Chamber and committees

Local authorities are distinct corporate bodies whose powers and duties are set out in statute. The Scottish Government does not have a record of how many social work departments have their own policy in place for missing children.

Multi-agency risk assessment and co-ordination is essential to managing risk, responding to and tracking missing children. Local Child Protection Committees should ensure that there are specific and appropriate arrangements in place through policy, guidance, protocols and procedures which are known and implemented by relevant services. Local authority social work departments are a core multi-agency partner. The National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021, which replaced the 2014 guidance, states that each agency needs to develop its own policies and protocols to manage risk and track missing children. These should sit alongside and make reference to the multi-agency Child Protection Committee guidance reflecting that other agencies, for example, Police Scotland, will have to become involved very quickly when a child goes missing.

Alcohol and drug-related harms are important public health issues in Scotland, which is why we established a national mission to improve and save lives. At the core of which is ensuring that every individual is able to access the treatment and recovery they choose.

We are working to ensure people with alcohol use disorder continue to receive the same quality of care as those with drugs misuse. The forthcoming Alcohol Treatment Guidelines will provide support for alcohol treatment, similar to the Medication-Assisted Treatment Standards for drugs. We are also developing alcohol treatment targets alongside Stage Two of the Drugs Targets Implementation in 2024.

We announced £100 million of additional investment to increase the availability of residential rehabilitation, that will benefit people experiencing alcohol and/or drug addiction.

On 06 December 2021, we launched a campaign to address stigma experienced by people with problematic alcohol and drug use. The campaign ran across multiple media platforms.

I have asked the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) to reply.

While information is available for children and young people with additional support needs, neither Scottish Government nor SQA collect specific data on candidates who may have a neuro-divergent diagnosis. The Education (Additional Support for Learning) Act 2004 (as amended) requires education authorities to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils. The provision of additional support is based on need for educational support rather than a diagnosis alone.

Where a school is presenting a candidate with additional support needs for examination, if appropriate, a request can be made to SQA for a reasonable adjustment, such as additional time or a scribe. The requests from centres do not require or provide any detail on the range of additional support needs or disabilities that learners have.

The Scottish Government welcomed the publication of this report and is considering its conclusions and any actions to be taken, whether nationally or locally, as a result of the research findings. In particular, the information will inform our ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic in areas such as antenatal education, telecare and visiting.

We published our maternity and neonatal visiting guidance Coronavirus (COVID-19): hospital visiting guidance - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) which aligns with wider NHS guidance and the lifting of restrictions, and includes advice on partner and sibling visiting.

Enforcement of legislation around the sale and purchase of NVP's is carried out by Local Authorities as part of the ETSEP (Enhanced Tobacco (and NVP) Sales Enforcement Programme) overseen by The Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland (SCOTSS), and funded by the Scottish Government. These activities in relation to this are reported annually to the Scottish Government with figures provided on a national basis.

The following table shows verified sales of NVPs to under 18s, following test purchase failures during trading standards activity over the past five financial years.

In the five financial years from 2017-18 to 2021-22, the Scottish Government provided a total of £330,500 in grant funding to the Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET) for the purposes of their programme of school farm visits and associated educational resources for schools.

These grants are applied for and awarded on an annual basis. It is therefore not possible at this time to estimate accurately how much might be provided in funding over the next five financial years.

The Scottish Government does not facilitate any forums or roundtables for self-employed inventors. We are working with industry and key stakeholders to develop a new innovation strategy to ensure businesses, people and institutions are ready to meet the challenges and opportunities we face over the next 10 years. We will ensure the support we provide is easy to access and focused on areas of greatest opportunity to meet our vision in becoming a world leading, innovation nation.

The Pursuer Panel is a group of lawyers with expertise in dealing with professional negligence claims, and in particular claims against solicitors. About half of the firms represented are registered to carry out civil legal aid, but whether or not the lawyers take on legal aid cases is a matter for them. The Scottish Government cannot compel solicitors to provide advice. Funding is available under the civil advice and assistance scheme for applicants to consult solicitors to get advice on professional negligence. Civil legal aid fees have risen by 10.25% in the last 12 months. There is also funding available for any necessary reports to be obtained to allow the solicitor to confirm whether or not the test for professional negligence is met. Where there is evidence of negligence civil legal aid is available for professional negligence cases, including actions against solicitors. There are other solicitors who may take on this work outside the Pursuer Panel.

As part of our recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, we are reassessing all our priorities to take a systematic, person-centred approach to planning and delivering health and social care services for the people of Scotland.

As we go through a process of realignment, we are taking time to ensure all our strategies are designed around the people using and delivering health and social care services and working together to improve health outcomes. This is even more pertinent for those living with a rare disease.While we expected to publish our Action Plan in the spring, the Rare Disease Action Plan will now be published once this work is complete to ensure maximum impact for the people who need it. This will result in a stronger, interlinked action plan that has a real impact for people with a rare disease.

We will continue to work with Scotland’s Rare Disease Implementation Board and other key partners to progress work that will improve the lives of people in Scotland living with rare diseases.

The act of drink spiking is utterly abhorrent and the Scottish Government remains absolutely committed to continue working with partners to tackle this unacceptable behaviour. Police Scotland have recorded over 492 crimes of ‘Drugging’ and ‘Administering a substance for sexual purposes’, since October 2021, and continue to work closely with Scottish Government to monitor the situation. These can be broken down as follows: