Chamber and committees

There is ongoing engagement with the Nordic countries on a wide variety of policy issues which deliver against the commitments in Scotland’s International Strategy and the Scottish Government’s Priorities for Scotland. For example: officials are working to develop opportunities for policy learning and exchange with Sweden on forestry and peatland restoration, while collaboration with Denmark is proving pivotal to informing the Scottish Government’s approach to digitisation and health reform. Scottish Government officials benefit from working closely with colleagues from Scottish Development International, who are based in the Nordic Office. Integrated working between the two teams has led to the first Space Scotland Summit which can be linked to £2 million of exports.

Given the pace of change and developments in the digital landscape, the SPCB reviews its communications channels on an ongoing basis. Considerations include extent of reach and levels of effective audience engagement, ethical considerations linked to impartiality, and effective use of resources. Content strategies and how channels are managed are reviewed and adapted regularly. Given the need for us to provide impartial services, decisions on whether the Corporate Body remains active on a channel or not are informed by data and evidence. While recent changes to X and developments are being monitored, the Parliament does not have immediate plans to stop using it. Our combined following on this channel is over 245,000, and we still therefore consider it to be a viable channel for us in terms of our ability to reach a mass audience quickly and to raise awareness of the work of the Parliament.

As well as X, the Parliament has a presence on a range of other digital channels including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.  It also has a presence on Threads and is planning to run a 6-month pilot on Bluesky. Bluesky is a relatively new social media channel that looks and feels very much like X but is based on a very different operating model. During the pilot we will be increasing our understanding of this emerging platform and exploring its potential for public engagement. At the same time, we will also be monitoring how the more recent changes introduced at Meta might impact on how we use Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

(a) As set out on 22 January 2024 in response to question S6W-24720, the Scottish Government has established an Expert Group to lead on scoping work to consider and provide recommendations on how Scotland will work towards reaching the targets set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to eliminate Cervical Cancer.

As well as the Expert Group itself, three subgroups have been established to support the Expert Group in considering and analysing data on specific topics (vaccination, screening and cancer treatment).

The sub groups held inaugural meetings in September, and discussions are ongoing to inform recommendations on how Scotland will progress towards Cervical Cancer elimination and when this could potentially be achieved. These recommendations will be considered by the Scottish Government.

(b) The Scottish Government recognises the importance of HPV vaccination and screening.

(i) The latest published HPV vaccination uptake data from PHS shows that pupils living in the most deprived quintiles had lower coverage of the HPV vaccine compared with pupils from the least deprived areas. We are working with Public Health Scotland (PHS) and territorial Health Boards to consider what further actions can be taken to increase vaccination uptake, support those eligible for vaccination, and to address any inequalities in accessing immunisation services. Reducing vaccine inequalities is one of the three primary objectives in PHS’s recently published Scotland's 5-Year Vaccination and Immunisation Framework and Delivery Plan.

Completion of consent forms is required to participate in school vaccination programmes. We therefore welcome the return of the PHS marketing campaign, “chat.sign.protect”, which builds on the messages of last year’s campaign to raise awareness of vaccines offered in secondary school and encourage an increase in the numbers of parents and young people giving consent to be vaccinated.

Timed to coincide with the distribution of informed consent materials to young people, the campaign aims to increase understanding of why these vaccines are important, and the seriousness of the diseases they protect against, and encourages parents and carers to take action and sign consent forms to ensure our young people receive the protection offered by immunisation.

Addressing the inequalities in HPV uptake and maximising the opportunities for young people to receive the vaccine is a primary focus of the Cervical Cancer elimination work.

(ii) The Equity in Screening Strategy, combined with an action plan, was published on 27th July 2023. The vision of the strategy is for access for all eligible individuals, across the full screening pathway. The Strategy launched alongside the Equity in Screening Network which supports the strategy by capturing local and third sector research activity and allows individuals that work across screening to share evidence, best practice and learning around screening inequalities.

