Delivering for Scotland

As the Scottish Government prepares to publish the Programme for Government for 2019-20, people across Scotland are benefitting from the delivery of key policies and commitments as set out in last year’s Programme for Government.

This includes helping low-income families across Scotland through the introduction of three new Best Start Grant Payments, providing financial support during the key early years of a child's life. Since the scheme launched in December 2018, families in Scotland have benefitted from more than 42,000 payments, totalling £12.9 million.

In addition, our most severely injured patients in the North and East of Scotland could benefit from dedicated trauma services thanks to the opening of two new innovative Major Trauma Centres in Dundee and Aberdeen, ensuring people with major injuries have the best chances of a speedy recovery. This is part of the Scottish Trauma Network five-year implementation plan, backed by £10.2 million from the 2018-19 Scottish Budget, followed by £18.2 million in 2019-20.

More than 1500 new electric vehicle charge points have also been installed across homes, businesses and communities in Scotland, including expanding the publicly available ChargePlaceScotland Electric Network to more than 1000 charge points. This is in line with the Scottish Government’s commitment to ensure Scotland ends its contribution to global climate change by 2045 at the latest and the commitment to phase out the need for new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2032.

Other key commitments successfully delivered from last year’s Programme for Government include:

• becoming the first government in the world to fund access to free period products across schools, universities, colleges and wider communities
• delivering 45,633 Baby Boxes in 2018-19 and meeting the overall target of 100,000 Baby Boxes provided to expectant parents since 2017
• increasing the bursaries for care-experienced students in both further and higher education to £8,100 per year
• working with Scottish Development International to support more than 2200 Scottish businesses to trade globally, helping them win over £1.5 billion of orders. This is part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to investing £20 million over the next three years through our export plan “A Trading Nation”
• introducing new domestic abuse laws to tackle coercive control

Speaking ahead of the launch of the Programme for Government 2019-20 Government Business Secretary Michael Russell said:

“The Scottish Government has delivered on key commitments from last year’s Programme for Government, despite the pressures caused by the UK Government’s chaotic handling of Brexit.

“After twelve years in government, we have delivered significant improvements for the people of Scotland and we will continue to work hard every day to make people’s lives better and to boost our economy.

“With a new and ambitious legislative programme set to be introduced in the coming year, our new Programme for Government will demonstrate the huge ambition we have for Scotland and how Scotland can meet the challenges ahead.

“Next week, while we continue our work to protect Scotland from Brexit, the First Minister will set out radical and wide-ranging domestic policies which aim to make Scotland the best country in the world to live in, grow up, work and grow old.”