SG does not currently hold central information of individual grants at the locality level. Most grants are provided to organisations for specific policy aims and those grants are managed by various specific policy areas within SG. To ensure fair and transparent application processes, these funds are advertised as appropriate on the Gov.scot website or other specific sites to ensure stakeholders and key specific groups are targeted for applications. Although it won’t cover all grants in the locality requested, Scottish Enterprise may be able to provide more information on specific enterprise grants in the area, I have instructed my officials to reach out to Scottish Enterprise to provide you with the information you have requested.

National Concessionary Travel Scheme vouchers can currently only be used for cabins on overnight sailings. Concessionary Travel arrangements are being reviewed as part of the Fair Fares Review and Islands Connectivity Plan.

The decision to remove shared cabins was taken solely by NorthLink following their risk assessments. The Scottish Government notes concerns about the impact of the removal of shared cabins on the National Concessionary Travel Scheme entitlement and this will also be considered through the Fair Fares Review and Islands Connectivity Plan.

The Scottish Government and COSLA agreed jointly in 2018 to a significant investment in the training of educational psychologists, to address a shortfall in numbers of practitioners across Scotland. This investment was made to secure a workforce for employment in Scotland, acknowledging that there are a range of career paths available including those who require part-time employment.

Under the grant terms and conditions of the Qualification in Educational Psychology (QEP), trainees must make every reasonable effort to secure employment as an Educational Psychologist with a local authority to begin as soon as possible after the completion of the Training Programme.

Failure to meet these requirements may result in default of the grant terms and conditions. In these circumstances the full Grant Funds received by or in respect of the Trainee, or a pro rata share, may be required to be repaid to the Scottish Ministers.

No adoption records have been made available via ScotlandsPeople Centre, nor the ScotlandsPeople website.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) continue to engage with relevant stakeholders to provide further reassurance following the removal of index entries to the Adopted Children Register from the ScotlandsPeople website. Relevant entries were removed as a precautionary measure while NRS reviews the way this information was made available.

We are determined to ensure that women who need it are able to access care and support for menopause, in primary and specialist care.

Work continues through the menopause actions of the Women’s Health Plan to facilitate women’s access to holistic care. This includes commissioning NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to develop a bespoke training package on menopause and menstrual health for general practice and others working in Primary Care.

The Women's Health Plan: Progress Report published in January 2023 and the recently published Women's Health Plan: Interim Progress Update 2023 provide comprehensive updates on progress of all the actions in the Women’s Health Plan.

Improving menopause care is one of the priorities of the Government’s Women’s Health Plan. There is now a specialist menopause service in every NHS Board, with a buddy system in place for the Island Boards. Women can access accurate and comprehensive information on NHS Inform, where the signs and symptoms of menopause is consistently in the top 10 of most viewed pages, and education and training for general practice is being developed.

The Scottish Government is providing additional investment of over £1 billion for health and social care in 2023-24, taking funding to a record high of over £19 billion. This funding is already supporting menopause services, as well as delivery of specific actions relating to women’s health as we continue to drive forward the implementation of the Plan.

As members of PIARC (World Road Association) and the National Winter Service Research Group (NWSRG), Transport Scotland routinely participates and contributes to research programmes to enable the production of industry best practice.

In 2020, Transport Scotland commissioned the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) to undertake an introductory review into the effects of the use of rock salt on the major structures and bridges on the Scottish trunk road network.

Transport Scotland are currently reviewing the outcomes of this research including the next phases of research and potential use of alternative de-icing products as advised by the findings.

As an increase in the standard applied to the treatment of footpaths in the recently awarded Scottish Ministers Network Management Contracts (NMCs), precautionary footpath treatments are now undertaken using liquid treatment applications.

The Scottish Government is required to deliver a balanced budget and outturn in each year. This has been consistently delivered through prudent and effective financial management, balancing fiscal constraints with priorities. In July 2021 Scottish Government launched the Young Patients Family Fund (YPFF), which subsumed the Neonatal Expenses Fund (NEF) to create a single unified fund. These funds are demand led and the Scottish Government has ensured full funding against demand in each year since 2018/19.

The new model will see Scotland moving to a networked model of three neonatal intensive care units (NICU) working alongside local neonatal units (LNU) and special care units (SCU), supported by transitional care and community care services. This aligns with existing service models across the UK.

The transfer and repatriation of mother and babies is a normal component of neonatal care provision in Scotland, ensuring babies receive the most appropriate care at the correct time.

In order to support health boards to move forward with detailed implementation planning, the Scottish Government will commission healthcare planning expertise to undertake national capacity and modelling work.

We will now work with all Health Boards affected to plan for and implement this service change over the course of the next year, informed by the testing that has been underway over the last few years.

We will continue to provide funding to these Health Boards to help transition to the new model.

Evidence shows that the very smallest and sickest babies, including those born extremely premature (below 27 weeks), do best when they are cared for in larger specialist neonatal units which look after a lot of these babies, and have the right staff and services available on site to give them the very best care. The Best Start report recommended that we move to three of these units in Scotland, to meet the needs of our population, and neonatal experts then went through a rigorous process to decide on the three NICUs of the ERI in Edinburgh, the RHC in Glasgow, and the Aberdeen Maternity Hospital.

The Best Start emphasises parents as key partners in caring for their baby and aims to keep mothers and babies, and families together as much as possible in the crucial early weeks, with services designed around them. We have a number of measures already in place to support families with babies in neonatal care:

• Providing accommodation for parents to stay on or near neonatal units and facilities within the unit to encourage kangaroo skin to skin care and early support for breastfeeding;
• Roll out of the Young Patients Family Fund (formerly the Neonatal Expenses Fund) to support all families with the costs of travel, accommodation and food whilst their baby is in neonatal care; and
• Repatriating babies to their local neonatal units as soon as clinically possible

As part of the next phase, Scottish Government will be consulting with families in the affected areas on implementation of the proposals, so that we can take account of their concerns when the pathways and processes for the new model of care are designed.

This will affect a very small number of families however it is important that we hear the voices of those families to input into design of service delivery.