Several national projects are being supported by the Inequalities Fund of £1 million. This includes changes to national IT systems to improve engagement with participants. Research and learning from past projects has shown some ways to increase access to screening and uptake, including appointment reminders and targeted follow-up with non-responders.

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

The Scottish Government is currently working on a National Treatment Specification for Alcohol and Drug Treatment in Scotland.

This document will be informed by numerous sources including the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment and the recently published Public Health Scotland review into Alcohol Brief Interventions as well as key independent reports such as Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP) report, Exploring the delivery of alcohol-related health advice in dental practice settings: A scoping review.

Officials will work closely with colleagues within Primary Care including the team of the Chief Dental Officer to ensure that the National Treatment Specification fully reflects the importance of dentistry as an integral part of Scotland’s alcohol treatment provision.

The Scottish Government is currently working on a National Treatment Specification for Alcohol and Drug Treatment in Scotland.

This document will be informed by numerous sources including the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment and the recently published Public Health Scotland review into Alcohol Brief Interventions as well as key independent reports such as Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP) report, Exploring the delivery of alcohol-related health advice in dental practice settings: A scoping review.

Officials will work closely with colleagues within Primary Care including the team of the Chief Dental Officer to ensure that the National Treatment Specification fully reflects the importance of dentistry as an integral part of Scotland’s alcohol treatment provision.

In 2025-26 we are providing £37 million resource to support the expansion of free school meals to pupils in Primary 6 and 7 in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment. Agreement to the budget from parties across this Chamber will ensure this work continues.

The Scottish Government has prioritised this work to maximise the benefit to those in low-income households.

We are continuing work with local authorities to understand what a pilot proposal for provision in secondary schools might look like.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

As our national skills body Skills Development Scotland (SDS) publish high level statistical information relating to completion of apprenticeships. You can find this information within the following links

• Skills Development Scotland - Modern Apprenticeships statistics
• Skills Development Scotland - Modern Apprenticeships statistics - published 23 May 2023
• Skills Development Scotland - Modern Apprenticeship statistics - published 21 May 2024

Land and nature apprenticeships fall into a range of occupational groupings. I have asked the Chief Executive of SDS, to write to you on this matter.

The Scottish Government recognises the gradual reduction of alcohol-related hospital admissions over the past decade and is working closely with Public Health Scotland, local services and other stakeholders to ensure the reasons behind the gradual reduction are factored in to service provision.

The Scottish Government and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) are committed to ensuring the safety of firefighters. In the draft budget for 2025-26, the Scottish Government will provide SFRS with an additional £18.8 million, which includes £4 million extra Capital funding to enable SFRS to continue to improve facilities for firefighters.

The SFRS Contaminants Group continues to make progress in improving processes and procedures and in December 2024 SFRS announced investment of £3.2 million in additional sets of firefighting personal protective equipment so that clothing can be thoroughly cleaned more often. The Service is also making significant capital investment in the refurbishment of stations, which will help to reduce prolonged exposure to fire contaminants.

SFRS has an ongoing innovation project related to fire contaminants in progress, this as part of Scottish Government CivTech programme. CivTech is a Scottish Government innovation accelerator programme that brings public and private sector organisations together to identify and work on innovation projects. The project is working to identify ways to track fire fighter exposure to contaminants and improve health monitoring.

In February 2023 the Scottish Government was made aware of an escape of approximately 80,000 fish during transport. The fish originated from Loch Shin and were loaded at Lochinver; the loss occurred en route to Orkney.

No formal assessment of the impact was made by the Scottish Government or its bodies as the incident took place during transport. The regulatory framework requires the circumstances which give rise to a significant risk of escape or actual escape of fish on or in the vicinity of a fish farm to be reported under the Aquatic Animal Health Regulations (Scotland) 2009 as amended. As drafted, the regulations do not require losses during transportation, which are less common, to be reported, although businesses often do as it is good practice.

The transporter involved in the incident has taken action to prevent similar events in future.