Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that every school aged child has access to a device by the end of this Parliament.

In 2020-21, we provided £25 million to local authorities across Scotland to tackle digital exclusion, resulting in over 72,000 pupils receiving a device to support their learning.

Local authorities have also invested in devices from their own budgets. Information from them indicates that up to 280,000 devices have already been distributed to learners across Scotland (including the 72,000 funded by the Scottish Government).

As the previous Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care set out in his letter of 23 March to the Convener of the Finance and Public Administration Committee, the Scottish Government will provide a response to the Committee's report and an update to the Financial Memorandum once we have received and considered the final report on the Bill from the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. The letter is available on the Scottish Parliament's website at National Care Service Scotland Bill updated Financial Memorandum response | Scottish Parliament Website .

Statistics on the number of teachers in publicly funded schools in Scotland since 2016 are published in Table 3 of Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland 2022, available on the Scottish Government website:https://www.gov.scot/publications/summary-statistics-for-schools-in-scotland-2022/pages/overview/ .

Investment in the Scottish Attainment Challenge is available in a number of publications. In June of last year we published the Attainment Scotland Fund Evaluation: Fifth Interim Report - Year 6, detailing the funding streams and allocations for the first six years of the Attainment Scotland Fund: Attainment Scotland Fund Evaluation: Fifth Interim Report - Year 6 (www.gov.scot) .

Investment in 2021-22 was published in the Education, Children and Young People Committee ‘Scottish Attainment Challenge Report’, having been provided by the Scottish Government, and may be accessed here: Scottish Attainment Challenge Report .

For the 2022/23 financial year, final spend figures are not yet available. However, the Pupil Equity Funding and Strategic Equity Funding allocations to schools and local authorities are all available on gov.scot here: Pupil attainment: closing the gap - Schools - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . 2022-23 allocations for the Care Experienced Children and Young People funding stream are provided below:

The Scottish Government has made clear our support for indigenous languages, including Scots.

The Scottish Government provides around £550,000 of funding to Scots organisations who support Scots education. Organisations such as the Scots Language Centre, Dictionaries of the Scots Language, The Association of Scottish Literary Studies, Scots Hoose and Yaldi Books are all supporting Local Authorities through the development of high quality Scots language learning and resources which allow young people access to Scots.

In addition, the Scottish Government works alongside Education Scotland and the SQA who have worked to standardise, promote and make the Scots language more readily available in schools. The Scottish Government’s Scots language policy was officially launched in 2015 and in 2017 Education Scotland published its Scots Language in Curriculum for Excellence report, which outlines good practice for teachers and senior leaders in Primary and Secondary and to Local authority officers with responsibility for literacy and 1+2 implementation.

We are currently considering the responses to the recent consultation on the future of Gaelic and Scots, this will help inform part of the work to develop Scots language policy and future guidance for Local Authorities, as well as the upcoming Scottish Languages Bill.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been running the monthly COVID-19 Infection Survey (CIS) for almost three years. Since 2021 this survey has included long COVID questions and has provided high-level estimates for Scotland of the number of people with long COVID by duration.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is now reviewing its approach to COVID-19 surveillance, and survey data collection has been paused since mid-March. The then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Humza Yousaf MSP, wrote to the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 8 March to express his concern about the delay in deciding the future of the survey, which will result in a gap in the provision of data on long COVID in the first quarter of the 2023-24 financial year. We are in touch with UKHSA to clarify the details of the updated scope, design and implementation plans for CIS, which will inform our planning for local surveillance.

Our Chief Scientist Office has funded the Early Pandemic Evaluation and Enhanced Surveillance of COVID-19 (EAVE II) long COVID study. EAVE II forms part of our Scottish Respiratory Surveillance Programme. This is a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and Public Health Scotland to identify adults at greatest risk of developing long COVID. The study was able to identify cases of long COVID in Scotland using routinely collected clinical data from almost the entire adult Scottish population. The clinical data derived from electronic health records, comprising GP records (coded, free text and sick note data), hospital data, GP Out-of-Hours data, outpatient data, NHS 24 data, medication data and mortality data. The University has drawn on this work to publish an initial report on the estimated prevalence of long COVID among adults in Scotland, titled ‘ Identifying Long Covid Using Electronic Health Records: A National Observational Cohort Study in Scotland ’ . Please note that these findings are preliminary and have not yet been peer-reviewed.

The study team acknowledge that their estimated prevalence findings are lower than estimates derived from surveys such as the COVID-19 Infection Survey and Scottish Health Survey, in which participants self-report having long COVID, rather than long COVID being diagnosed by a medical professional. They also acknowledge that their findings are likely to underestimate total cases because not everyone with long COVID will attend their GP, and not all cases or symptoms will be recorded. However, the report still makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of long COVID prevalence and distribution in Scotland.

We are working closely with Public Health Scotland to develop an approach and methodology for the longer-term surveillance of long COVID, which will in turn inform the planning of health service provision for people with long COVID.

The Scottish Government Super Sponsor Scheme has been overwhelmingly popular, with local authorities, the third sector and local communities responding in partnership.

As of 11 April, there have been a total of 24,216 arrivals in the UK with a Scottish Sponsor, of which 19,565 are sponsored by the Scottish Government. Total arrivals in the UK with a Scottish Sponsor (which includes those sponsored by the Scottish Government (Super Sponsor Scheme) and by Individual Sponsors) represent 20.1% of all arrivals in the UK, and it is the most per head of any UK nation.

Our priority over the coming months is on supporting displaced people from Ukraine already in the UK with a Scottish sponsor and who choose to remain here longer-term. With a shortage of affordable housing across Scotland, a cost of living crisis and significant pressures on both local and national Government finances, the scale of the challenge is significant.

Following the pause of the scheme in July 2022, this was reviewed by the Ukraine Programme Board in late October and again in February. Parliament was informed of our decision for the scheme to remain closed to new applications as the criteria required to re-open the scheme could not be met at that time. We will review the reopening of the Scheme again in June 2023.

There have been no discussions with the UK Government regarding restrictions on gaming, including mechanisms to reduce time spent playing games online.

The Scottish Government is continuing to take steps towards achieving the World Health Organisation’s targets to eliminate cervical cancer. As part of this, we have recently provided funding to Strathclyde University to conduct research into modelling that will estimate when we might expect to reach the point of elimination.

83.9% of S4 pupils in 2021/22 completed the two dose schedule for the HPV vaccine in Scotland. From January this year, a one dose schedule will be introduced for all those eligible in the programme up to their 25th birthday. It is expected this simplified schedule will increase uptake further. One-dose HPV vaccine coverage is currently 91.5% for girls in S4. The Scottish Government will continue to work with Public Health Scotland (PHS) and Health Boards to maintain high vaccination uptake.

Data regarding cervical screening uptake in Scotland is due to be published by Public Health Scotland later this year, and efforts are on-going to improve uptake. We have awarded £456,000 to Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust to support campaign work on screening benefits. Additionally, in preparation for a potential UK National Screening Committee recommendation, the screening programme continues to consider the steps necessary for introducing cervical self-sampling, which has the potential to remove some of the barriers which deter people from attending screening appointments.

We are developing a new 10 year cancer strategy which will launch in spring this year and take a comprehensive approach to improving patient pathways from prevention and diagnosis through to treatment and post-treatment care.

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost, due to the significant number of meetings which take place between Energy Saving Trust and the Scottish Government. Energy officials alone meet with EST a number of times a week, both ad hoc and scheduled, to discuss the programme of work they deliver on the government's behalf. A significant number of meetings have also taken place within the specified timeframe between transport and water policy officials and EST.