The Scottish Government is keenly aware of the importance of increasing digital access for all people in Scotland. Through programmes such as Connecting Scotland, the Scottish Government is taking action to improve digital access for multiple priority groups, including older people and people who are living with a long-term illness or disability.

In August 2023, the Connecting Scotland programme launched two projects to provide kit and connectivity through Device Libraries and Social Housing organisations. Over £204,000 was awarded across both projects to a range of organisations across Scotland. This funding is helping Device Libraries to expand their range of devices, to extend the number of devices available for loan and to replace devices that are coming to the end of their lives. The funding is also supporting Social Housing providers to support connectivity infrastructure projects that benefit their residents, as our research has shown that Social Housing tenants are a group particularly impacted by digital exclusion.

Social tariffs can additionally provide the means for people in need of digital access to get online by providing reduced broadband tariff rates. Connecting Scotland is working with Ofcom to improve information about social tariffs for people in Scotland. In April 2023, based on dialogue with officials, Ofcom updated their webpage to show which tariffs are available to which regions of the UK. Officials will continue dialogue with Ofcom to ensure that social tariffs are widely understood as a potential option for older people and people living with long-term illness or disability to get online.

The Scottish Government does not hold the requested information that may be available from each Health Board as employer.

The NHSScotland workforce policies and their supporting documents set the standard for employment practice for all NHS Boards in Scotland. They have been developed with full consideration of equality and diversity impacts and to reflect fair work principles. Our expectation is that these policies are applied with a person centred approach to positively impact on eliminating discrimination and to advance equality of opportunity across all protected characteristics.

The Scottish Government is keenly aware of the importance of increasing digital access for all people in Scotland. Through programmes such as Connecting Scotland, the Scottish Government is taking action to improve digital access for multiple priority groups, including people who are living in low-income households.

In August 2023, the Connecting Scotland programme launched two projects to provide kit and connectivity through Device Libraries and Social Housing organisations. Over £204,000 was awarded across both projects to a range of organisations across Scotland. This funding is helping Device Libraries to expand their range of devices, to extend the number of devices available for loan and to replace devices that are coming to the end of their lives. The funding is also supporting Social Housing providers to support connectivity infrastructure projects that benefit their residents, as our research has shown that Social Housing tenants are a group particularly impacted by digital exclusion.

Social tariffs can additionally provide the means for people in need of digital access to get online by providing reduced broadband tariff rates. Connecting Scotland is working with Ofcom to improve information about social tariffs for people in Scotland. In April 2023, based on dialogue with officials, Ofcom updated their webpage to show which tariffs are available to which regions of the UK. Officials will continue dialogue with Ofcom to ensure that social tariffs are widely understood as a potential option for people living in low-income households to get online.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

Table: The spend on employing temporary staff each year since 2012. To note, these figures relate to both agency staff and contractors.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

There are 13 staffing vacancies currently unfilled within Disclosure Scotland.

International law is a reserved matter and the Scottish Government has not had formal contact with the UK Government in relation to the potential criminalisation of ecocide in international law. However, the Scottish Government is supportive of a revision to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to include ecocide, and would support the UK Government in officially supporting and/or ratifying a new law on the criminalisation of ecocide in international law.

In terms of the domestic consideration of ecocide, the Scottish Government will carry out an assessment, in line with its policy on EU alignment, of the revised EU environmental crime directive, which has now been approved by the EU Parliament.

Quantifying the impacts of piscivorous birds on wild salmon populations is challenging as it requires updated information on bird populations, distributions and diet, as well as information on the population dynamics processes of both the birds and fish.

Nevertheless several studies have been commissioned in order to build knowledge of the potential impact of piscivorous birds on wild salmon. Most recently a study to document the diet of fish eating birds on four Scottish rivers was conducted between 2019 and 2020. A final report on the study is available on the Scottish Government website - Bird stomach contents analysis - final report: Goosander and Cormorant diet on four Scottish rivers 2019 to 2020 - gov.scot ( www.gov.scot ).

A separate project funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund has examined acoustic tracking methods that may be useful in identifying those stretches of Scottish rivers where salmon smolt losses occur. This pilot work included a study examining the feasibility of concurrently recording movements of piscivorous birds (goosanders) using Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) tags. A final report on the study will be published in due course.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

Table: The headcount of staff at Disclosure Scotland as of 31 March for the years requested.

Whole Family Wellbeing Funding was provided by the Scottish Government to deliver transformational change to improve holistic family support so that families get the right support, in the right way and at the right time. This includes £32m for Children’s Services Planning Partnerships (CSPPs) to build local service capacity for transformation and the scaling up of holistic family support in local areas. The work is driven by Children's Services Planning Partnerships at the local level, who have responsibility for deciding how to spend their allocation. Our Evaluation of year 1 activity was published on 31 January 2024 and can be found here https://www.gov.scot/publications/whole-family-wellbeing-funding-wfwf-year-1-process-evaluation-final-report/

We are distributing funding through three distinct Elements co-produced with stakeholders including The Promise Scotland:

• Element 1 – Providing Direct Support to CSPPs:Funding allocated across all CSPPs to build local service capacity and transform family support services.
• Element 2 – National Support for Local Delivery - a package of activity aimed at supporting local transformation. This includes:

o establishing collaborative learning partnerships with three CSPPs [East Ayrshire, East Lothian, Glasgow City] and a dedicated national support team to support planning and provide local learning that can be shared nationally

o a Learning into Action Network and a Knowledge Hub to share learning, facilitate peer support and collaborate ;

o an independent evaluation of the implementation and initial impacts of the programme to help shape and develop activity across WFWF going forward;

o research to support continuous improvement of the transformation support provided to the CSPPs as well as to generate learning about how transformational capability is built.

• Element 3 – Taking a cross SG approach to system change – funding approved for twelve projects led by wider SG policy teams which would progress the aims of WFW.
  

To date the Scottish Government has spent £65.5m across financial years 2022-23 and 2023-24.This figure does not include funding in addition to the local authority allocations for 2023-24 which have yet to be finalised. The following table provides a breakdown of the distribution of funding per Local Authority.

The information requested on how many registered (qualified) physiotherapists there have been in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence