 Okay, gobede ñ the first item of business is general questions. Question number one has been withdrawn at question number two, I call Foisel Chowdry. To ask the Scottish Government what safeguarding training such as NHS board is required to provide to non-clinical staff who are handling interaction with members of the public. Cabinet Secretary, Michael Matheson. The staff governance standards, which is applicable to all staff employed by NHS Scotland, requires health boards to appropriately train and develop staff and provide a safe working environment. The national policies on personal development and managing health at work supports boards as employers of NHS staff and to identify and provide necessary training for staff according to statutory requirements, the job role and individual training needs. Foisal Chowdry. Thank you, cabinet secretary, for the answer. People who require to use NHS service will go through a process of dealing with non-clinical staff before seeing a medical professional. Many of these patients may be neurodivergent or require tailored communication. It is important that staff can identify needs and transmit the medical information in a way that is effective and appropriate for the neurodivergent patients. Can I ask the Scottish Government how often it monitors and reviews the type of safeguarding training that is required for non-clinical staff with regard to those specific needs? Cabinet secretary? The national policy is to ensure that NHS staff, in whichever role they are working, are provided with the appropriate training to undertake that role. It is the responsibility of their employer, the NHS board, to ensure that they are receiving the necessary training. Those non-clinical staff are working with individuals who have neurodivergent conditions that they should be appropriately trained in order to do so. However, if the member has some specific examples where he feels that that has not been the case, if he wants to write to me with the details of that, I am more than happy to look into the issue forum and to ensure that the issue has been appropriately addressed. Question 3 has been withdrawn. Question 4 is not lodged. Question 5, I call Martyn Wittfield. I am very grateful, Presiding Officer. To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to improve lifelong learning in Scotland. Minister Graham Day. Our lifelong learning offer already caters for a range of learner needs. However, last month I set out to Parliament the steps that I will be taking to further improve lifelong learning in Scotland. As part of our reform programme, the Scottish Government will take the lead on skills planning, simplifying funding and take a central role in the development of apprenticeships. I have also commissioned a short independent review of community learning to be led by Kate Still with recommendations to be made by summer 2024. Martyn Wittfield. I am very grateful for that response and I hope that we can agree across the whole of this chamber the importance of lifelong learning. Last year in its adult lifetime skills, a literature review, there was a quote that literature on the weakness of the current adult skills system in Scotland is also relatively sparse. So after 25 years of being a devolved nation with the SNP government in charge for 17 years. Can the minister tell us why there are still significant gaps in lifetime skills data? What the Government is going to rectify when the Government is going to rectify this? When is it going to be identified and more importantly, the need met? Minister. Let me begin with a note of consensus. I completely concur with Martyn Wittfield on the importance of this. I also recognise that he is genuinely interested in all this topic. Let me offer just three specifics around what we are planning to do. I think that it is more important what we are intending to do, what we will do rather than what has happened previously. I hope that this provides him with some reassurance on the seriousness of my intent in this area. The national career service that we will be offering, we intend, will be an all age service, not aimed primarily at young people. It is important that we get that aspect right. We are also working with employers and colleges in particular to shape an agile and responsive short qualifications offering which meets the needs of businesses and employees looking to upskill to meet changing needs. Then of course there is the review of CLD provision to identify where in the country we might have to improve that offering in order to provide people of all ages with a chance to improve their quality of day-to-day living. Of course we are applicable access to education, training and employment. I agree with him about the need to have data to underpin this. That is part of what the review is looking to do to give us a clearer picture of what is happening. I think that we know that there are some issues here. We have already had them identified through the withers and other reviews. I am more inclined to simply get on and try to fix some of those issues. Annabelle Ewing I have to say that I very much welcome the minister's evident commitment to improve lifelong learning in Scotland. I think that that is a commendable position of the Scottish Government. I wonder if the minister could indicate what assessment has been made as to how to promote that objective in my Cowdenbeath constituency and indeed across the kingdom of Fife. Annabelle Ewing Annabelle Ewing makes a very good point. It is at the heart of why I have commissioned the review. In order to address the point that she makes on others, we need to best understand what is working well, what is not working well and where there are pockets of good practice in trying to roll them out. Absolutely raising awareness of access to CLD offerings is important, but I want to better understand the position across the country first so that we can take steps that are informed by robust information. Colin Smyth To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken to attract and retain staff in colleges. Operational decisions, including those around attracting and retaining staff, are matters for individual colleges and the Scottish Government expects colleges staffing complement to be in line with the needs of their learners and their local and regional economies. The Scottish Government, through its fair work agenda and through its work to support the adoption of the teacher qualification and further education, continues to support the college sector and attracting and retaining college, support staff and lecturing staff. A week really passes when a minister does not say in this chamber the reason we do not have industrial action at the moment in the NHS in Scotland is because of the actions and the intervention of ministers. So what does it say about