The Scottish Government welcomes the theme of Crohn's and Colitis Awareness Week 2025, “How it feels,” and values the work of charities like Crohn’s and Colitis UK in highlighting the challenges of managing often invisible symptoms such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). We are fully committed to ensuring people living with long-term conditions have access to safe, effective and person-centred care, including appropriate psychosocial support.

While we have not carried out a specific assessment of the impact of IBD on mental health, the Mental Health Equality Evidence Report which underpins our Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy ,highlights the mental health impacts that adults with long-term conditions experience. Our Strategy therefore takes a whole person approach by ‘looking at a person and their wider circumstances, such as housing, relationships, physical health, and employment; not just their mental health’.

Our Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan ensures that the commitments in our Strategy are underpinned by a resilient and sustainable workforce. Over the last decade our direct investment has led to staffing levels across Psychology Services increasing by 62.3%, with 1,702 whole time equivalent clinical staff now in post. This is additional to the funding NHS Boards receive.

This psychology workforce is contributing to the delivery of our Strategy, both across the age span and in a wide range of settings; including primary care, physical health care, and older adults services. Whilst data is not held on the number of psychology staff working to support people with IBD, we can confirm that 63% of the psychology workforce are working in mental health settings, with the remaining 37% working in wider service settings. In line with their operational responsibilities, NHS Boards are responsible for the recruitment and retention of the psychology workforce, as well as the deployment of staff across services and within multi-disciplinary teams.

Finally, as we develop our Long Term Conditions Framework we will consider how people living with IBD receive effective psychosocial support. We are also considering the message of Crohn's and Colitis Awareness Week 2025 and will reflect this in future planning.

The Scottish Government works closely with public sector organisations to ensure that relevant lessons are identified and shared after incidents and/or exercises, in the form of Cyber Resilience Early Warning (CREW) notices to the sector.

The Public Sector Cyber Resilience Network brings together all cyber and information professionals from across the sector regularly to share good practice and consider common challenges. After the cyber attack on Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, Chief Executive Malcolm Burr presented to the network on 28 February 2024 and provided an overview of the attack, an update on recovery progress, and highlighted the key lessons identified.

The Scottish Government uses lessons from all incidents to inform the action plans which support the Strategic Framework for a Cyber Resilient Scotland and shape the support provided to the sector.

The Scottish Government encourages all public sector organisations to proactively manage their cyber risks, ensure that appropriate cyber security arrangements are in place and that robust, regularly tested incident response plans are developed and maintained.

Since the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar the attack, the Scottish Government has:

provided cyber awareness training to 295 public sector board members and senior managers to improve cyber governance

• updated and promoted cyber incident response plan templates and scenario playbooks to the sector
• updated the Public Sector Cyber Resilience Framework, including key actions informed by the immediate lessons from the attack
• provided facilitated cyber exercising opportunities for 250 public sector cyber professionals to improve their cyber incident response arrangements.
• provided £1.085m since 2023 to upskill cyber security staff working in the public sector
• provided daily threat and intelligence to the public sector to empower the sector to detect threats early and ensure mitigation measures are in place quickly.

The Scottish Breast Screening Service is committed to improving accessibility and ensuring as many eligible women as possible can participate in breast screening. Guidance, developed and issued by Public Health Scotland, is followed by all health boards to ensure all reasonable measures are taken to enable women with limited mobility to attend their screening appointment. This guidance supplements the Healthcare Improvement Scotland breast screening standards, published in 2019, and the 2010 Equality Act Public Sector Duty.

Screening invitation letters request that women who require additional access or support should contact the breast screening centre in advance of their appointment to discuss their requirements and what adjustments would be appropriate so that they can attend their appointment. Once a participant has made the breast screening centre aware of additional requirements, this can be recorded to ensure appropriate support is allocated in future invitations, such as extended appointment time, or hoist access into a mobile unit.

It is important to note that all women, including those who are physically unable to have a mammogram, should speak to their GP if they are concerned about possible signs of breast cancer. If a woman does have symptoms, she should be referred for assessment at a symptomatic clinic.

The Scottish Government does not collate information nationally on the number of women who cannot undergo a complete mammography due to mobility impairments or restrictions. Individual screening centres hold this information as women are requested to contact them with details of any accessibility needs so that their visit can be planned. This ensures an appropriate appointment is allocated for those who can participate in screening, and may include extended appointment time or mobile hoist access for wheelchair users. Once the requirements are recorded, adjustments for the next appointment will be made in advance of the appointment being issued.

The breast screening programme is committed to improving accessibility, and therefore continues to monitor any innovations and research that could increase accessibility for women with mobility impairments or restrictions. In addition, for women who are unable to have a mammogram but are considered at very high risk of breast cancer, an MRI can be used for screening.

It remains important that women who are unable to participate in breast screening speak to their GP if they notice any possible signs of breast cancer. A GP can determine whether they should be referred for diagnostic testing using methods which are suitable for women who are unable to participate in breast screening. Details of the possible signs of breast cancer can be found on NHS Inform.

The Prescribed Sums and Charges etc (Scotland) Regulations 2019 and The Police (Retention and Disposal of Motor Vehicles) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2019 are the existing pieces of legislation governing the fees which vehicle recovery operators can charge Police Scotland for picking up abandoned vehicles from Scotland’s roads.

Key stakeholders and policing partners have highlighted the need to update this legislation to reflect increases in insurance premiums, recruitment and retention costs, vehicles, equipment, and training in addition to the additional costs associated with the removal, storage and disposal of alternatively fuelled vehicles.

Officials have engaged with key stakeholders including Police Scotland, Transport Scotland, and the Association of Vehicle Recovery Operators (AVRO) members to establish a Vehicle Recovery Working Group (VRWG) and will be coordinating stakeholders workshops early in the new year.

The feedback gained will help the working group develop a consultation document seeking views on the necessary legislative changes and associated updates to the charging matrix.

The Scottish Breast Screening Service is committed to improving accessibility and ensuring as many eligible women as possible can participate in breast screening. While the NHS does not have direct input into the manufacturing of mammography equipment, careful consideration is given to the needs of women with mobility impairments or physical disabilities, during the procurement process.

As part of the procurement process, the Scottish Breast Screening Service visit manufacturers to view and assess the available equipment to assess its accessibility for patients with mobility impairments and physical disability. Currently, there is no available mammogram equipment fully accessible to all women; however, the breast screening service will continue to procure the most suitable and accessible equipment that is available, in conjunction with providing guidance to all staff to ensure accessibility is at the forefront of our service. Women who are unable to have a mammogram are provided with assistance on when and how to contact a GP to ask for a breast check and further discuss possible symptoms of breast cancer.

This is a matter for the Scottish Qualifications Authority. The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority publish data on assessment arrangements: https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/105160.html. In the 2025 publication, Table 5 shows the number of assessment arrangements by Education Authority.

This tragic incident is the subject of a live investigation and is not a matter that the Scottish Government can comment on.

Part 5 of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill(as introduced)is not intended to have a practical effect on any matters which are reserved.

There is an increasing body of evidence on ecological and physiological disruptions caused by artificial light at night on many plants and animals (as well as on humans). Our Biodiversity Strategy to 2045 references light as one of the direct drivers of biodiversity loss and NatureScot can provide advice to local authorities and other public bodies on reducing the impact of artificial light pollution on wildlife.

In respect light pollution complaints, Local Authorities have a duty to investigate those under the provisions of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The Scottish Government engages with local authorities through the Environmental Health Officers network and relevant working groups, where any emerging issues on light nuisance can be raised.