Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-35337 on 11 March 2025 which cover the costs of the current charter agreement. 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

Clozapine is available to NHS Health Boards in Scotland to prescribe as appropriate to patients with Parkinson’s Disease.

It is for Health Boards to implement treatments within services, and the decision to prescribe Clozapine would be a clinical one based on an individual patient’s symptoms and condition.

The Scottish Government has worked closely with Parkinson’s UK Scotland over a number of years, including awarding £174,184 over three years to fund the development of Parkinson’s Connect in Scotland. This refers people to tailored advice and support, including mental health and wellbeing for people with Parkinson’s and their families. We will continue to work with Parkinson’s UK Scotland to ensure the best outcomes for people with Parkinson’s.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.

The Scottish Government actively promotes and supports the natural regeneration of woodland through the work of Scottish Forestry and the funding provided through the Forestry Grant Scheme.

Scottish Forestry actively encourages land managers to consider natural regeneration when developing woodland management plans and woodland creation proposals.

The Forestry Grant Scheme provides financial support for land managers to create the conditions necessary for natural regeneration and contributes to the costs of protecting natural regeneration. This includes reducing deer numbers and encouraging co-operative deer management without fences.

Support is also available for the management of existing native woodlands and reducing deer populations in the surrounding landscape.

The Forestry Grant Scheme has already supported over 9,000 hectares of new native woodland through natural regeneration with significant further projects in development.

The Forestry Grant Scheme is continually evolving to meet the needs of land managers in Scotland and as part of recent enhancements the grant rate offered for natural regeneration was doubled in 2023 to address increasing costs and encourage land managers to consider creating woodland through natural regeneration.

We expect all NHS Boards in Scotland to adhere to current guidelines and follow best practice when providing care for people with Parkinson’s disease and other neurological conditions.

Our Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy published in 2023, sets out a long-term vision, and a set of outcomes, for the mental health and wellbeing of the population.

In September 2023, we published the National Specification for Psychological Therapies and Interventions, and Mental Health Core Standards to ensure effective, equitable, efficient and high-quality person-centred care is delivered consistently across Scotland. The Specification and Standards set out what we expect in terms of care in Psychological Therapies and Adult Secondary Services.

The Young Person’s Guarantee last and final update report was published in March 2023 and outlines the outcomes and opportunities provided by the funding from the Young Person’s Guarantee.

The Gender Equality Taskforce in Education and Learning contains representation from gender competent leaders, who were instrumental in developing ambitions for the Taskforce, which will result in girls and young women having a gender equal experience of education.

As outlined in its Theory of Change Model, the Taskforce has committed to working with leaders in the education sector to facilitate the development of leadership programmes to upskill and resource educational leaders to take a whole school setting approach to tackling gender inequality. The Taskforce’s work on this ambition is at an early stage and it will meet again in June to continue to develop ways to do so.

The Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005 establishes an important separation of roles between the Scottish Funding Council and Scottish Government, whereby the statutory responsibility for decisions on funding to individual institutions sits with the SFC - not with government. However the Scottish Government continues to engage with the SFC and sector bodies on matters concerning funding allocations, including the SFC’s teaching grant.

Following discussions between the Scottish Government, SFC and Universities Scotland, the SFC’s indicative allocations for 2025-26 met an ask from Universities Scotland to remove 2,500 additional ‘SQA’ places introduced in academic year 2021-22 and repurpose the associated funding to enhance the teaching unit of resource – teaching subject prices for 2025-26 have therefore increased by 3.3% across all six subject price groups.

The Scottish Government is open to exploring the future funding model of our universities with the sector, from the clear starting point that we will not reintroduce tuition fees. The Cabinet Secretary for Education and I will continue to engage with Universities Scotland on the sector's future funding, and we welcome contributions from all stakeholders.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) has a statutory duty set out in the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005 to secure the coherent provision by the post-16 education bodies (as a whole) of a high quality of fundable further education and fundable higher education. As autonomous institutions, universities have the key role in mitigating financial pressures and external risks.