the failure of the Government to intervene in our colleges that this week college staff in the EIS Fela Union have once again voted overwhelmingly to take industrial action? What will the minister do in the coming days to avert this action and ensure that our college staff get a fair pay deal, given that Audit Scotland has already recently warned that we face a recruitment and retention crisis in our college, and more cuts in the lack of fair pay is simply going to make that worse? I'm literally just off a call with the Unite Union on this very subject. I've been engaged with all the trade unions and the employers. Colin Smyth well knows that ministers cannot enforce a pay settlement in this sector and he also knows that this is a sector where the industrial relations have been toxic to say the least for eight of the last nine years. So I am actively encouraging all sides to try and find a solution and that is the role of ministers in all of this. Now there is a longer term issue about the industrial relations in the college sector. I'm intrigued by the fact that all sides recognise that, yet we haven't been able to find a solution to it. We need to find a solution to the pay dispute currently, but we also need to find a solution to the longer term systemic problem in the sector and if all of the actors in this are as genuinely as they tell me they are, I think we can resolve both. Liam Kerr. Thank you, Presiding Officer. What won't attract and retain staff is a proposed cut of 8%. That's £58.7 million to the net college resource budget, yet recruitment of staff and students has to happen right now for next year. Minister, when precisely will colleges know exactly what their budgets will be for next year and just how brutal are the cuts going to be? Minister. As I think Mr Kerr knows, because he is knowledgeable at these things, there is a process post the publication of the draft budget, where the SFC works directly with colleges and universities to determine the specifics of the budget. That process is under way. I'm not sighted on the exact details currently, though I will be in due course and I will anticipate further detail, precise detail to emerge in the next few weeks. Beatrice Wishart. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The minister knows that there are redundancies proposed at UHI Shetland. What confidence can be given to the community that in the future we will have a Shetland college that meets the needs of local learners and local businesses that have differing sets of skills requirements? Minister. Presiding Officer, I'm grateful for the question that Beatrice Wishart and I have engaged directly on this matter quite recently. She's right. It's a legitimate concern about the situation at UHI Shetland. What I can assure her is that both UHI and the Scottish Funding Council are engaged directly with the college at Shetland to try and ensure that its future is there along the lines that she would indicate. It also has to be a sustainable position that it gets itself into. There are some challenges there currently, but I think that everyone is participating positively in trying to find the right solution for the college and for Shetland. Question 7, Sarah Boyack. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I draw members' attention to my register of interests. To ask the Scottish Government when it last met the City of Edinburgh Council to discuss its housing emergency declaration. Minister, Paul McClellan. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The Scottish Government regularly engages with the City of Edinburgh Council concerning our shared efforts to end homelessness and reduce the number of households in temporary accommodation. On 7 December, I met with the Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee convener, Councillor Mart, to consider housing supply matters. On 21 December, I discussed budget matters, including housing, with the Edinburgh City Council leader, Cammie Day. Just yesterday, I also met with the Scottish City's Alliance to discuss housing, which included officers and council leader, Cammie Day. Continuous dialogue between officials is facilitated through forums such as City of Edinburgh's Council of Homelessness Task Force, which last met on 13 December. Scottish Government officials in their City of Edinburgh counterparts will next meet on 23 January. Can I welcome the engagement of the minister? That is much appreciated. It is not just Edinburgh that has declared a housing emergency. There are other councils doing it now. Last week, 781 people applied for a single council house in Dreghorn, so it is a now-issued housing emergency. Can the minister say what action the Scottish Government will take imminently to tackle our housing emergency, whether it is bringing empty homes back into use or getting moving and building new housing, both general needs and social rented accommodation? On specific issues, she will be aware that we had the announcement of the £60 million allocation acquisition funding, which we are discussing with Edinburgh at the moment about various sites that are also talking about allocation policies. The member will also be aware that we attended a number of roundtables in the Edinburgh, which the empty homes issue was particularly raised. We are working with Edinburgh in regard to empty homes. There are a few other things that we are working with Edinburgh on. There are a few strategic sites, such as Granton in the west of Edinburgh, that we are working with to try and develop as quickly as possible. I also thank the minister for his committed engagement on the housing emergency in Edinburgh and with appreciation to the financial constraints, which are real. The situation in Edinburgh is becoming more and more serious and is more acute than elsewhere in the country. As well as having the engagement and the official engagement in this new year 2024, can we expect action from the Scottish Government and the City of Edinburgh Council working together to tackle this emergency? As I said, we are engaging with Edinburgh on a regular basis, such as issues such as the talks around the strategic sites and the acquisition policies. Yesterday, I met the Scottish City of Alliance and we were looking at ways of financing that Edinburgh has used before, such as gam funding and TIF funding. We are engaging with Edinburgh on that issue and we will continue to engage with it about bringing housing forward as soon as we possibly can. We need to find solutions and part of that is looking at our land supply issues here in the capitals. Can I ask the minister whether or not the Scottish Government will agree to audit all public land, not just council land and Scottish Government agency land, but NHS land as well, to look towards what development sites might be available to help reduce the