The topic of Scottish independence was not discussed.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-29084 on 26 August 2024.The Gambling Commission maintains a national register of premises licences for gambling. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Betting, gaming and lotteries are generally reserved matters and their regulation is primarily the responsibility of the UK Government. The UK Government regulates gambling through the operation of the Gambling Commission which has responsibility for regulating commercial gambling. The Gambling Commission works in partnership with local licensing authorities to regulate gambling in Scotland.

As such, this is a matter for the Gambling Commission and local licensing authorities (i.e. the 32 Scottish local authorities) and the information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

For the purposes of this response we are interpreting “publicly owned bodies” to mean devolved public bodies. The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) to maximise apprenticeship opportunities and ensure that employers wishing to take on an apprentice are supported and able to do so.

Scottish Government investment will support up to 25,500 new Modern Apprenticeship starts in 2024-25 and continue to provide support for more than 38,500 apprentices already in training.

For Graduate Apprenticeships (GA), SFC have published their indicative funding allocation for universities, which includes provision for up to 1,378 GA in academic year 2024-25. In addition, we have committed to fund up to 5,000 Foundation Apprenticeships in 2024-25.

As a Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB), SQA operates at arm’s length to Ministers and is therefore responsible for its own operational decisions and processes, including on appeals.The Scottish Government works closely with the SQA to ensure that its budget allocation is sufficient to undertake its functions.

For students who did not receive the results they thought they should, SQA’s free and direct appeals service gives all young people the right to request a review of their marked exam papers or coursework for their National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher results this year.

The approach to appeals in 2024 is the same as last year and is the same approach that, discounting the pandemic years, has been in place for over a decade in Scotland (since April 2014).

A priority service is available for young people where they have a conditional offer of a place in university, college, training or employment that depends on their grade.

Further information on the appeals service is available from the SQA website at: Appeals service - SQA

No consulting firm has been hired or paid to oversee the implementation of the Best Start programme for maternity and neonatal care. The Best Start Implementation Programme Board (IPB), Chaired by Jane Grant, Chief Executive of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde was established in June 2017 to guide the implementation of The Best Start: A Five-Year Plan for Maternity and Neonatal Care in Scotland.

Members of the IPB are drawn from NHSScotland, third sector organisations, Partnership and Royal Colleges. Members are not paid; however, third sector representative have been reimbursed for travel expenses.

The Scottish Government commissioned independent modelling report was published on 29 May, and, following consideration of that report, we have asked the Regional Chief Executives to progress with the development of implementation plans.

We have asked that implementation plans are developed with the input of multidisciplinary clinical teams and describe service requirements for the new model and how they will be achieved.

As set out in the Scottish Government’s second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, Best Start, Bright Futures, we remain fully committed to ensuring that all relevant action across government is focused on meeting the needs of the six priority families identified – including lone parent families. This will ensure that support is tailored and ultimately more effective in meeting the needs of families at risk of poverty.

Despite facing the most challenging budget settlement of devolution, we are committing over £3 billion this year to policies which tackle poverty and protect people, including single parents, as far as possible during the ongoing costs crisis. This includes investment in our game-changing Scottish Child Payment, funded early learning and childcare, providing free bus travel for over two million people, and offering free school meals to over 277,000 children.

This investment also includes making £7.8 million available to Local Authorities to mitigate the previous UK Government’s benefit cap as fully as possible through Discretionary Housing Payments. This supports around 2,300 families, of which it is estimated 74% are lone parent families.

Further to this wide ranging support for families, we continue to take action which is specifically targeted to lone parents. Since 2016 the Scottish Government has been providing core funding to One Parent Families Scotland (OPFS) through the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund. OPFS will receive £371,700 for core funding in 2024-25, supporting their work with and for single parent families, providing support services that enable them to achieve their potential and help create lasting solutions to the poverty and barriers facing many single parents and their children.

We have also allocated £523,966 to One Parent Families Scotland in 2024-25 to support its specialist National Advice and Information Service and debt advice service, which aims to reduce child poverty, provide debt support to single parent households and increase their financial and family wellbeing.

In addition, we have continuously called upon the UK Government to abolish the two-child limit policy, which is estimated to impact almost 1 in 10 children in Scotland. Scottish Government analysis from February 2024 found that removing the two-child limit and reinstating the family element in Universal Credit would lift around 10,000 children in Scotland out of relative poverty in 2024-25.

The Scottish Government will continue to do all we can within our powers and will leave no stone unturned across government as we seek to eradicate child poverty. We remain committed to working with the UK Government to build on the action we have taken to date and to end child poverty once and for all.

While the Accounts Commission’s recommendations are aimed at Integration Joint Boards, the Scottish Government is committed to working with the health and social care sector to support improvement. We have invested a record £19.5 billion in health and social care in 2024-25, including over £2 billion for social care and integration.

The National Care Service (NCS) Bill is currently at Stage 2 and it is our intention for the NCS to be established before the end of this parliamentary term. In June we shared our package of government stage 2 amendments for the Bill with Parliament. Scottish Government officials have been in discussion with Integration Joint Board representatives, including through the tripartite NCS discussions and the ongoing NCS Key Stakeholder Reference Group.

The voices of people who are service users are key in these changes and, as we have been clear from the outset, we will be working closely with them as the plans develop.