As part of Keeping The Promise by 2030, the Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all adoptees and adoptive families can access the support they need, when and where they need it throughout life.

Furthermore, under the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007, local authorities have a duty to assess someone’s needs for adoption support services and then provide that support.

The Care Inspectorate collects data from local authority adoption services as well as voluntary adoption agencies in their annual returns, which includes data on the rate of adoption breakdown. This information is published in the Care Inspectorate’s annual Fostering and Adoption statistical bulletin. The latest bulletin was published in August 2023 careinspectorate.com/images/documents/7251/Fostering and adoption stats report 2022-23.pdf

The Mental Health Strategy 2017-2027 set out a 10-year vision of where mental health funding would be focused. This included areas such as additional investment for mental health workers and improved provision of services including CAMHS.

In addition, our Mental Health Transition and Recovery Plan was introduced in 2021-22 which set out the key commitments in responding to the mental health needs resulting from COVID. This included funding for Children, Young People and Families, Older People, Distress Interventions and other areas listed in the Plan. This was backed by a £120 million Recovery and Renewal Fund which has subsequently been included in the overall budget allocation for mental health services in each financial year since.

From the £12 million earmarked to expand Hospital at Home and provide additional capacity over winter, we have confirmed funding of more than £3.5 million, of which the majority of health Boards will get a share, for delivery of additional capacity in 2023-24.

Work is ongoing with Boards to finalise the conclusions around impact of the enhanced services over winter but NHS Boards have reported patient feedback has been extremely positive for the new services.

he Framework for Effective Cancer Management provides NHS Cancer Teams with the tools to effectively manage people with a suspicion of cancer, from the point of referral to first treatment. A refresh of the Framework will take place in 2024 to ensure each key element has been reviewed and updated, providing NHS Cancer Teams with the tools to effectively manage patients with a suspicion of cancer, from the point of referral to first treatment.

Work is underway to redesign cancer diagnostic services with new optimal cancer diagnostic pathways published for Lung Cancer and Head & Neck Cancers. Work is underway to redesign the colorectal cancer diagnostic pathway.

In addition we have now established five Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Services to provide primary care with a new referral route for patients with non-specific symptoms of cancer in NHS Ayrshire & Arran, NHS Borders, NHS Dumfries & Galloway, NHS Fife and NHS Lanarkshire.

The recommendations made by the UK Government's Animal Welfare Committee are still being considered. Improving aquaculture health and welfare is an ethical responsibility and is one of the main priorities that is enshrined in our Vision for Sustainable Aquaculture.

The Scottish Government is committed to the highest possible welfare standards for animals, including fish. It is now standard practice for all farmed salmon and large farmed trout in Scotland to be killed using a percussive or electrical stunning methods delivering irreversible instantaneous unconsciousness. Small farmed trout are killed using electrical stunning methods and all salmon killing facilities in Scotland operate CCTV on a voluntary basis. These were both recommendations made by the UK Government’s Animal Welfare Committee.

Decontamination both during and after any incident is an entirely operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

The safety and wellbeing of firefighters is a priority for both the Scottish Government and for the fire service.

The provision of infrastructure and equipment at any incident to ensure decontamination is entirely a matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

The safety and wellbeing of firefighters is a priority for both the Scottish Government and for the fire service.

An Implementation Delivery Group has been set up which has held two meetings on 21 February and 20 March 2024, with a third meeting scheduled for the end of April.

Membership of the Implementation Delivery Group consists of representatives from clinical services, third sector and lived experience, under the chairmanship of Jim Miller, the Chief Executive of NHS 24.

We will publish minutes of meetings to date of the SBA Task and Finish Group by the end of July 2024. For any future meetings of the group minutes will be published within 12 weeks after the meeting has concluded.

The most recent Scottish Health Service cost book data published by Public Health Scotland for 2022-23 show that NHS Board spend on Mental Health is over £1.3bn and we expect this will continue in future years.The source of this funding is mainly from NHS Health Boards’ baseline budgets which are provided on an annual basis. Boards are responsible for determining how they utilise that funding to meet the needs and priorities of their local population.