Chamber and committees

In 2020-21, we provided £25 million of funding to councils across Scotland to tackle digital exclusion, resulting in over 72,000 pupils receiving a device to support their learning.

The following table shows the number of devices distributed via that funding, as reported by individual local authorities.

The Scottish Government has made £100,000 available for 2022-23 for tests-of-change to improve care co-ordination for people living with rare diseases.

Our Bridge to a Scottish Genomics Strategy project focused on expanding our genomics capabilities to support the diagnosis and treatment of rare and inherited disease. This was a key programme for government commitment for 2017-18, and £4.2 million was made available to NHS National Services Division over 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21. A further extension of the Bridge was agreed in 202-/22 with a further £2.3 million made available.While the work of the Bridge has concluded, we have announced a significant increase in the genomics budget for 2022-23, rising to £6.2 million. This funding will support the sustainability of the successes from the Bridge as well as expanding our genomics capabilities further into cancer.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government has made available over £600,000 since 2019-20 to Public Health Scotland for the development of the Congenital Anomalies and Rare Diseases Registration and Information Service for Scotland (CARDRISS). A further £169,000 will be provided for 2022-23. The registry will become operational in this financial year. Discussions are ongoing with Public Health Scotland in expanding the registry’s functionality to support our wider endeavours for rare disease.

While the above sets out discreet funding to support those with a rare disease, many of our wider health priorities will equally contribute and deliver improved care for those living with a rare disease.

I refer the member to the answer to questions S6W-08215 and S6W-08217 on 10 May 2022. 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

NHS boards are provided with monthly reports on the activity levels of practices providing NHS activity. We have set out through NHS Boards action plans for those practices with lower levels of activity with the intention of seeing substantial increases from them in the immediate future.

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.