The Scottish Government Spokesperson welcomed media to the briefing and ran through key events for the week ahead, distributing relevant news releases:
- The SGS informed journalists that Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon would provide an update on the Legionella situation later in the afternoon following a meeting of the Scottish Government Resilience Room.
- Nicola Sturgeon has today announced funding for new air ambulances – a £120m investment in the next generation of made-to-order air ambulances to cover areas across Scotland.
Asked for information regarding air ambulance models, the SGS referred the journalist to the news release issued earlier by the Scottish Ambulance Service.
Later today Capital Investment Minister Alex Neil will announce European funding of £6.7 million for the Technology & Innovation Centre at Strathclyde University. Capital funding of £89 million has already been secured from a range of partners and this is the last piece of the puzzle to enable the project to get off and running.
The university, alongside its industry partners, aims to more than double the scale of research investment from £70 million to more than £150 million over the next five years as well as create up to 500 new, high value research, technology and engineering jobs.
The SGS then ran through the key events for the rest of the week.
Asked if the Racist Incidents Recorded by the Police in Scotland 2010-11 statistics due to be published on Tuesday contain information on religious attacks, the SGS agreed to check with the relevant communications team and inform the journalist.