In line with all newly commissioned audits, Scottish Government expects the Fracture Liaison Services (FLS) audit to take time to collect, analyse and develop high-quality, standardised data across NHS Boards in order to drive improvements and support clinical decision making.

Public Health Scotland is responsible for the delivery of the FLS audit and has no developed data to publish currently.

Supporting families through access to high quality, affordable and accessible childcare is critical to the First Minister’s mission of eradicating child poverty. That is why, since 2021, the Scottish Government has prioritised investment of £1 billion per year in funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) for all 3- and 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds whose entry to primary school has been deferred, and those 2-year-olds who need it most.

The Scottish Government looks at a range of evidence when it comes to assessing the impact of childcare costs on families. We are evaluating the contribution of the expansion of funded ELC to 1140 hours per year on outcomes for children, parents and families, which will include consideration of the impact of funded ELC on women’s employment. The data we are collecting will allow disaggregation by a range of parent, child and household characteristics. We have focused primarily on gathering data in relation to the Best Start Bright Futures priority families, as well as on gender, age, area deprivation and household income. Our Interim Evaluation Report, published in August 2024, found that uptake of the expanded hours is high, and there are promising signs that the expansion is delivering improvements in quality, flexibility, accessibility and affordability. Our full evaluation report will be published later this year. In the interim, the 2022 Parent Survey found that 74% of parents using funded ELC said it had enabled them to work or look for work, and 63% of families with a child aged two to five and not yet at school stated said that they had no childcare costs, an increase from 50% in 2018.

Turning to the second point on fertility rates, we know that Scotland is not alone in experiencing falling birth rates. This is a trend being experienced across many high-income countries and which has significant implications for the sustainability of our economies, communities and public services. While deciding to have a child or not is a personal decision, we are identifying and addressing barriers to people starting or expanding their families through the delivery of Scotland’s Population Strategy.

Our 2022 ‘Attitudes to Family Formation’ research highlighted that a range of key factors such as housing, childcare costs and wider economic pressures drive decisions around family formation in Scotland. In mid-2023, the Ministerial Population Taskforce requested that further research be undertaken to increase the Scottish Government’s awareness of family friendly policies which had been developed and implemented in different countries, including interventions implemented in Nordic countries. The next steps for this workstream will include further research into parental leave uptake and its impact on fertility decisions. Outputs from this work will be considered accordingly by Scottish Ministers.

At a national level, the Scottish Government funds the National e-Learning Offer (NeLO) to provide a range of resources to support learning across the curriculum. This includes the piloting of the i-Sgoil service to provide online support for young people who have disengaged from their school learning.

The Scottish Government has confirmed funding for e-Sgoil for the 2025-26 financial year, which includes confirmation that support for the i-Sgoil service is considered a priority and enables the service to continue.

Decisions around eligibility and waiting lists for i-Sgoil are a matter for e-Sgoil who deliver the service. The Scottish Government does not hold information on the current waiting times.

While the i-Sgoil service clearly supports education authorities in the fulfilment of their statutory functions in relation to delivery of education and support for learning, it cannot fully replace localised arrangements.

The Scottish Government is committed to working together with local authorities and other partners to implement a range of support for local authorities and schools to support them to respond to issues related to school attendance and absence.

The Scottish Government is committed to expanding access to diabetes technology. Since 2016, we have invested almost £30 million to support expansion. Last year, we established a national programme aiming to provide over 2000 more people with access to hybrid closed loop technology.

We are pleased to confirm that further funding has been secured for this year and we will continue to expand access to a significant number of people.

Progress made last year means that most children and young people will now have access to Closed Loop Systems(CLS). Funding this year will support a significant number of adults, plus any under 18s that have recently been diagnosed and wish to use a CLS.

Children’s Parliament was established in 1996. Their organisational mission is to lead the development of a rights-based culture in Scotland and ensure that children’s voices are actively engaged in shaping our world. They support the Scottish Government, local authorities, and other public bodies to fulfil their legal obligations to promote and protect the human rights of everyone and fulfil their duty of care toward children. Through their rights-based, creative practice, they provide children up to age 14 years old from diverse backgrounds across Scotland, with opportunities to share their experiences, thoughts, and feelings so that they can influence positive change in their lives at home, in school and in the community.

The purpose of the annual Cabinet Takeover meeting with children and young people, is for decision makers at the highest level of government to listen to the voices of and hear issues that matter most to children and young people.

