Operational decisions, including those such as dispute resolution, are a matters for individual colleges.

The Scottish Government has no role to play in these processes.

he importance of retaining individuals living with HIV in treatment and care is recognised in the UNAIDS/WHO targets and the Scottish HIV Transmission Elimination Proposal as one of the five pillars of interventions (entry into and retention in specialist HIV care). Specialist HIV services and HIV third sector organisations will work together to optimise the updating of information with regards to the movement or transfer of individuals to facilitate engagement with services.

This work will be supported by Public Health Scotland through the provision of NHS board level data on people diagnosed with HIV but not attending specialist treatment and care services for whom, through linkage of data to migration, death, hospitalisation, prescription and vaccination datasets, there is evidence that they remain resident in Scotland.

Dentists operating in rural areas can also apply to the remote areas allowance. The allowance is calculated on their proportion of NHS earnings to total earnings and therefore can be awarded up to £9000 per year. Other allowances are available for dentists as available in the Statement of Dental Remuneration.

Gender equality is at the heart of the Scottish Government’s vision for a fairer Scotland, one where women and girls have and are empowered to exercise equal rights and opportunities, have equitable access to economic resources and decision making, and live their lives free from all forms of violence, abuse and harassment.

We are absolutely clear that harassment or abuse of any form, whether in professional sport, the workplace, schools, in the home or in society is completely reprehensible and must stop.

Sport, of course, has a very special place in our society, which is why it is important that professional sports clubs take any appropriate steps to ensure they and their players are positive role models for both children and adults across the country.

I met with the End Sexual Misconduct in Sport Campaign, and we strongly encourage all professional clubs to engage with the campaign to ensure they have appropriate policies, training, standards and reporting procedures in place to educate and root out sexual misconduct and discrimination.

As part of the delivery of our Cleaner Air for Scotland 2 strategy, we are taking forward a review of the Clean Air Act 1993 working closely with SEPA and Local Authorities to focus the review and develop initial findings. From January 2022 Ecodesign standards now apply for all new wood burning appliances. We are currently developing our public engagement framework for air quality, and as part of that we will consider the best approach for engaging with the public on domestic burning issues.

Specific evaluations of the Childsmile programme are undertaken by the University of Glasgow. Publications can be viewed online at https://www.gla.ac.uk/ .

More broadly, the National Dental Inspection Programme (NDIP) monitors the general oral health of children in Scotland. The latest NDIP statistics published in October 2023 showed that 82% of P7 children have no obvious decay, compared with 53% in 2005. In addition, the difference in the percentage of children with no obvious decay in the most and least deprived areas decreased from 26.3 percentage points in 2009 to 16.1 percentage points in 2023.

This shows the success of our flagship Childsmile Programme. Fluoride varnish is a key element of Childsmile and there are no plans to remove this aspect of the programme.

The Scottish Government takes the findings of the report very seriously. The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people is an absolute priority for the Scottish Government.

We continue to support our local authority partners with £16 million in funding to ensure that every secondary school has access to counselling services. All school pupils aged 10 and above have access to school counselling services.

The Scottish Government has also provided guidance and professional learning for school staff to support the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people in schools.

Finally, we are also providing local authorities with £15 million per annum to provide community-based mental health and wellbeing supports and services for children and young people, with many of these delivered through primary and secondary schools.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-25557 on‎ 25 March 2024. 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 UK Government introduced the Shipbuilding Credit Guarantee Scheme in July 2023.

The scheme provides a partial guarantee to a lender making a loan to a ship-buyer or operator, so that new vessels, or refits, retrofits or repairs of existing vessels can be procured from UK shipyards.

It can provide partial guarantees covering up to 80% of the risk to lenders for a maximum repayment period of up to 12 years.

The scheme is in its infancy, and it would be prudent to evaluate its impact in time before considering any potential alternative schemes in Scotland.

Spending data on additional support for learning (ASL) is provided below. This data is collected from local authorities via the 2022-23 Local Financial Returns (LFR). These figures show that spending on ASL by local authorities reached its highest level on record, £926m in 2022-23.

Local authorities are asked to provide this data in line with guidance to ensure returns are completed on a consistent basis to allow for a reasonable degree of comparability. However, these figures may be affected by variations in local accounting practices and education strategies. It is important to bear this in mind when making comparisons between local authorities and years.

Local authorities are asked to record all centrally funded ASL expenditure under Special Education, irrespective of where it is delivered. Decisions about prioritisation and budgets, including those for the provision of services for pupils with additional support needs, are a matter for individual councils. We recognise the challenges facing authorities in balancing their need to meet a wide range of statutory duties, local priorities and local circumstances.

Table 1 shows gross revenue expenditure on (ASL) education for 2022-23, split by Pre-Primary, Primary, Secondary and Special Education.

Table 1 – 2022-23 ASL expenditure by Local Authority (£000)