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At its heart, AI is the leveraging of advanced digital technology using large data sets, and we are treating AI with the same rigour as any other new technology or innovation. As such, its use comes under existing digital and data governance mechanisms. At a national level, the Scottish Government, with its partners COSLA, have established a new Strategic Leadership Board for Digital and Data Transformation.

This Leadership Board is supported by a number of sub-boards, including a dedicated Data Board for Health & Social Care. Through this new national governance, we will continue to work towards embedding greater use of digital and data driven innovations across health and social care (including ensuring necessary support is in place for skills and training), consider what capabilities, processes and procedures are required at a local level to support adoption and therefore assess what additional mechanisms may be required nationally.

Last year, Scottish Enterprise (SE), working with Innovate UK, invested £15m to establish the state-of-the-art Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre. The facility works with a range of partners in the pharmaceutical industry to conduct research and development, creating leading edge solutions for the manufacture of medicines.

In addition, just a few weeks ago, SE committed around £10m to support the creation of a new oligonucleotides manufacturing innovation centre, that will help pharmaceutical companies to undertake critical phase I and phase II trials to manufacture these highly effective new medicines.

In combination, these centres establish Scotland as a key player in the rapidly growing advanced manufacturing sector and we expect that they will act as a powerful magnet for inward investment and the creation of highly skilled jobs. This is already producing results e.g. Valneva will manufacture its world-first vaccine for the mosquito-bourne Chickungunya virus, in its new manufacturing facility in Livingston.

The Marine Directorate is responsible for the operation of the Scottish Government's Marine Protection Vessels. It operates 3 larger vessels and 2 inshore fast patrol vessels. No marine assets are dedicated to a particular area, instead, tasking is determined using a risk based procedure which, considers intelligence, likelihood, and impact of an activity on the marine environment and fishery resources.

The Scottish Government has a compliment of 2 warranted officers in Oban, 2 in Campbeltown and 4 in Ayr. Secondment records for the period requested are not retained, any secondment would be as a response to risk level and business need. In addition our Marine Protection Vessels carry warranted officers, these assets are regularly deployed to the Clyde area.

The Scottish Government and COSLA have today published a progress report on the development of a Fiscal Framework between the Scottish Government and Local Government. The document can be accessed on the Scottish Government website at the following link :

The report shows that while negotiations continue, we have jointly made good progress on a number of aspects of the framework and have already put these into practice, including improved pre-budget engagement and meaningful discussion about new fiscal levers.

In response to (a):

Table 1 shows the number of people admitted to hospital as an inpatient or day case as a result of paracetamol poisoning, which includes overdose. Note that these figures include overdoses that were coded as accidental, intentional and of undetermined intent.

Table 1: Number of people admitted to hospital for paracetamol poisoning

Procurements that are subject to the application of international trade rules are governed by general principles of non-discrimination, equal treatment, transparency and proportionality. To require that the location of manufacturing of advanced medicines or medicinal products is taken into account would need to have a very clear justification.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) provides advice to NHS Scotland on a ‘once for Scotland’ basis about the value for patients of newly licensed medicines, including innovative cell and gene therapies such as one-off gene-edited treatments for debilitating inherited conditions.

For example, in 2021, the SMC was the first health technology appraisal body in the UK to accept a gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy. This ensures that NHS patients have equal access to innovative medicines that are clinically and cost-effective. The SMC has a transparent and robust process that is fully described on its website.

In Scotland, the (SMC) appraises the clinical and cost-effectiveness of newly licensed medicines. The SMC has a transparent and robust process that is fully described on its website. It is worth noting that any SMC appraisal is undertaken independently of Scottish Ministers and is based on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a medicine at a population level.

The SMC’s process allows companies to present a cost-effectiveness case which sets out the predicted health benefits of their treatment (including one-off treatments) over a person’s lifetime, and the SMC’s assessments follow standard methodology for such calculations. In addition, in the assessment of innovative medicines for rare conditions (including gene-edited precision medicines where a single treatment may have lifelong benefit), the SMC process involves additional flexibilities as outlined on its website. By way of an example, in 2021, the SMC was the first health technology appraisal body in the UK to accept a one-off gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy.

The mailbox provides a holding area for email messages that are automatically identified as potentially harmful (e.g., potential phishing and malware messages). 

The IT Helpdesk initially sent out emails to all users to raise awareness of the Junk and Quarantine storage areas when it was introduced and most recently in 2020.  Since then, the screens at the BIT Engagement desk at Holyrood have been used to remind Members about the existence of the Quarantine area, and staff have been available to offer advice and assistance on accessing the folder.

Staff in the BIT Office are currently investigating a means of more actively alerting Members and other users of the email system to any quarantined email messages.  The alerts will take the form of a weekly roundup email reminding users to release or delete items as appropriate.