The Scottish Government have invested heavily in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in recent years, which is why CAMHS staffing has increased by 59.1% in the last decade of this Government (+553.8 WTE). CAMHS workforce data is publicly available in NHS Education for Scotland (NES) Turas Data Intelligence at: NHS Scotland Workforce Data.

We work closely with all NHS Boards to help improve their performance across CAMHS, including to reduce their waiting times. Despite ongoing pressures, local CAMHS teams continue to respond well to demand, with statistics showing one in two children and young people referred to CAMHS start treatment within 6 weeks.

Whilst the Scottish Government sets the strategic policy direction for the NHS in Scotland, operational matters including staffing are in the first instance the responsibility of the relevant NHS Board. Decisions depend on the service needs of each board taking account of national, regional and local priorities, and we expect NHS boards to plan and provide safe, effective and high-quality care, in line with their statutory service provision and workforce planning responsibilities.

The Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 commenced in April 2024 and aims to be an enabler of high-quality care and improved outcomes for service users in both health and care services by helping to ensure appropriate staffing for high quality care. The legislation does not prescribe minimum staffing levels or fixed ratios and does not advocate a ‘one size fits all’ ratio, which would be inflexible to local needs, based on a fixed point in time, and not consistently reflective of workforce, case mix or dependencies.

To better support workforce planning across NHS Scotland, in collaboration with NES Data Group & Centre for Workforce Supply (CWS), we have developed a workforce planning data modelling tool, which sits on the TURAS data intelligence system. The tool will enable greater understanding of the timing and size of current and projected workforce demand at a local, regional, and national level.

We also undertake a robust student intake planning process to determine the target number of pre-registration students to which Scottish universities should recruit in the following academic year to meet estimated future workforce demands. The process involves significant input from key stakeholders from across the education sectors, including Council of Deans of Health Scotland, NHS Education for Scotland (NES), NHS Board Planners, and Unions.

We will continue to work with our key partners to ensure the Health and Care (Staffing) legislation is implemented effectively across NHS Boards, including within CAMHS services.

Scotland is Now was the creative platform that formally launched the Brand Scotland Partnership on 11 April 2018, seeking to establish a new narrative for positioning Scotland internationally that would more effectively challenge certain perceptions that could limit opportunities.

The Brand Scotland Partnership consists of the following organisations: VisitScotland, Scottish Enterprise/SDI, Creative Scotland, Scotland Food and Drink, HIE, Universities Scotland and the Scottish Government.

The Brand Scotland Strategic Partnership is a collaborative initiative that seeks to grow Scotland’s profile with international audiences and increase consideration as a place to live and work, study, visit and do business.

The Scottish Government routinely publishes marketing spend annually and figures for international marketing spend which would all have been delivered as Brand Scotland, can be accessed here: Marketing spend - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

I am as committed as ever to meeting the waiting times standard for psychological therapies and to clearing waiting list backlogs as confirmed in our Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

I remain clear that long waits are unacceptable and that is why in the Programme for Government we reaffirmed our commitment to meet the CAMHS standard and clear backlogs by December 2025.

While we will work to ensure no child will wait to start treatment longer than 18 weeks there may be occasions where children and young people wait over 18-weeks to start treatment. This may be out with the NHS Board’s control, such as those who have significantly complex presentations and require very specific services.

In support of the Scottish Government’s broader aims to protect Scotland’s place in Europe following Brexit and mitigate any associated economic, social and reputational damage, an international marketing campaign was delivered by Brand Scotland in France, Germany, Ireland and Spain in 2019.

This ‘Scotland is Open’ campaign aimed to promote Scotland as a welcoming and open country to boost positive perceptions of Scotland as a place to live, work, study, visit and do business with in order to build and maintain strong relationships with the EU and member states.

The campaign included video on demand, paid social, OOH digital display and print advertising ran initially from 29 March until 11 April in 2019. The second burst ran from 31 January until 4 February in 2020 and added Belgium alongside France, Germany, Ireland and Spain.

As with all marketing campaigns delivered by the Scottish Government, a series of SMART objectives were set to evaluate the performance of the campaign and its impact on perceptions of Scotland, before it began.

Pre and post campaign research was undertaken by research agency BVA BDRC in France, Germany and Spain with four audience groups: potential relocators, students, holiday makers and senior business leaders who would consider doing business.

In just two weeks the campaign activity reached over 80 million people, generating 27% awareness in key markets (France, Germany and Spain) against a target of 10%. The video was viewed over 52 million times, with 25 million of these through to completion, and 8.8 million engagements.