cost of affordable housing development significantly? We know that many sites across the Edinburgh area will not necessarily be developed as part of the local plan, so I hope that that is an opportunity and a positive suggestion to undertake a proper audit. I think that we are kind of touching on planning issues, but on land that is available, such as NHS land, have we already engaged with pollons from the Edinburgh council on that and can be ready to discuss that? I am awaiting some evidence coming back from them about land that is available and how we can work to bring that forward in the local development process, but we are engaging with them already on that issue. In November last year, the city of Glasgow 2 declared a housing emergency, and I understand from my colleagues on Glasgow City Council that our city has around 1,500 homes less than it needs to meet demand. I know that the housing minister meets regularly with representatives from the council, but what work is on going to address the specific needs that Glasgow faces, including the challenges set out by the Home Office's fast-tracking on asylum claims? However, no additional support was forthcoming. That is deeply disappointing, and a matter that ministers continue to press alongside our Welsh Government colleagues. Clearly, the Home Office's approach is pushing people into destitution and its impact in Glasgow. Scotland's largest dispersal area is particularly acute. We will again call on the UK Government to recognise the devastating impact of its approach on local authorities, communities and asylum seekers. To ask the Scottish Government when it last met with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to discuss out-of-hours GP services in Inverclyde. Cabinet Secretary Michael Matheson, the Scottish Government engages regularly with Greater Glasgow and Clyde as it does with other health boards on a variety of issues, including the provision of out-of-hours services. Healthcare Improvement Scotland is supporting the health board directly in relation to the service provision in Inverclyde to ensure that quality engagement is taking place around any permanent change to that service. The Scottish Government has been cited on this process. Communities across Inverclyde in my region are deeply concerned about the possibility of permanent reductions to out-of-hours services availability and what that will mean for local communities. I want to pay tribute to local campaigners, local councillors and in particular Mark McClusky for all of their work in pushing the case for the value of the service forward. It marks quite a contrast to the member for Greenock and Inverclyde, who, according to reports from the Greenock Telegraph, has already given up the fight and accepted that his constituents and mine will have to put up with reduced services. Does the cabinet secretary recognise the value and importance of a full out-of-hours service in Inverclyde? Will he listen to local people and their views and deliver more than just a weekend only out-of-hours service, which is what local people deserve? The member will be aware that there has been a full consultation exercise undertaken by Greater Glasgow and Clyde that closed last month, which has presently been analysed by the board. Obviously, Healthcare Improvement Scotland has a clear process in looking at any what may be classed as a major service review. Of course, it is important to recognise that the reintroduction of the part-time service on a Saturday also complements the existing home visiting service, which remains operational throughout the evenings, weekends and overnight. Of course, it is important that, in any decision that has arrived at, the consultation exercise takes into account the concerns and issues that have been raised by the local community during the course of that process. Stuart McMillan It is frustrating that the GP out-of-hours service in Inverclyde is to be limited to Saturdays and public holidays. Having attended one of the health board's public consultations on the service changes, I am aware that just over a third of people from Inverclyde who need to see a GP out-of-hours are given a face-to-face appointment, with the remainder giving either video, telephone or home appointments. I do want to see a full service reinstated to Inverclyde, but not at the extent of losing the A&E, which was very much highlighted at the consultation that I attended. If Mr Rocain was there, he would have heard that. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me that it is important that we consider the full context in which those decisions have been taken and, ultimately, do not mislead the public as some have done in the press by suggesting that Inverclyde does not have a GP out-of-hours service? I recognise the concerns and issues that the member has raised. I have made this point in terms of the services that are available, including the home visiting service, which remains operational throughout evenings, weekends and overnight. It is important that people are not left with the impression that there are no services being available within Inverclyde area. I agree with the member that we would like to see greater coverage of out-of-hours services across greater Glasgow, including in Inverclyde itself. I want to make sure that the process that has been taken forward by the board as part of the consultation exercise is in line with the Healthcare Improvement Scotland guidance on those matters. At the conclusion of that particular exercise, we will have a clearer understanding of what is the most appropriate path to deal with out-of-hours services within Inverclyde area. One of the problems with not having out-of-hours GP services is that people simply will present at A&E adding more pressure to what is already an overstretched department, particularly in Inverclyde Royal hospital, as is the case for our across Scotland. Can the cabinet secretary explain what additional resource support he can offer A&E departments to deal with this influx of patients when there are no other services available? We have to wait to see what the outcome is of the consultation exercise in Inverclyde, but I do not disagree with the point that he is making about the potential impact that it can have on A&E departments if there is no access to out-of-hours services. For example, this winter there was specific work taken in order to make sure that there was greater resilience within out-of-hours services across the country, which has been effective over the course of the last month or two because of the actions that we have taken. Notwithstanding that, I recognise the concerns that he has made, which is why the consultation exercise and outcomes from that are ones that we will look at very closely in terms of the impact that it could have on wider services.