Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-34980

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 11 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-20893 by Jenny Gilruth on 26 September 2023, on what date it will publish the equivalent data for 2024-25.

Question reference: S6W-35081

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made on a musculoskeletal digital pathway for Scotland since November 2023.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people living in Scotland with musculoskeletal conditions can access the best possible care and support.

While there are no current plans to develop a musculoskeletal digital pathway, the government has commissioned the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) to oversee a Rheumatology Specialty Delivery Group. This group includes multidisciplinary representatives from all Health Boards providing rheumatology services.

Scottish Government officials and the CfSD national planned care team meet monthly with the Chief Operating Officer and Acute Directors from all mainland Health Boards to assess performance and delivery across all Planned Care specialities, including rheumatology. For island Health Boards, these meetings typically take place every two months.

Question reference: S6O-04434

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 March 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the implementation of its temporary accommodation standards framework, in light of reports that children are living in properties affected by mould, vermin and overcrowding.

Question reference: S6W-35085

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many calls have been made to the now defunct musculoskeletal helpline since 2020.

Question reference: S6W-35083

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 28 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it last engaged with the clinical director of trauma and orthopaedics at each territorial NHS board.

Ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly meet with the leadership of all NHS Boards to provide support and scrutiny whilst reinforcing national priorities, including further action to reduce waiting times.

In addition, the Scottish Government commissions ‘The Trauma and Orthopaedics National Planned Care Performance’ Team in the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) to support both scheduled and unscheduled orthopaedic service delivery through the implementation of sustainable improvements in NHS Scotland. Further details can be accessed at

It provides support to all regional Health Boards and regularly engages with local Clinical Management teams, including Clinical Directors and/or Orthopaedic Leads, around a number of orthopaedic performance and improvement workstreams. Policy officials and the CfSD leads meet weekly and feedback/follow up these discussions.

The team meets with all health boards either monthly, bimonthly, quarterly or as needed.

All Clinical Management Teams are also invited to attend the Scottish Orthopaedic Services Delivery Group (SOSDG) which is the established T&O delivery group. This is run quarterly on the 1st Thursday in March/June/September/December and has been in place for circa 15 years.

Finally, Scottish Government officials and the CfSD national planned care team meet monthly with Chief Operating Officer and/or Acute Directors from all mainland Health Boards to review performance and delivery across all Planned Care specialities, including T&O. Meetings with island Boards are generally on a bimonthly basis.

Question reference: S6W-35084

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 28 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it last engaged with the clinical director of musculoskeletal services at each territorial NHS board.

Ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly meet with the leadership of all NHS Boards to provide support and scrutiny whilst reinforcing national priorities, including further action to reduce waiting times.

Scottish Government officials do not routinely engage with speciality clinical directors in territorial boards. They do meet with the Scottish Association of Medical Directors with representation provided by the Executive Medical Director for each board, both special and territorial rather than individual clinical directors.

In addition, the Scottish Government commissions the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) manage a Rheumatology Specialty Delivery Group, which includes nominated multi-disciplinary representation from all Health Boards providing Rheumatology services.

Finally, Scottish Government officials and the CfSD national planned care team meet monthly with Chief Operating Officer and/or Acute Directors from all mainland Health Boards to review performance and delivery across all Planned Care specialities, including rheumatology. Meetings with island Boards are generally on a bimonthly basis.

Question reference: S6W-35082

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 28 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it last engaged with the clinical director of rheumatology in each territorial NHS board.

Ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly meet with the leadership of all NHS Boards to provide support and scrutiny whilst reinforcing national priorities, including further action to reduce waiting times.

Scottish Government officials do not routinely engage with speciality clinical directors in territorial boards. They do meet with the Scottish Association of Medical Directors with representation provided by the Executive Medical Director for each board, both special and territorial rather than individual clinical directors.

In addition, the Scottish Government commissions the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) manage a Rheumatology Specialty Delivery Group, which includes nominated multi-disciplinary representation from all Health Boards providing Rheumatology services.

Finally, Scottish Government officials and the CfSD national planned care team meet monthly with Chief Operating Officer and/or Acute Directors from all mainland Health Boards to review performance and delivery across all Planned Care specialities, including rheumatology. Meetings with island Boards are generally on a bimonthly basis.

Question reference: S6O-04358

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 February 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that the number of police officer and police staff working days lost due to mental health illness has risen in recent years.

Question reference: S6W-33359

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 28 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has received any reports of underspend in Whole Family Wellbeing Fund allocations, and, if so, how much this has amounted to in each financial year that the fund has operated.

In line with other reporting from programmes funded via the General Revenue Grant, we do not routinely gather detail on the totality of Children’s Services Planning Partnerships spend, instead focusing on the activities they are delivering, outcomes achieved, and resources allocated to each activity. However, to help understand future funding needs we did gather some limited data from CSPPs regarding their spending plans.

The following table collates information from the 29 CSPP areas who responded.

	Year 1 – 22-23	Year 2 – 23-24
Spend	£5.2m	£16.5m
Allocated funding (29 CSPPs)	£25.5m	£25.5m

It was anticipated that CSPPs may not spend their full allocations in the early years of the Programme, as CSPPs were encouraged to assess their current delivery of family support and develop plans accordingly. Wider factors will also have influenced spend, such as year 1 funding being announced mid-year; recruitment challenges which have hindered spend; and proactive multi-year profiling of allocations by individual CSPPs to support their local planning and delivery.

CSPPs are permitted to carry over underspend into the subsequent year, and WFWF allocations must be spent in line with criteria which provides flexibility whilst protecting the objectives and outcomes of the funding.

Our evaluation of Year 1 of the WFWF has shown that CSPPs are finding the funding beneficial, and that our approach to the funding has afforded them the autonomy and flexibility needed to tailor their family support activities to local needs.

A breakdown of Whole Family Wellbeing Funding can be found in the answer to question S6W-29612 on 17 September 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-33358

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 28 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has made any assessment of the experiences of children and families regarding whole family support during the lifetime of the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund.

We have commissioned external evaluations to understand how the Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) Programme is delivering on its purpose to enable the local transformational system change necessary to ensure that families are able to access holistic whole family support wrapped around their needs. Recognising that system change takes time, the Programme has identified a range of early, intermediate and long term outcomes. The experience of children, young people and families are covered in a range of intermediate outcomes which the evaluation of Years 3 and 4 will focus on.

In the Year 1 evaluation (2022-23) ( ) IFF Research (our external evaluator), interviewed 12 children and young people, along with 18 parents and carers about their experiences with whole family support. As the WFWF programme had only just begun, the evaluation’s focus was largely on how CSPPs were setting up their WFWF activity. These interviews highlighted some valuable insights from children and families at a very early stage of the programme. Children and young people described being involved in activities to support the design of family support services and expressed appreciation towards trustworthy and friendly practitioners. Parents and carers explained how some initial activities they had done as an entire family they as part of the support they received had helped strengthen bonds between members.

During the Year 2 evaluation (2023-24), IFF continued to speak with children, young people and families about the relevance of, accessibility, timeliness, satisfaction with, process for providing feedback on, and outcomes of family support. Additionally, young people with experience of family support were invited to participate in a ‘Young People’s Panel’ to directly contribute to the design, delivery, and outputs of the Year 2 evaluation. This evaluation report will include the experiences of children and families who have benefited from the enhanced family support provided through the WFWF programme. We intend to publish the results of our evaluation in due course.

In addition the link to a case study on East Lothians’ Families Together programme gives some insight into experiences through WFWF :

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