The meetings are an opportunity to demonstrate Scottish Government’s commitment to meaningfully engage with children and young people with the aim of improving the development and implementation of policy and legislation to help make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up. The meetings also support Scottish Ministers to comply with the compatibility duty in section 6 of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024, and to secure better or further effect of the rights of children, including the right under Article 12 to express their views, feelings and wishes in all matters affecting them, and to have their views considered and taken seriously.

Since 2017, the Children’s Parliament and Scottish Youth Parliament have been involved in the co-design of an annual meeting of Cabinet Ministers with children and young people. At each meeting the children and young people bring their Calls to Action which become tangible commitments to be taken forward by the Scottish Government.

Progress reports from previous Cabinet Takeover Meetings can be accessed via the following links:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/children-young-peoples-voices-matter-progress-report-march-2023/

Children and Young People’s Voices Matter: Progress Report - March 2022

https://www.gov.scot/publications/annual-cabinet-meeting-with-children-and-young-people-fifth-meeting-16-march-2021/

Children’s Parliament was established in 1996. Their organisational mission is to lead the development of a rights-based culture in Scotland and ensure that children’s voices are actively engaged in shaping our world. They support the Scottish Government, local authorities, and other public bodies to fulfil their legal obligations to promote and protect the human rights of everyone and fulfil their duty of care toward children. Through their rights-based, creative practice, they provide children up to age 14 years old from diverse backgrounds across Scotland, with opportunities to share their experiences, thoughts, and feelings so that they can influence positive change in their lives at home, in school and in the community.

Ministerial time spent on individual matters such as the number of hours spent on matters relating to the Children’s Parliament, is not recorded.

Eradicating child poverty in Scotland is a national mission and Mr Swinney’s top priority as First Minister.

We fully appreciate how difficult a cancer diagnosis is for young people and their families. We are committed to making sure the necessary support is available to all who need it, when they need it.

Our Child Disability Payment is designed to mitigate some of the additional costs of caring for a disabled or terminally ill child or young person. It is available to children and young people from the ages of 3 months to 18 years old, who have care and/or mobility needs as a result of a disability.

The Child Disability Payment has paid out over £1 billion to families with disabled children to date.

Although there has been increases in homelessness applications and non-compliance with statutory duties in some areas, 12 local authorities reduced the number of households in temporary accommodation in 2023-24 compared to 2022-23 and 20 councils reduced the number of children in temporary accommodation.

Increasing housing supply is key to reducing levels of homelessness. As part of our £768 million investment in affordable housing in 2025-26, we are providing targeted funding of £40 million in 2025-26 to the local authorities with the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures. 80% of this funding has been targeted to five local authorities in the central belt experiencing the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures to help increase the supply of social and affordable homes through acquisitions, including, where appropriate, properties suitable for larger families.

We continue to work with our partners to increase the delivery of more affordable homes, the majority of which will be for social rent. We are taking all possible actions to help deliver more high quality, permanent homes, providing the right homes in the right places, and ensure a settled home for everyone.

We have a strong track record in affordable housing by supporting the delivery of more than 136,000 affordable homes since 2007, with more than 97,000 of those being for social rent. We remain focused on delivering 110,000 affordable homes across Scotland by 2032 with at least 70% for social rent and 10% in our rural and island communities.

The Scottish Government does not produce projections of nursery closures.

As with other sectors of the economy the childcare sector – which operates as a mixed economy model with services delivered by public, private and third sector services, including childminders – experiences continued changes in the number of services operating. In a given year there will be new services entering the market and other services leaving the sector, as well as other changes to registrations (e.g. to increase capacity or changes in ownership).

Care Inspectorate data published in September 2024 shows that overall capacity within daycare of childcare services increased from 176,130 registered places at 31 December 2020 to 178,890 registered places at 31 December 2023.

The rateable value of the building is not the only measure of value for money and nor is it an indication of the cost to replace with a new building. There are other relevant factors with respect to looking at alternatives for public sector buildings. For instance, the local property market and availability of alternative properties and land. It is also imperative that public bodies have good quality, efficient premises which reduce energy costs. As well as this, a key consideration for public bodies will be ensuring that they are located in areas that meet the needs of the essential services they provide.

In many cases, public bodies are not looking to unlock the value of the building through a sale and will retain buildings over the long term, necessitating their upgrade over time. Applicants to the Scottish Central Government Energy Efficiency Grant Scheme must therefore evidence that all buildings included in an application will be retained over the blended useful life of all measures installed as part of the project.