Chamber and committees

Sheriff Jack Brown is subject to ongoing Fitness for Judicial Office Tribunal proceedings. Under Section 23(6) of the Court Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, Scottish Ministers are obliged to pay such expenses as they consider are reasonably required to be incurred to enable a tribunal to carry out its functions. The Scottish Government will publish costs of the tribunal at the conclusion of the proceedings.

The campaign aims to achieve the following objectives among the target audience by the end of the campaign period:

• To deliver 40% prompted campaign recognition.
• To achieve 30% of campaign recognisers claiming to have taken any action as a result of seeing the campaign (including liking/sharing campaign content, talking about the campaign with friend, communicate with a child/teenager about health impact of vaping).
• To deliver an increase in the number of parents / carers who have spoken to their child about the risks of vaping in the last two months.

The Take Hold marketing campaign runs in paid-for-media from the 22 November 2023 until 7 January 2024.

The Scottish Government (SG) is clear that tackling alcohol related harm remains a key public health priority, including in relation to children and young people. To assess trends on an ongoing basis a number of sources are considered, including this SG report and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). The SG continues to utilise, and further develop, public health surveillance data to better understand drug and alcohol trends, particularly amongst younger people.

The 2018 Alcohol Framework sets out the SG's commitment to put the voice of children and young people at the heart of developing preventive measures on alcohol harm. In line with this specific engagement, projects with children and young people have been undertaken in the development of both the continuation and new level of MUP and the public consultation on potential measures to restrict alcohol advertising and promotion in Scotland. In addition to this the SG is investing £1.5 million in Planet Youth, sometimes referred to as the Icelandic Model, which is an evidence based model for substance use prevention.

This information is not held centrally.

My officials engage with the pharmaceutical industry on a range of matters, including the development of new medicines, and keep me updated as required.

The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer last met with Vertex Pharmaceuticals on 6 December 2023 and continued to impress upon them the importance of offering a revised price to address the concern that the current price of the cystic fibrosis (CF) medicines covered by the multiple technology appraisal (MTA) exceeds what the NHS would consider reasonable. She also discussed the ongoing availability of clinical trial CF medicines, including when a trial is stopped.

Scottish Government officials were notified about this matter by the Scottish Police Authority on the 1st November 2023. This was for information only as the governance and scrutiny of Police Scotland is for the Authority and not Ministers. No engagement with Police Scotland was required.

The Chair of the Authority has discussed this with the Chief Constable, who has apologised, and the SPA now considers the matter closed.

With regard to the assistance being provided to Police Scotland by Durham Constabulary, while this is an operational matter for the Chief Constable, it is good practice for police organisations to share their knowledge and experience. Police Scotland routinely collaborates and works in partnership with police forces across the UK, and beyond.

As part of the annual Homelessness in Scotland publication, the Scottish Government releases national statistics on the number of households assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness by former armed forces status. Table T22 in the main tables, in the supporting documents of the most recent publication, provides data from 2018-19 to 2022-23. These statistics are available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/homelessness-in-scotland-2022-23/

Additional statistics about veteran homelessness in Scotland, including the number of homelessness applications by former armed forces status, is available here:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/homelessness-in-scotland-veteran-homelessness/

Note, these figures have been rounded to the nearest 5 for disclosure control purposes and totals may not sum due to rounding.

The Scottish Government has carried out extensive work in collaboration with key organisations in the health and social care sector to scope the role and remit of a Coming Home National Support Panel that will provide genuine oversight and support to local areas in relation to the Coming Home agenda.

We are considering how the Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill may provide opportunity to strengthen this work on the Coming Home programme, in particular the recommendation to establish a National Support Panel. A public consultation will launch by the end of 2023.

The Scottish Government does not hold information which breaks down the staff cost, or staff time, that was committed to the delivery of the Fairer Council Tax Consultation.

The Council Tax Team and Local Taxation Unit, and analysts that supported the delivery of the consultation, work across a number of aspects of Local Tax policy and their time cannot be disaggregated from other demands. Approximately nine members of staff contributed to this work.