Chamber and committees

I would advise wool producers to engage with the British Wool Marketing Board, which is a public, non-financial corporation established by the British Wool Marketing Scheme (Approval) Order 1950. As the organisation can collect, grade and sell wool from across the UK on behalf of producer members, it may be able to advise on alternative services.

The Scottish Government recognises the intrinsic value of traditional skills and practices within heritage industries, and their important role both in local communities and within our wider society.

There was no formal consultation with Scottish Government or Historic Environment Scotland on the closure of the spinning mill, though Historic Environment Scotland had been aware of an ongoing review of the Trust’s various enterprises as part of its wider vision to create long term sustainability for the World Heritage Site.

The decision to close the New Lanark Spinning Mill is a decision for the owner of the site, New Lanark Trust, to make. New Lanark Trust has the responsibility for these difficult commercial decisions which it needs to consider within the context of the wider implications for the World Heritage Site to ensure its long-term sustainability.

There is no provision for the interim liberation of a prohibited type dog in Scotland as there is no interim exemption scheme available that would permit such dogs to be released pending the consideration and outcome of court proceedings.

As with all services for children and young people, CAMHS and the community mental health and wellbeing services work within the context of a multi- agency system and the Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) model and principles. At the heart of the GIRFEC process is an assessment of need and creation of a single child’s plan. The meeting at which the joint (multi-agency and multi professional) plan is agreed is called The Child’s Plan meeting. Anyone involved with the child or young person can call a Child’s Plan meeting, and all relevant children’s services and others are involved.

XL Bully dog owners had from 1 April 2024 to 31 July 2024 to apply to the Scottish Government for a certificate of exemption for their dog, to allow them to continue to legally own the dog.

The Scottish Government continues to work through a small number of cases where XL Bully dog owners have met the legal requirement to apply before 31 July 2024, but still require to provide additional information in order for their exemption application to be processed and granted.

For all applications that were received by the Scottish Government where there is evidence that confirms the legal requirement to apply for exemption through the application process, successful completion of the form, and confirmation of the application fee payment in relation to that application, the Scottish Government approved the application for exemption.

Following the closure of the exemption window for when exemptions could be sought direct from the Scottish Government, the only way that now exists for an XL Bully dog to be added to the Index of Exempted Dogs is through a court authorised application.

Separately, XL Bully owners who took the decision to have their dog euthanised could claim up to £200 compensation from the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government had to receive any claim for compensation by 30 September 2024 with owners seeking compensation required to make the necessary arrangements by 31 July 2024. The Scottish Government received and approved 35 claims for compensation following arrangements being made for the euthanisation of an XL Bully dog.

Where an XL Bully dog owner has decided to have their dog euthanised without seeking compensation from the Scottish Government, the Scottish Government would not be advised by the owner. Therefore, the number of claims for compensation sent to the Scottish Government does not provide the total number of XL Bully dogs euthanised.

Since the Audit of Rejected Referrals was published in 2018, Scottish Government has undertaken a wide range of work to implement the recommendations in the report and take forward whole systems reform of children and young people’s mental health services.

One of the key actions we have taken to address the recommendations is to develop a CAMHS Service Specification: Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS): NHS Scotland National Service Specification (www.gov.scot) published on 2 February 2020, to set out clear standards for all CAMHS services in Scotland. This outlines how CAMHS services should be delivered and what young people and their families can expect from CAMHS. The National CAMHS specification includes a clear expectation that children and young people whose referral is not accepted for CAMHS are sensitively and appropriately signposted to a more suitable service, such as those provided by our community-based supports.

The subsequent publication of the Neurodevelopmental Specification in September 2021 also addresses actions from the Audit of Rejected Referrals and ensures that children and young people who have neurodevelopmental profiles with support needs, receive support that better meets their needs, based on the Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) approach.

Another action to address key findings in the report was establishing community mental health and wellbeing services across Scotland. Not all children and young people need specialist services like CAMHS, which can lead to referrals not being accepted. This is why we are providing local authorities with £15m per annum to fund community-based mental health supports for children, young people and their families. Local authorities report that, in the first half of 2023, more than 58,000 children, young people and their family members accessed community-based mental health support.

In addition, we have recently seen the best national performance against CAMHS waiting times since the 18 week standard was introduced in 2014. 1 in 2 children and young people referred to CAMHS now start treatment within 6 weeks, compared to 12 weeks pre-pandemic.

The Audit of Rejected Referrals highlighted that improved patient-level data was required to provide further insight and intelligence into system performance. Therefore, the Scottish Government has also commissioned national patient-level data to help with service planning and improvement, for measuring the true impact of investment, and for telling the stories of people seeking and receiving treatment in CAMHS. Directors of eHealth have been commissioned to upgrade data systems supporting CAMHS to enable the collection of patient-level data. This work is ongoing.

In parallel, and responding to recommendations in the report, Public Health Scotland have started publishing data from the CAMHS and Psychological Therapies National Dataset (CAPTND), including referrals to CAMHS by sex, age and SIMD as well as reasons for referral not being accepted. Boards are also working with PHS and Directors of eHealth to enable the collection and publication of additional information in 2025.

While we have made significant progress in improving mental health and wellbeing services for children and young people since 2018, we continue to work closely with Boards to understand the reasons for non-accepted referrals and to ensure that the criteria in the CAHMS specification are being met. The Joint Strategic Board for Child and Family Mental Health provides oversight across all areas of children and families’ mental health, with the aim of ensuring we continue to improve and develop services to help children and young people in Scotland.

The Scottish Government recognises the value of social care support to all who require additional support in living independently at home or in the community.

Under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships have a duty to assess the social care support needs of people and decide, in light of that assessment, whether to arrange any services, and if so, which services.

We know that the system needs to work better for everyone in Scotland and we are continuing to work with partners and people with lived experience on ongoing improvement and reform.

These statistics show the fewest amount of people waiting for a social care support assessment this year – a reduction of 12% since January.

Dogs need to be over 8 weeks old to be microchipped.

Where an XL Bully dog was too young – under 8 weeks – as at the date of application for exemption to be microchipped, the owner was given additional time to provide evidence of microchipping having occurred.

There are also exemptions for those dogs deemed unfit for a microchip to be fitted. A dog is unfit to be microchipped if a veterinary surgeon has issued a certificate indicating a dog is unfit to be microchipped under the Microchipping of Dogs (Scotland) Regulations 2016.

Further information about microchipping can be found on the mygov.scot website:

Exemptions - mygov.scot.

XL Bully owners in Scotland had from 1 April 2024 to 31 July 2024 to apply to the Scottish Government for a Certificate of Exemption for their XL Bully dog, to allow them to legally keep their dog. Under the relevant legislation that set these dates, the time period for applications for a Certificate of Exemption to keep an XL Bully dog has closed.

The only means by which an exemption can be granted now is as follows.

The XL Bully dog is on the list of prohibited dogs under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.

Following the passing of the Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Act 1997, it continued to be the case that it is a criminal offence to own a prohibited type of dog, but following a conviction the court has discretion in sentencing so that a dog of this type is not always required to be destroyed where an owner was found to have kept a dog in breach of the legislation.

The court can, as an alternative to ordering the destruction of the dog, authorise a person owning such a dog to be able to apply to place the dog on the Index of the Exempted Dogs. Only courts can direct that an owner can be authorised to apply for a dog to be placed on the Index of Exempted Dogs.

The Scottish Government does not have any role to play in the decision making of the independent court when it considers how to dispose of cases, but will of course consider any application for exemption on the back of any court direction that would permit the owner of an XL Bully dog to apply to Scottish Ministers to seek a Certificate of Exemption.