The Digital Strategy for Scotland Vision and the Sustainable Digital Public Services Delivery Plan (2025-2025) will both be published today (18 November 2025). Tomorrow, I will be attending the Digital Scotland conference at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, where I will give the joint keynote with Cllr Katie Hagmann.

• The Digital Strategy for Scotland Vision is available here:
  https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781806433698
• The Sustainable Digital Public Services Delivery Plan is available here:
  https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781806433704

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that appropriate and relevant support is available to people when they are released from custody. Individual needs are identified by throughcare support, which allows those with a history of substance use to receive the right support for them. Through collaboration with the third sector, we also aim to ensure that recovery support provided in prisons continues throughout the transition and resettlement process back into the community.

Further integration across services and consistent data collection are essential to fully assess the impacts on post-release re-offending rates.

Website analytics data is not 100% accurate for a number of reasons: including where users have opted out or blocked tracking. Additionally, some data is only retained for a maximum of 13 months.

Gov.scot implemented new cookie banner settings as of the start of September 2024. Previously all users were opted-in to analytics tracking by default (and could opt out); now the default is that all users must choose if they want to opt in or not. This caused a drop in traffic available in the dashboard which has been calculated to be 39% of the total site usage. Each of the figures below are the opted-in analytics users only.

Data from 8 October 2025 up to 9 November 2025

Paper title: A Fresh Start with Independence

Main paper URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/fresh-start-independence/

Main paper publish date: 8 October 2025

Main paper views: 12,233

Easy read URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/fresh-start-independence-easy-read-version/
Easy read publish date: 8 October 2025

Easy read views or download link clicks: 483

Audio URL: https://soundcloud.com/scotgov/a-fresh-start-with-independence

Audio publish date: 17 October 2025

Audio link clicks: 3

Translation publish date: 8 October 2025

Translation downloads:

Arabic: 5

Bengalii: 0

Bulgarian: 0

Cantonese: 1

French: 4

Gaelic: 4

Hindi: 0

Italian: 1

Mandarin: 2

Polish: 3

Punjabi: 0

Romanian: 2

Russian: 4

Spanish: 2

Ukrainian: 2

Urdu: 1

BSL YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpP6-wYXyB0

Date BSL Version Published: 16 October 2025

Views: 3

The Scottish Government expects organisations awarded public contracts or receiving public sector grants to maintain agreed workforce standards and professional conduct. Questions on Fair Work First are routinely included in Scottish Government contracts and as a standard requirement in grant conditions. These criteria make clear that exploitative practices, such as unpaid trial shifts, are incompatible with fair work.

Under public procurement legislation, bidders can be excluded from procurement procedures where there is evidence of breaches of employment law or professional misconduct. For grants, there is no statutory exclusion mechanism; instead, compliance with Fair Work First criteria is a condition of funding, and failure to comply will result in termination of the grant and recovery of funds. As with all commercial, procurement, and grant matters, decisions must be taken on a case-by-case basis with appropriate legal advice being sought.

The Scottish Government does not hold an estimate of any loss of tourism income resulting from restricted access at Historic Environment Scotland properties. Under the Historic Environment Scotland Act 2014, responsibility for managing these properties, including operational and financial matters, rests with Historic Environment Scotland.

I have therefore asked Historic Environment Scotland to provide the member with a detailed written response.

As of 17 November 2025, there have been 45 outbreaks of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza amongst poultry and other captive birds in the UK in the current outbreak period (since 1 October 2025): 35 in England; six in Wales; three in Northern Ireland; and one case in Scotland. In the same period 253 wild birds in Great Britain have been identified as infected with the virus, only 12 of which have been located in Scotland.

As with England and Wales, Scotland has had an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) in place since January this year, which has required all bird keepers in Scotland top apply strict biosecurity measures at their premises including measures to deter wild birds, prevent contamination and incursion into flocks and to apply best practice hygiene and husbandry process in order to protect flocks. Scotland has also worked with their operational partners, including the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) to act rapidly on the suspicion of disease and to apply disease controls to close down the spread of infection at the three premises at which outbreaks have occurred in 2025.

Officials have been meeting with Scottish poultry industry representatives to discuss the correct and proportionate response to the current risk levels and outbreaks in the UK. The housing of birds in Scotland is being considered, but this is being balanced against significant welfare of impact of confining millions of birds, potentially over a sustained period. CVO Scotland will, however, continue to act swiftly and effectively in response to the changing situation and characteristics of this virus.

Scottish Government continue to issue disease prevention communications urging all bird keepers to apply robust biosecurity best practices in order to protect their birds and to remain vigilant for clinical signs of the disease in their flocks. They are reminded that it is a legal requirement to report suspicion of the disease.

Following a submission for alpelisib (Piqray®), as a treatment for postmenopausal women, and men, with advanced breast cancer, the SMC | Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) published not recommended alpelisib (Piqray) advice in December 2022. The marketing authorisation holder did not present a sufficiently robust clinical or economic analysis to gain acceptance by the SMC. The SMC would welcome a resubmission at any time.

Where licensed medicines, such as Piqray®, are not routinely available on the NHS in Scotland, doctors can use the PACS Tier Two system to request access on a case-by-case basis. The cost of the medicine is not a decision-making criterion when considering PACS Tier Two applications.

The Scottish Government is clear that Health Boards are expected to follow best practice, ensure that all staff are adequately trained and report all restraint incidents through robust systems.

While Scottish Government sets the strategic policy direction for the NHS in Scotland, operational matters - including staff training - are in the first instance the responsibility of NHS Boards.

The Scottish Government is also clear that restraint must only ever be used as a last resort, for the shortest time necessary to ensure safety. Protecting human rights is of the utmost importance.

This year, the Scottish Government provided NHS Education for Scotland (NES) with around £31.67 million to continue multidisciplinary education, training and workforce expansion for staff.

NES are committed to supporting the reduction of restraint and seclusion in services by building workforce capability in trauma-informed practice, embedding human-rights-based practice, and promoting evidence informed alternatives.

A summary of the scoring mechanism has already been published on the scheme guidance webpages. This explains how applications were assessed through a combination of eligibility checks, verification of information provided, and merit-based scoring against the scheme objectives.

Variation in the accuracy and completeness of applications was a significant factor in the outcomes. Applicants were expected to provide clear and verifiable information, however a number of submissions contained inconsistencies or responses that could not be supported at inspection. For example, some applicants selected “Yes” to using the grant for electronic identification technology when applying for items such as creep feeders, hoof-trimming equipment, water troughs, or fencing, where EID was not relevant. Had these applications been awarded funding, they would have been unable to evidence how the investment delivered and the grant would have had to be recovered.

These issues may not indicate intent to mislead but demonstrated misunderstanding of the scheme’s contractual requirements. In contrast, applications that provided specific, accurate, and verifiable information were able to be scored properly and offered greater assurance of compliance with the scheme rules. This explains why some applications that appeared similar received different outcomes, and why robust assessment and verification were essential to the scheme

The Scottish Government provides support to individuals facing redundancy through our initiative Partnership Action for Continuing Employment, PACE. By providing skills development and employability support, PACE aims to minimise the time individuals affected by redundancy are out of work and it supports both individuals and employers.

PACE records are available from 2010, and figures requested are in the following table.