Chamber and committees

The Charter for Grandchildren aims to highlight the role of the wider family. The Charter is available at the link below:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/parenting-plan-charter-grandchildren/ .

In the Family Justice Modernisation Strategy (FJMS) the Scottish Government committed to promote the Charter for Grandchildren. The FJMS is available at the link below:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/family-justice-modernisation-strategy/pages/1/ .

The Scottish Government is reviewing the actions in the FJMS and will consider prioritising work to promote the Charter for Grandchildren following delays during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The steps the Scottish Government intends to take to promote the Charter include engaging with key bodies to raise awareness and ensuring information on the Charter is more widely available.

Further to the answer to question S6W-02449 which provided information on the number of people who attended an abdominal aortic aneurysm screening appointment between January 2019 and July 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers The following table provides information on the number of people who attended an abdominal aortic aneurysm screening in each of the months that followed from August 2021 to June 2022.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the newborn hearing test and newborn infant physical examination. These would need to be requested from health boards directly.

Further to the answer to question S6W-02448 which provided information on the number of babies screened using the bloodspot test in the newborn screening programme for each month between January 2019 and July 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers . The following table provides information on the number of babies screened using the bloodspot test in the newborn screening programme, for each month in the period that followed from August 2021 to June 2022:

Official statistics from our national skills agency, Skills Development Scotland show that there were 26 Modern Apprentice (MA) Starts, in the 16-19 age grouping, who were recorded as having a hearing impairment and were recorded as being school pupils prior to commencing their apprenticeship. This data covers MA starts from 1 September 2020 to 31 March 2022 and further apprenticeship data will be available when the Quarter 1 2022-23 report is published, which is expected in August 2022. These figures are on the basis of self-declaration and therefore may be higher than this.

International science collaboration is vital in both supporting Scotland’s own research and innovation, and in ensuring Scottish expertise contributes to international research addressing global challenges such as the climate and biodiversity crises. Satellite information, including Earth Observation data, is a key resource that underpins this research, and processing it is one of the many strengths of the Scottish space sector. Over the period 2018-2021, the European Commission and European Space Agency provided 8% and 29%, respectively, of Research and Development funding for Scottish Space Companies. Maintaining access to European Programmes such as Copernicus is therefore extremely important to both Scotland’s industry and academic institutes and to the international science community as a whole.

Whilst the Copernicus Climate Change Service has an open data policy meaning data produced by it will therefore remain freely available to UK users, until an agreement on UK participation in Copernicus is finalised, the UK will not be able to participate in the parts of the Copernicus programme that are open only to EU member states. For example, UK-based businesses, academics and researchers will not be able to bid for Copernicus contracts tendered through the EU, funded through the EU’s Multi-annual Financial Framework or through any process using EU procurement rules after December 2020.

UK organisations could previously bid for Copernicus contracts tendered through ECMWF and Mercator Ocean. Until the Copernicus agreement is implemented, UK organisations cannot bid for Copernicus Services contracts except in exceptional circumstances that need to be justified to the European Commission.

The Scottish Government therefore strongly supports the UK’s continued involvement in EU programmes such as Copernicus and continues to liaise with the UK Government on EU programmes to reiterate the impacts of the continued delays.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the mental health of women and girls with autism and to this end we work with and support autism charities, including the Autistic Persons Organisation Scottish Women’s Autism Network (SWAN). Our Toward Transformation plan published March 2021 and Mental Health Transition and Recovery Plan published in October 2020 both reflect this.

Lived experience sits at the heart of our new leadership and engagement work and is threaded through all of our processes. This empowers autistic people and people with learning disabilities to be leaders in transforming policy in Scotland by bringing them together with people who are responsible for providing services nationally and locally.

Workshops have taken place to discuss the Mental Health experiences and needs of autistic people, including autistic women’s experiences of mental health. These views will be fed into national workshops in the coming months, where solutions will be discussed to improve the lives of autistic people and people with learning disabilities.

The Scottish Government does not hold national data for infectious diseases screening, antenatal haemoglobinopathies screening, or foetal anomaly ultrasound examinations within the pregnancy screening programme. These can be requested directly from individual NHS boards.

Further to the answer to question S6W-02453 which provided information on the number of trisomy screens taken between January 2019 and June 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers The following table provides information on the number of trisomy screens taken each month in the period which followed from July 2021 to June 2022:

As the programme managers and project owners, the details of any such exercises lie with Sustrans and City of Edinburgh Council (CEC). We understand that a value engineering exercise was undertaken by CEC and Sustrans in view of escalating cost pressures and timescales for several Places for Everyone projects. Places for Everyone is an active travel infrastructure programme run and programme managed by Sustrans with grant funding from Transport Scotland.

Spending on active travel will increase throughout Scotland as we realise the Programme for Government commitment to increase the active travel budget to at least £320 million or 10% of the transport budget from 2024-25 onwards. The detail of how that significant increase in investment will apply in different local authority areas is still to be determined.

The Scottish Government supports all local authorities to deliver active travel through a variety of programmes including several run by third sector partners which local authorities can bid into and two direct funds – a LA resource fund of £2 million and a capital fund of £35 million (Cycling Walking and Safer Streets) both distributed pro rata this year across all 32 local authorities.

Cabinet last met on 28 June 2022 in Bute House, Edinburgh. The programme of travelling Cabinets was paused as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and there are currently no Cabinet meetings planned in the Highlands and Islands region.