The SMART objectives for the campaign were:

• To achieve 10% awareness of the campaign among live / work / study / visit / business target audiences in France / Germany / Spain by mid-April 2019 Among campaign recognisers in France / Germany / Spain achieve 30% agreement that Scotland is an (i) open and (ii) welcoming nation by mid-April 2019
• Among campaign recognisers, achieve 30% agreement that Scotland continues to extend a warm welcome even in uncertain times by mid-April 2019
• Among campaign recognisers, achieve 20% agreement that the Scotland of today is (i) inclusive (ii) innovative by mid-April 2019
• Among campaign recognisers, achieve a 10% consideration level of Scotland as a place to (i) live (ii) work (iii) study (iv) do business (v) visit by mid-April 2019
• Among campaign recognisers, achieve 3% claimed action as a result of seeing the campaign by mid-April 2019

The campaign significantly exceeded these targets, achieving the following results:

• 34% campaign awareness amongst live/work audiences, 49% awareness amongst study audiences, 30% awareness amongst visit audiences and 33% amongst business audience
• 70% agreement that Scotland is an open and welcoming nation 76% agreement that Scotland continues to extend a warm welcome even in uncertain times
• Among campaign recognisers, 56% considered Scotland to be innovative and 60% considered Scotland to be inclusive
• Among campaign recognisers, positive consideration of Scotland as a place to live and work achieved 39%, as an overseas study destination 44%, as a place to do business 40% and a place to visit 43%.
• 82% of all campaign recognisers claimed to have taken action as a result of the campaign

The UK Government Apprenticeship Levy is a reserved tax on employers which was implemented by the UK Government. Scotland receives a proportionate share of tax revenues via the block grant as per the Fiscal Framework agreement with UK Treasury.

On 14 November 2016, the UK Government announced the Scottish Government’s settlement from the UK Apprenticeship Levy based on a population share of projected revenue for the first three years only.

Since 2020-21 the Scottish Government has not received a direct allocation of apprenticeship levy revenue. Scotland receives a share of funding calculated through the Barnett Formula as part of the block grant and has no direct control or responsibility for the operation of the apprenticeship levy, this means the Scottish Government has no direct control over levy funds or their distribution.

Prior to 2020-21, the notional funding for the levy was spent on a range of apprenticeships, workforce development and pre-employment support, meaning businesses had access to a range of both direct and indirect support. We do not hold information on the number of businesses who accessed funding from the Apprenticeship Levy.

The NHS England Long-Term Workforce Plan, published under the previous UK Government in June 2023, committed to an expansion of Physician Associate (PA) training places with a view to establishing a workforce of 10,000 PAs by 2036-37. No such target for expansion has been set by Scottish Ministers who are clear that any growth of the profession must be gradual and evidence-based. While high profile examples of harm involving physician associates did not take place in Scotland and there is no empirical comparative data between countries on adverse events involving PAs, the Scottish Government’s approach to this role is being informed by a national Programme Board tasked with considering issues including Scope of Practice and supervision. Statutory regulation of the professions by the General Medical Council is due to commence in 13 December, introducing consistent UK-wide standards for education, training and practice with individual professional accountability and meaningful consequences when these are not met.

The Scottish Government does not collect information on how many children and young people have been placed in informal kinship care arrangements in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority. We do, however, hold figures for the number of children who are looked after in kinship care and these are included in the Children’s Social Work Statistics for Scotland.

In support of the Scottish Government’s broader aims to protect Scotland’s place in Europe following Brexit and mitigate any associated economic, social and reputational damage, an international marketing campaign called ‘Scotland is Open’ was delivered by Brand Scotland in France, Germany and Spain in 2019.

This ‘Scotland is Open’ campaign aimed to promote Scotland as a welcoming and open country to boost positive perceptions of Scotland as a place to live, work, study, visit and do business with in order to build and maintain strong relationships with the EU and member states.

The campaign included video on demand, paid social, OOH digital display and print advertising ran initially from 29 March until 11 April in 2019. The second burst ran from October until 5 November in 2020 and added Belgium to the international markets targeted.

The creative production and media costs for this two year campaign were funded by VisitScotland and Scottish Enterprise/SDI.

The Scottish Government launched the EU Settlement Scheme in 2019 to support EU/EEA citizens, their employers and service providers following the decision of the UK Government to require EU citizens who were residing in the UK prior to the ending of freedom of movement to apply for the UK Government’s EU Settlement Scheme in order to continue living, working and studying in the UK.

The main aim of the Stay in Scotland campaign was to support EU citizens to secure their right to stay in Scotland through the EU Settlement Scheme. The UK Government publishes figures on the number of applications to the EU Settlement Scheme by nationality, region and local authority. The aim of the Stay in Scotland campaign was therefore to maximise the number of successful applications from EU citizens in Scotland.