Social Security Scotland posted on its Twitter and Facebook accounts to raise awareness of Winter Heating Payment. There has been no spend to date on Winter Heating Payment advertising through social media channels. This will be part of further advertising planned for early this year. Social Security Scotland's budget breakdown by channel is still to be confirmed and will be based on insight, taking advice from their media buying agency.

From 16 August 2023 SEPA will become the enforcement authority for the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland and as part of this will carry out audits, inspections and enforcement activity in relation to the obligations and offences contained within the regulations. Staff have been allocated accordingly.

SEPA is not empowered to investigate and report instances of fraud, but they have a close working relationship with Police Scotland who are the competent authority for this sort of criminality.

The transparent, evidence-based review of the A96 corridor has included a public consultation which received an unprecedented level of engagement, with approximately 4,600 responses, generating more than 11,000 suggestions and potential opportunities for the route.

Given the sheer volume of responses received and the high level of options generated, it has rightly taken Transport Scotland more time than originally anticipated to examine and appraise all these options. However, we have now reported on the Public Consultation and the Initial Appraisal, which were published on 22 December 2022.

Transport Scotland is now pushing forward with the next phase of further detailed work to inform the remaining stages of the Review. These include a robust appraisal of the retained options alongside a Climate Compatibility Assessment, with outcomes expected to be announced in the first half of 2023 for final public consultation, before a final decision on the route can be reached.

National Procurement (NP), part of NHS National Services Scotland (NSS), with representation from Health Boards, have regular performance management meetings with homecare providers to review key performance metrics and to agree and track progress against recovery plans.

Where a particular provider is experiencing service disruption, Health Boards will seek to register patients, where feasible, with alternative providers to help reduce demand on the affected provider. A challenge over the past year has been that multiple providers have experienced staffing issues which has created market-wide capacity constraints.

The New Scots refugee integration strategy is built on partnership and collaboration, led by the Scottish Government, COSLA and the Scottish Refugee Council, and involves a wide range of partners across different sectors.

The Scottish Government funds a number of organisations for work supporting refugee integration, currently through the Connected Communities budget. This funding has totalled £940,000 a year since 2017-18. The Scottish Government takes an inclusive approach with wider work across a range of policy areas also supporting integration and the aims of the New Scots strategy.

In August 2020, the New Scots partnership secured funding of £5 million from the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) for the New Scots Refugee Integration Delivery Project (NSRIDP) to enhance the delivery of the New Scots refugee integration strategy until December 2022. This included 10% match funding (£500,000) from Scottish Government.

The New Scots refugee integration strategy is built on partnership and collaboration, led by the Scottish Government, COSLA and the Scottish Refugee Council, and involves a wide range of partners across different sectors.

The development of an ‘exit pack’ for newly recognised refugees is an action under the Housing theme of the New Scots refugee integration strategy 2018-22.

The COVID-19 pandemic and work to support people arriving from Afghanistan and Ukraine have impacted delivery of the strategy and meant that this action has not been taken forward as planned. However, the Scottish Government has published a Welcome Pack for New Scots, which includes information on housing. It can be viewed at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/welcome-pack-new-scots/pages/1/

The Scottish Government works closely with relevant third sector organisations at a policy and communication level when developing public health messaging. Charities across Scotland are invited to disseminate vital public health messages via relevant charity outreach and platforms.

No specific strategy is in place to help charities share public health messages on government social media feeds. Any request from a charity for information to be shared on Scottish Government social media feeds is reviewed on a case by case basis by relevant officials across policy and communications.

There has been no new assessment into the possibility of material switching in light of the recently published producer fees.

The Scottish Government is delivering a digital identity service which aims to improve people’s access to digital public services by providing them with a safe, secure, easy and reusable way to prove who they are or that they are eligible for a public service. We are working in partnership with Disclosure Scotland to launch a private Beta (a live trial involving the first applicants to access the service) early this year. This will include:

• The ScotAccount secure sign on which will enable users to use one account to securely log in to a variety of public services, using an email address, password, and two-factor authentication codes via text message.

• The Verify Your Identity feature, which people can use to confirm their identity to a public service, using official documents (initially a passport, UK driving licence, or UK biometric residence permit).

Following the private Beta launch, further developments planned for later this year will include adding other methods for two-factor authentication and identity verification; and work to add an attribute store, which will provide users with a choice to reuse verified personal information to apply for other services.

The safety and wellbeing of all fire and rescue officers is of upmost importance to the Scottish Government.

We will continue to support SFRS in its partnership work with the Fire Brigades Union and Professor Anna Stec to build on the existing work of their dedicated Contaminants Group.

The Scottish Government will carefully consider any related proposals from the FBU or SFRS as a result of this important research.