The Scottish Government is working to deliver the Care Experience Grant which will provide young care experienced people age 16-25 with, additional financial support and security as they move into adulthood; and support their financial wellbeing. This £200 annual grant will benefit around 50,000 young people. Officials are currently engaging with stakeholders and potential partners to identity the best delivery mechanism for the Grant.

In 2021-22 the Scottish Government distributed over £12 million to support the provision of free welfare and debt advice. This vital funding ensures that people who are struggling the most can access the support they need in a way that works for them – be it face to face, online or over the phone. Care leavers and individuals with care experience can access this advice.

Additionally, eligible care leavers can request aftercare from the local authority who had responsibility for providing their care. Aftercare support can include: financial support to meet essential accommodation and maintenance costs, such as travel and other necessary living expenses; information or advice.

As at 28 February 2022 a total of 32 staff earning over £100,000 per annum were employed in Core Scottish Government at a total salary cost of £3,680,537.

We provided £0.5 million to Care and Repair in September 2021 and in response to levels of demand, have provided a further £0.5 million in February 2022. This £1 million funding will enable Care and Repair to support eligible older and disabled households with making the necessary changes. We continue to work closely with Care and Repair to understand how best to support them and their clients.

The latest available data from the Scottish Health Service Costs book shows that for 2019-20 the percentage of NHS expenditure spent on mental health services was 8.49%.

We are working with partners to deliver the 2021-22 Programme for Government commitment to ensure that at least 10% of frontline NHS spend goes towards mental health and 1% goes on child and adolescent services by the end of this Parliament.

I refer the member to the answer given in S6W-05977.

We know since the initial introduction of the Distance Aware initiative, uptake has been good and we have therefore ordered more badges and lanyards and considered additional ways to distribute.

As such we will offer Local Authorities badges and lanyards to distribute on a flexible basis, based on local need. It will be for Local Authorities to decide on distribution channels, but could include testing centres and council buildings, as well as any local community facilities, hubs or stores in rural communities.

In rural, remote and island locations, lateral flow device (LFD) tests can be ordered online or collected from test sites, pharmacies and dispensing GPs. Beyond this, local partners are responsible for choosing where to establish additional LFD community collect points.

In NHS Highland, NHS Orkney, NHS Shetland and NHS Western Isles examples of community collect sites have included vaccination centres, libraries and transport hubs including airports, mainland ferry terminals, bus and railway stations. Partners maintain an up-to-date list of their community collect sites on their websites, which can be found via gov.scot.

We have committed to a significant programme of investment an expansion in universal school meal provision, this programme will see universal free school lunches being made available for all children in primary and special schools during school term-time during the course of this parliamentary term.

As a part of this workstream, we have also committed to piloting approaches to the provision of free school meals in secondary schools during the course of this parliamentary term. We will provide updates on the progress of delivery around our work to establish pilots of universal free school meal provision in secondary schools as this progresses.

The guidance on face coverings in schools was most recently updated on 17 February, and this updated guidance came into force on 28 February. This guidance is available at:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-reducing-the-risks-in-schools/

The removal of the requirement to wear face coverings in secondary school classrooms is a positive milestone which signals the possibility of a brighter future where schools can regain some normality. Pupils and staff who continue to choose to wear face coverings in class will be supported in doing so.

The remaining mitigations in schools, including the wearing of face coverings in communal areas, are being kept under review by the Advisory Sub-group on Education and Children’s Issues to ensure they remain appropriate, proportionate, and in line with wider society wherever possible. As always, we will ensure that all decisions on such mitigations are based upon the best available evidence and expert advice.

As the First Minister set out we are developing a managed transition plan which will ensure that Scotland continues to have a proportionate and effective testing response as we learn to live with COVID. As part of this we are reviewing the groups of individuals who will need to access a COVID test for treatment in line with the latest clinical advice and risk assessments. We will outline our plans later this month.

Under Schedule 1, Part B, Rule 8(1) of the 2009 Act it is for the Parliament to appoint all trustees by resolution on nomination by the SPCB.  The SPCB recently agreed to nominate Gordon MacDonald MSP, Murdo Fraser MSP and Mark Ballard (pensioner trustee) as Fund Trustees of the Scottish Parliamentary Pension Scheme.  The motions for the Parliament to approve the appointment of the above named were moved on Wednesday 9 March 2022.

The following table shows how many school-aged children are in each local authority (as at September 2020) and how many devices have been distributed by councils using the £25m digital inclusion funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21.

Local authorities across Scotland have a range of approaches to provision of technology in schools, including some councils who have undertaken to provide cohorts of their school population with devices using their own budgets. We do not hold information centrally on those approaches, therefore, the following table only shows devices distributed through the funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21.

The Scottish Government are committed to providing a device for every school aged child by the end of this Parliament.