As I mentioned during the Scottish Government’s response at the debate on 26 June 2025 to Motion S6M-17969: Action to Address the Impact of Gulls in Scotland, I will chair a summit in Inverness later this year.

The Scottish Government is currently working closely with NatureScot on the agenda and final arrangements for the session, including the attendee list. The summit will focus on bringing together those who are managing gulls effectively with those who are facing the most negative impacts of gulls to address the question of how we can mitigate the negative impacts going forward and the actions we need to take ahead of next year.

In addition to the £106 million targeted investment announced in May 2025 to address at the longest waits, the Government has now committed a further £4 million to deliver extra dermatology activity, bringing total additional funding for this year to over £110 million.

The additional dermatology funding was allocated to the three NHS Boards with the largest volumes of long waits and is broken down as follows:

The Scottish Government has allocated over £2.5 million to NHS Lothian for dermatology services and is currently working with the Board to develop a plan to support further reductions to the waiting list backlog.

The activity supported by the additional £2.5 million investment will require a lead-in period for full implementation; therefore, it is too early to observe a noticeable difference to waiting times at this stage.

The Accountant in Bankruptcy (AiB) publishes the number of bankruptcies by local authority area in the Annual Scottish Statutory Debt Solutions statistics publication. The latest available data for the April 2023 – March 2024 are available here: Scottish Statutory Debt Solution Statistics 2023-24: Comprehensive Excel Tables | Accountant in Bankruptcy the number of bankruptcies by local authority are on the sheet labelled Table_la_2a.

The 2024-25 publication is due for release on the 27 August 2025 where these figures will be updated.

GPs do not require “extended resources” to provide NHS prescriptions following a private diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. GPs are contracted and resourced to provide appropriate ongoing treatment and care to all their patients taking account of their specific needs.

GPs should use their own judgement about what treatment is appropriate for patients who have a private diagnosis of any condition.

In January 2025, the Scottish Government provided updated guidance to support preparation of Housing Land Audits (HLAs). HLAs, prepared by planning authorities, monitor information on past housing completions and future programming of new homes.

The HLA guidance includes a template spreadsheet to support consistent implementation. The template includes:

• The planning status: no consent, pre- application, pending decision, refused, under appeal, consented.
• The type of approval issued (to mitigate the risk of double counting): planning permission (PP), planning permission in principle (PPiP), and approval of matters specified in conditions (AMSC).
• Construction status and when commenced.
• Site capacity: total capacity in the local development plan updated to total capacity of the planning permission when available, and then the remaining capacity of sites when under construction.

The HLA should include both completions and programming information for small sites. For consistency, the guidance considers developments of 1-3 homes to be small sites. Given the nature of housing delivery in island and some rural areas, where there is likely to be a significant number of small sites, flexibility in the approach to small sites for the HLA may be appropriate, as determined by the planning authority.

The guidance outlines flexibility for the planning authority to undertake additional data checking, to remove the double counting of replacement houses, to improve robustness of information and corroborate completion calculations.

The Scottish Government uses existing, publicly available information collated by planning authorities in Housing Land Audits (HLA) that monitor past housing completions and future programming of new homes.

In January 2025, the Scottish Government updated guidance to support preparation of HLAs and improve consistency in data collection. The HLA guidance was published alongside a template spreadsheet, which supports inclusion of information on site planning status and capacity.

The Scottish Government has a subscription to Glenigan, which is also used to inform policy development as appropriate.

The development of a Scottish Government Mobile App is a Digital Public Services commitment within the Government's Public Service Reform Strategy published in June 2025.

One or two services will be available via the proposed App as an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) before 1 April 2026.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people receive a broad, inclusive, and supportive education that meets their individual needs. Within Curriculum for Excellence, health and wellbeing is a key area of learning and a shared responsibility across the school community.

While the Experiences and Outcomes within Health and Wellbeing and Science currently do not refer explicitly to chronic illnesses, they do provide a framework for exploring the impact of health and wellbeing on learning, resilience, and quality of life. Schools are encouraged to tailor this learning to reflect the needs and experiences of their learners, including increasing awareness and understanding of long-term health conditions where appropriate.

Support for children and young people living with chronic illness is addressed through wider inclusive practices, including the Additional Support for Learning framework and Getting It Right for Every Child (GIRFEC). These policies ensure that individual health needs can be considered through personalised support planning and whole-school approaches to wellbeing.

The Scottish Government does not collect any data on the number of homes granted planning permission outside of any statistics that are published, reflecting an open and transparent approach.

Planning authorities monitor information on past housing completions and future programming of new homes through the Housing Land Audit (HLA) process. The Scottish Government uses this existing, publicly available information for the number of homes granted planning permission.