Chamber and committees

This information is not held by Scottish Government. The Scottish Government published updated national-guidance-child-protection-scotland-2021-updated-2023.pdf in 2023, which includes practitioner guidance on raising child protection concerns and outlines that health visitors have a professional duty to raise concerns when they consider a child is at risk of, or experiencing, significant harm.

The Scottish Government receives NHS Scotland sickness absence management information on a fortnightly basis, but this data does not include detailed absence reasons. This sickness absence data enables us to review and compare against the known seasonal pattern, with generally higher sickness absence in the winter months commonly caused by cold and flu.

Furthermore, management information is collected by NES on individual level absence which contains detailed absence reasons, including a cold, cough and flu category. NES have been developing this data to enable more detailed analysis.

In my letter to the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee (RAIC) dated 23 September 2025, regarding progress towards our commitments in response to the RAIC enquiry into salmon farming; I confirmed that the Scottish Government will publish official guidance under Section 38 of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 for the production of farmed fish. We will now consider the next steps to progress this work, including how we will work in partnership with the sector and other stakeholders to produce guidance which is both robust and workable.

The Scottish Government’s position remains that the current UK immigration system is not working for Scotland.

We continue to call on the UK Government for urgent changes to ensure that the immigration system reflects Scotland’s distinct demographic and economic needs. Our tailored migration proposals including a Scottish Visa, a Rural Visa Pilot and a Scottish Graduate Visa are designed to operate within the existing UK immigration framework. They have, however unfortunately been repeatedly dismissed by the UK Government.

Labour's immigration policies are damaging to our National Health Service, public services and our economy. They have refused to work with us on our proposals. It is clear that Scotland requires a tailored approach to migration which can only be delivered through a fresh start with independence.

The Scottish Government remains committed to collaborate with key partners across the NHS in Scotland to ensure that relevant information, with the appropriate safeguards in place, is available to all healthcare professionals, including community pharmacists, when and where they need it. The Scottish Government is continuing to explore the possibility of granting further access to clinical records. Health Boards continue to work with community pharmacists prescribers to ensure the safe and effective prescribing of medicines.

The Digital Health & Care Strategy, published 2021, sets out ambitions for greater access to medical information both for staff and the public. In the medium to longer term, as part of the Digital Health & Care strategy, a National Digital Platform is being developed and has started to bring together service data that is appropriately accessible to the workforce regardless of where they are based.

The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation has collected data as part of the Scottish Demersal Observer Programme with the Marine Directorate since 2014. The data collected by the scientific observers are provided to the Marine Directorate and are used for the annual estimation of bycatch weights and numbers by species, size and fishery in March of each year for the previous calendar year. These estimates are provided during April-July of each year to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) for use in stock assessments, to the Scottish and UK governments to inform fisheries management, and to the fishing industry to provide evidence towards Marine Stewardship Council Sustainability Certification. A report summarising the time series of bycatch estimates is compiled each summer by the Marine Directorate. The report is available on request to the Marine Directorate and work has recently begun to make this publicly available online.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) produce annual Regional Skills Assessments (RSAs) and Sectoral Skills Assessments (SSAs) to inform modern apprenticeship (MA) contracting, helping to ensure that provision aligns with regional and sectoral demands.

These assessments identify current and projected skills needs across Scotland’s regions. They are informed by labour market intelligence, stakeholder engagement, and economic forecasting. They are publicly accessible via the SDS website Skills Planning - Skills Development Scotland.

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring that Modern Apprenticeships (MAs) are responsive to both regional and sectoral needs. We are taking responsibility for national-level skills planning, while also strengthening regional approaches to better align with local economic priorities and workforce demands.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Public Health Scotland (PHS), as Scotland’s national public health body for the purpose of intelligence and analysis, is responsible for sourcing waiting times data from hospital administrative systems.

PHS publish regular statistics relating to the length of time patients wait to be seen as a new outpatient or admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case. This data can be used to identify the volume of long waits and the median waiting time by the specialty of treatment, including ophthalmology. The latest publication can be found here: Stage of treatment waiting times - Inpatients, day cases and new outpatients quarter ending 30 June 2025 - NHS waiting times - stage of treatment - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W 41083 on 21 October 2025. 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 costs in any tribunal case are for the tribunal to determine.