing active travel routes to connect Scotland’s cities, regions and major gateways, using high-quality active travel infrastructure that segregates users from busy roads, but makes use of quiet roads where appropriate. This will support long-distance active journeys, although it is anticipated that most benefit will arise from relatively short journey routes between or within the communities that the network would pass through.

The long-distance active travel network would enhance the existing National Cycle Network to create a strategic national network of active travel routes mirroring in part the Trunk Road and rail networks. The draft STPR2 report was published on 20 January this year for a three month consultation period. Feedback is now being considered and the final report is due later this year.

Programme for Government in 2016 and 2017 addressed potential transport issues in South West Scotland and extensive stakeholder engagement was undertaken to inform the South West Scotland Transport Study; the initial appraisal report was published in January 2020, and included 23 recommendations for consideration in STPR2, including one to develop the Strategic Active Travel Network in the South West of Scotland and better connect communities to key destinations with cycle paths parallel to trunk roads and improvements to the NCN. This intervention is currently subject to detailed appraisal as part of Phase 2 of STPR2.

The Scottish Government has welcomed the report from Environmental Standards Scotland. They requested some clarifications and made a number of recommendations on how processes relating to the enforcement of acoustic deterrent devices could be improved. They were content with Marine Scotland’s replies and the amendments made to procedures, and concluded that ESS had "no ongoing concerns."

Details of fish farm inspections relating to Acoustic Deterrent Devices will shortly be published on the Scottish Government website, all ESS recommendations will then have been addressed. Marine Scotland continue to monitor compliance with unannounced inspections.

The Scottish Government welcomes the publication Making the Switch, prepared by the Energy Transition Institute at Robert Gordon University, with funding from the Scottish Government through the North East Economic Recovery and Skills Fund . It highlights the potential for the North East to become a net zero energy hub that supports workers in existing oil and gas roles into the renewable and low carbon jobs of the future. In the Goldilocks zone, there is synchronous decline in the traditional oil and gas sector and uptick in renewables and low carbon, with workers able to transfer readily between energy sectors.

The Scottish Government is supporting the development of new skills and jobs in the North East through a number of programmes. These include the Energy Transition Zone skills programme which will accelerate the growth of a globally integrated energy cluster, creating 2,500 FTEs in Aberdeen at its peak and catalysing a further 10,000 energy transition related jobs in the region.

The Global Underwater Hub Skills programme, also funded through the Energy Transition Fund, is focussed on the technical skills, management and leadership capabilities required to meet the local and global demands of the growing underwater sectors and changing business environment. Detailed skills mapping will be carried out to highlight gaps in the current industry skills pool and identify areas of shortfall around future, new and growth areas. Strategies to tackle any gaps will be developed in collaboration with Skills Development Scotland (SDS).

The Scottish Government’s Green Jobs Fund is a five-year, capital fund of up to £100 million, which will support businesses and their supply chains to help them better transition to a low carbon economy. Already, more than 57 projects have been approved for funding, with around 3886 FTE jobs to be created and safeguarded.

The Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan is central to realising our ambition to create a future workforce that can support our transition to a net zero economy. It identifies immediate and long term actions needed to ensure our current and future workforce has the skills to support Scotland’s transition to net zero. The Green Jobs Workforce Academy, established to help workers take a green approach to their career, skills and job search, is accessible to all users, enabling a greater understanding of the relevance of their existing skills and signposting to green job opportunities.

Making the Switch also underlines how important carbon capture and storage will be to future-proofing jobs in the North East and why it is essential for the UK Government to support the Scottish Cluster to progress with urgency.

The information that has been requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Official statistical reports relating to the Scottish Ambulance Service can be found on the following link.

Public Health Scotland

The individual clinical management of patients is a matter for territorial health boards. We do however expect that all patients are treated and cared for in a person centred way. When there are no SIGN guideline in place, NHS Boards and Integration Authorities may choose to consider other relevant guideline such as those of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the planning and delivery of services.

In Scotland we use the Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer, which were revised and published in 2019. These national guidelines are based on clinical evidence and review to help support clinicians across the country to refer those patients who are most likely to have cancer, including myeloma, into diagnostic services swiftly.

While pharmacy closures can occur, this on the whole represents a small proportion of the network and is often limited to a small proportion of the required model hours. The Scottish Government continue to work with all Health Boards and community pharmacies representatives who are responsible for the provision of local pharmaceutical care services to ensure that any challenges faced by community pharmacies in providing the safe and effective dispensing of treatments are discussed with the local Health Board to minimise impact and risk to patients. Health boards can take a range of actions in response to any breach of terms by a pharmacy contractor.

The Scottish Government is aware of a backlog affecting a small number of cases with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) while they recover from the effects of the Covid pandemic. The SPSO is a wholly independent office, not subject to the direction or control of the Scottish Government. We are aware however that the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body has agreed to supply of extra resources and recruitment of more staff which is allowing the SPSO to resource their COVID recovery plan. Further details can be found on the SPSO website.

The Scottish Government does not consider setting a nationwide target for sustainable deer populations to be the most effective method of meeting our Biodiversity Strategy targets for 2030. Our approach is to assess and identify priority areas where there is evidence of, or a high risk of deer damage, to ensure deer management efforts are focused and coordinated where there is the greatest need.

We set out our commitment to modernising Scotland's systems of deer management in response to the independent Deer Working Group and work is being taken forward as part of our new deer project. This project sits under the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy Programme Board and work is being taken forward via four workstreams focusing on: legislation; regulation; incentives; and operational delivery.

There are a number of routes that developers of a new medical device may follow, in order to pursue NHSScotland approval. As a test for early cancer detection, Trucheck would fall within the remit of the Scottish Health Technologies Group (SHTG), which is a national Heath Technology Assessment (HTA) agency based within Healthcare Improvement Scotland. SHTG advice is developed following a request for evidence support on issues facing health and social care services. The SHTG has not provided advice on the use of Trucheck to date.

Scottish Government have just released in Beta form, Scotland Innovates ( www.innovator.scot). Scotland Innovates allows suppliers and citizens to submit proposals to the entire public sector in Scotland that could potentially create innovate goods and services and bring benefit to our citizens. Advice is available on the site regarding the possible submission of a proposal.

The medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) regulates medical devices in the UK, we recommend that medical devices are registered with MHRA prior to placing the device on the UK market.