Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-19790 on 31 July 2023. 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-committes/written-questions-and-answers .

I refer you to the answer to oral parliamentary question S6O-02452 on 29 June 2023 available on the Scottish Parliament website: Written question and answer: S6O-02452 | Scottish Parliament Website.

The Scottish Government has, since 2016 to the present day, provided funding to the Progress Education Trust of £276,494.75. The funding has been provided for Progress Educational Trust to produce educational reproductive events in Scotland.

The Women’s Health Plan: A plan for 2021 – 2024 aims to reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes for women and girls. The Plan focusses on a specific set of priorities and thyroid conditions are not specifically mentioned in this iteration of the Plan.

However we do recognise that many women are significantly affected by the condition and we are committed to ensuring that people living with hypothyroidism are able to access the best possible support from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care. Information on symptoms and treatments are available at NHS Inform .

The priorities for any future Women’s Health Plan are not yet determined. Future aims and priorities will be developed in collaboration with women and girls, including our lived experience stakeholder group, clinical experts and relevant stakeholders alongside the most up-to-date evidence base.

The Scottish Government recognises improving population health as a key priority and invests in a range of initiatives to support people with health conditions to sustain or return to work, including Healthy Working Lives (HWL). HWL is a programme delivered by Public Health Scotland (PHS) and statistics on the online platform is a matter for PHS. The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Under this Government, spending on additional support for learning has reached a record high of £830m in 2021-22 and the number of pupil support staff in Scotland has reached a record high of over 16,600. We have invested an additional £60m since 2019-20 (£15m per year) and provide over £11m of funding to directly support pupils with complex additional support needs and services to children and families.

We do not hold information regarding the allocation of specific additional support needs budgets in each local authority or a breakdown of the expenditure of these budgets.

The Additional Support for Learning Act places duties on education authorities to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils. It is for individual authorities to determine the training required for all staff to ensure pupils reach their full potential and to manage their budgets accordingly.

All initial teacher education programmes must align with the General Teaching Council for Scotland’s Standard for Provisional Registration. The Standard sets out that student teachers are required to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of additional support needs and to take account of learners with such needs.

Under the Animal Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 (the “2006 Act”), Scottish SPCA inspectors have certain powers to investigate relevant offences relating to animals which are suffering and in the control of a person.

The Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill contains an enabling power to allow the Scottish Ministers, by way of subordinate legislation, to extend the powers of inspectors authorised under the 2006 Act to investigate relevant offences relating to wild animals, as set out in section 8 of the Bill, should they deem it appropriate to do so in the future.

This is unlikely to include environmental destruction, disturbance or harm to a wild animal as a result of environmental destruction would constitute a wildlife crime and would be investigated as such by Police Scotland.

As a private limited company, corporate oversight of the scheme administrator is a matter for the Board of that company.

However, the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations 2020 gave the Scottish Environment Protection Agency enforcement powers in respect of the Deposit Return Scheme and the Administrator themselves.

Following the March 2023 gateway review we established an expanded governance framework with representation from all key stakeholders. This includes a Ministerial Strategic Assurance Group, which sits above the already established Executive Oversight Group and Sector Specific Working Groups.

Third sector organisations are vital in delivering services to those affected by drugs and alcohol, and their families. The majority of available National Mission funding is allocated to alcohol and drugs partnerships who have local arrangements to support third sector organisations. Scottish Government also fund third sector organisations directly including through the Corra Foundation funds which values £65m over 5 years, and via SG managed grants.

As funding is distributed through these various channels, throughout the year at both local and national level, the total available to third sector organisations is subject to factors such as grant funding applications and local decision making.

While funding is provided by Scottish Government to support recruitment and retention initiatives in primary care services, such as Golden Hellos, practices are paid directly from this available funding by NHS Boards upon receipt of an eligible application. As the administration of initiatives is delegated to NHS Boards, Scottish Government does not hold detail of payments made as the data is held locally.