Chamber and committees

In line with statutory duties, annual reports on climate adaptation are laid in Parliament every May setting out progress made towards implementing climate adaptation objectives, proposals and policies. Twice every 5 years, Ministers also commission the UK Climate Change Committee to provide an independent assessment of progress on adaptation in Scotland.

To strengthen the existing monitoring and evaluation framework for climate adaptation, the Scottish Government has committed to identifying indicators that can assist with more effective monitoring of progress to the outcomes of the next Scottish National Adaptation Plan (SNAP3).

The Scottish Government is advised on food safety and standards matters by Food Standards Scotland (FSS). They have advised that in August 2023, they contacted a range of interested parties to seek initial views on the proposed changes at EU level. This included eleven trade associations and honey producers along with the 32 Scottish Local authorities. FSS included a statement in the letter issued stating that stakeholder data would be anonymised, and we are therefore unable to disclose the specific details of the businesses included for data protection reasons. Responses are currently being considered and this will help inform policy thinking ahead of a review of the domestic honey regulations and working with the other departments with food labelling and composition standards responsibilities across the UK.

The timescale for delivery of the commitment to reduce class contact time for teachers by 90 minutes per week is by the end of the current Parliamentary term.

We continue to work with the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers on how we can best progress this commitment.

The Scottish Government is advised on food safety and standards matters by Food Standards Scotland (FSS). They have advised that stakeholders were consulted in 2019 on the Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2015, to ensure the regulations remained operable and effective after the UK had left the EU. This included a specific focus on proposed changes to how country of origin would be labelled after the UK left the EU. The views of stakeholders including Scottish honey producers were considered to ensure the rules remained relevant in Scotland.

FSS notes Mr Burnett’s interest in this area and would welcome the opportunity to meet with him if he would find that helpful.

In line with the normal budget processes the Scottish Government is engaging regularly with the Scottish Funding Council on preparation for the 2024-25 Budget. This engagement will continue with the Scottish Funding Council and the sector to ensure we put the needs of learners first.

To ensure that people get the financial support that they are entitled to as quickly as possible, adult disability benefit applications from people with a terminal illness in Scotland are fast-tracked. We also ensure that those who are terminally ill automatically receive the highest rates of assistance that they are entitled to, with no award reviews. They are eligible for this support straight away, with no qualifying period.

The new palliative care strategy will seek to understand and respond to the social determinants of people’s experiences towards the end of life, including financial insecurity and housing.

The Scottish Government believes that every child should be given the opportunity to learn to swim, it is a life skill that can save lives.

While the Active Lives Survey relates to England only, we recognise that children living in areas of deprivation may be less likely to be able to swim. We have been working with Scottish Swimming, Education Scotland, sportscotland and Scottish Water to develop interventions and approaches to provide opportunities for children to become confident, safer and competent swimmers. Inclusion has been central to the approach and there is a specific focus on targeting areas within quintile 1 of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. Four Delivery Pilots have taken place to support schools to understand and consider different approaches on how best to support young people to access school swimming. An evaluation, available here , has been published and we will work with Scottish Swimming and sportscotland to utilise the learning from these pilots to consider the best approach for a continued roll out of a national framework for school swimming.

Our Water Safety action plan which focuses on key initiatives to improve education, data, local area water safety planning and incident reviews, was updated in June 2023.

Net mental health expenditure is published on the Public Health Scotland website Scottish health service costs under data files mental health expenditure Excel workbook . This information is available for financial years 2011-12 to 2021-22 for each NHS Board in Scotland, split by various types of expenditure including Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). Please note that expenditure data is collected by broad specialties and therefore categories may include multiple services.

Scottish Government continues to provide overall increases to mental health spending. Between the Scottish Government and NHS boards we expect spending on Mental Health to be well in excess of £1.3 bn in 2023/24.

Expenditure on CAMHS rose from £88m in 2020-21 to £97.6m in 2021-22, an increase of £9.3m or 10.6% - representing 0.66% of total NHS expenditure.

The SPCB is aware of the serious risk of possible outside interference to the Scottish Parliament. We have a range of measures in place to mitigate the risk as far as possible. As these measures impact on the security of the Scottish Parliament, it would not be appropriate to publish the details of these measures.

The Member may wish to be aware that the SPCB approved a series of CPD briefing sessions in early November for Members and their staff, with representatives from our security partners, to raise awareness of outside interference. The briefing sessions focused on what Members and their staff can do to help with managing the risk from outside interference.

The Scottish Government has published 198 Easy Read documents on the gov.scot website since January 2022. The list of the policy papers that have been published with an associated easy read version is available on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/publications.