Seòmar agus comataidhean

The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people is an absolute priority for the Scottish Government.

The commitment to invest in school counselling ensures that every secondary school has access to counselling services, whilst also improving the ability of local primary and special schools to access counselling. Our local authority partners have confirmed this is now in place across Scotland.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-05574 on 20 January 2022. 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

We are working closely with local authorities and are in planning stages of this commitment. We will report to Parliament in due course.

We are working closely with local authorities and are in planning stages of this commitment. We will report to Parliament in due course.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all school-aged children and young people in Scotland have access to a digital device by the end of this parliament. This is a highly complex and ambitious commitment that requires careful partnership planning. Since May 2021, we have been working with local authorities to prepare the system and the people in it for a wider rollout of devices.

Local authorities across Scotland also have a range of approaches to provision of technology in schools, including some councils who have undertaken to provide cohorts of their school population with devices using their own budgets. We do not hold information centrally on those local approaches. COSLA have reported that 122,000 devices (including the 72,000 funded by the Scottish Government) have now been distributed. However, it is our view that this is an underestimation.

The Scottish Government launched the Scottish Blue Carbon Forum (SBCF) in 2018 to increase our understanding of Scotland’s marine stores of carbon (“blue carbon”), their role in carbon uptake and their vulnerabilities to human activities. We have committed over £650,000 to the Forum’s research programme, which has leveraged significant match funding from partner organisations. The Forum’s expertise is recognised internationally. During COP26, the SBCF joined the International Partnership for Blue Carbon as its 50 th member and brought together science and policy experts from around the world for a two day conference “Blue Carbon: Beyond the Inventory” in Edinburgh, driving forward the research and policy agenda to protect and restore these important habitats.

Research by the SBCF continues to enhance our understanding of Scotland’s blue carbon habitats and will provide an improved evidence base for future decision making.

Many of the key habitats and species that research has identified as being important for blue carbon are Priority Marine Features (PMFs) and are also safeguarded within Scotland’s Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

With 37% of our seas already designated as MPAs, we have committed in the Programme for Government to deliver the outstanding fisheries measures required to achieve MPA conservation objectives by March 2024. We are also providing additional protection to our inshore waters by developing fisheries measures for the 11 PMFs most at risk from bottom trawling outside our MPAs, in line with the National Marine Plan. In combination these measures will help reduce pressures on marine habitats known to be important carbon sinks.

In the Programme for Government, we have also committed to designating at least 10% of Scotland's seas as Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) by 2026. The policy and selection framework for HPMAs will provide for the protection of blue carbon habitats, using the growing evidence base.

The Scottish Government has been working in partnership with the Association of Directors of Education, COSLA and partners to establish the full delivery and financial requirements in support of the expansion of free school meals. Through this engagement, it has been confirmed that there is a requirement for capital and resource investment in order to support the expansion, including for catering and dining.

In addition to £53 million per year for universal provision in primary 1-3, the 2022-23 budget includes £42.2 million of revenue funding for the expansion of primary 4, 5 and special schools, and £30 million capital allocation for initial investment in school kitchens ahead of roll-out of free lunches to all primary school children during in the parliamentary term.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with partners in local authorities to plan for the expansion of free school lunch provision over the next academic year. This work will ensure the expansion can be delivered equitably across all schools, in all areas, whilst maintaining high quality lunch provision for pupils.

The 2022-23 draft budget provides £42.2 million to provide universal free school lunches to all children in primaries 4, 5 and special schools to 5 during school term-time. This is in addition to the £53 million per year for universal provision for pupils in primary 1 to 3 which has been in place since 2015. The 2022-23 draft budget includes a £30 million capital allocation for initial investment in school kitchens ahead of roll-out of free lunches to all primary school children (P1-P7) later in the parliamentary term. We will continue to work with our partners in local authorities to plan for the further expansion of free school lunch provision over the next academic year.

The draft budget also provides £21.75 million to provide support to free school meals eligible families during the school holidays.

The Scottish Government's international offices are updated on all areas outlined in the Programme for Government including the constitution.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting a just transition to net zero and to meaningful involvement of the people of Scotland in decisions that affect them. We recognise the importance of individuals and communities being able to engage in shaping the society wide response needed to achieve a net zero future. We are exploring the most effective ways to do this at all levels across society. I’ve set out below a number of ways in which the Scottish Government is enabling this engagement:

Open Government Partnership (OGP)

As part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to OGP values of transparency, accountability and participation, a working group was convened in summer 2021. Its remit is to develop options for embedding the use of a broad range of participation and democratic innovations, and using this system as a basis for routine Citizens’ Assemblies in Scotland.

The working group’s report is due to be published in early 2022. It will include recommendations on how to encourage the routine use of deliberative methods across all areas of public services working on complex issues, such as Climate Action. We are also in the process of developing a climate stakeholders network as part of our latest OGP Action Plan, which as a first step will create opportunities for deliberative engagement.

Green Participatory Budgeting (PB)

We committed, in our response to the Just Transition Commission’s recommendations, to exploring the use of Green Participatory Budgeting (PB). We have now dedicated resource within the Scottish Communities Development Centre to aid the development and adoption of Green PB activities and processes across Scotland in 2022, which will include working with local authorities to embed net zero commitments into wider participatory budgeting initiatives.

Place Standard tool

The Place Standard tool is a simple and effective tool to support communities’ and organisations’ engagement in holistic conversations around a place to inform positive action. A supplementary Climate Lens toolkit for the Place Standard tool is currently being developed and piloted in partnership with climate change organisations to further enhance the potential of the tool to contribute to net zero and climate action.

Local Place Plans

Local Place Plans provide communities with an opportunity to influence local planning policies through a community led, collaborative process, setting out a community’s proposals for the development and use of land. It is for the Community Body preparing the Local Place Plan to consider what is the most appropriate method of engaging with its wider community.

Community-led Climate Action

The Scottish Government is committed to empowering people to take action in their own communities and in their own lives. We are building a new model to support community climate action via a developing network of regional climate action hubs and climate action towns. In September 2021 we launched two pathfinder regional Community Climate Action hubs – one in the North Highlands and one in the Northeast of Scotland. These initiatives will provide a vehicle for communities to come together and engage in collective climate action.

The Climate Action Towns initiative is a place-based programme focussing on small towns with little historical engagement on climate action. Architecture and Design Scotland have been commissioned to work collaboratively with local people and organisations in seven towns to support communities to develop local plans focused on tackling the crisis. This will provide opportunities to deliver real change in a collaborative and coordinated approach, learnings from which can be applied in places across Scotland.