The Scottish Government is aware of the pressures facing businesses due to inflation, energy costs and the cost crisis. While Scottish Ministers are sympathetic to calls to replicate the non-domestic rates relief available to businesses in England in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, doing so would have meant that the Scottish Government could not provide the NHS, schools, or emergency services with the funding they require.

The Scottish Government estimates that over 60% of properties in the hospitality sector across Scotland will be eligible for 100% relief from Non-Domestic Rates in 2024-25 (including from the Small Business Bonus Scheme, the new islands and specified remote areas hospitality relief, and others).

The Mental Welfare Commission (MWC) produces annual reports on admissions of young people under the age of 18 to non-specialist wards in Scotland. Children and young people referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) will generally be treated in the community. There may be times when it is necessary to admit them to hospital for specialist treatment. Should this be the case they would be admitted to one of the three regional CAMHS inpatient units. There are however occasions when a young person is admitted to a non-specialist ward. This may happen for example when it is clinically judged to be more appropriate to admit that young person to a ward, such as an acute care paediatric ward, or the young person and their family have a preference for an admission to a local adult ward.

The latest report was published on 23 October 2023 and can be found at https://www.mwcscot.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-11/ChildrenYoungPeople-MonitoringReport2023.pdf . Table 1 provides a breakdown of numbers of young people admitted to non-specialist facilities by year from 2013-14 (202 admissions involving 179 young people) to 2022-23 (79 admissions involving 66 young people). Table 2 provides a breakdown of numbers of young people admitted to non-specialist facilities by NHS board by year. The Scottish Government only holds data on young people treated outside of Scotland from 2014. Since 2014, there have been 21 cross border transfers of CAHMS patients out of Scotland.

Information on young people placed in adult mental health services is also available through the Mental Health Quality Indicator Profile publication: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/media/23859/2023-11-28-qipmh-full-report-final.pdf . Information can be found under the “Equitable” theme of indicators - indicator EQ4 provides data on the percentage of under 18 year old psychiatric admissions admitted outwith NHS specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) wards. Please note this information is only published at a national level.

The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) undertook a data collection exercise in December 2023 on the presence of RAAC in social housing. Findings of this have been published by SHR giving a breakdown of the number of homes identified as containing RAAC and how many were still under investigation. At that time, 953 homes were identified with RAAC present across 9 social landlords and 27,318 homes were still under investigation. This was further broken down by landlord and analysed by local authority area. The findings are available on the SHR website FOI requested copy of RAAC dataset | Scottish Housing Regulator .

SHR also sought additional information on homes where social landlords have maintenance obligations, provide factoring services, or have previously sold. The intelligence gathered suggests RAAC has been primarily used in public sector house building.

SHR are currently undertaking further data collection and have requested updates from landlords where investigations are still ongoing and will release their findings in due course. SHR will continue to engage with landlords who have identified RAAC and the Scottish Government will be engaging directly with the affected landlords through the RAAC Cross Sector Working Group.

The Scottish Government values the important role of Scotland’s third sector in working across communities to tackle tough social issues at source. We recognise the challenges faced by the third sector in the current cost crisis and we will do what we can to take account of the pressures on organisations.

We also recognise that the third sector needs stability and the opportunity for longer term planning and development. That’s why we’ve committed to developing a Fairer Funding approach for the third sector.

Regrettably, the late timing of the UK Government Autumn Statement and the catastrophic cuts to Scotland’s block-grant have caused unavoidable delays in finalising budgets for 24-25.

Therefore, our initial focus has been on improvements to our grant-making arrangements to provide greater clarity and consistency of practice including prompt notification and increased multi-year offers.

We are continuing to explore the extent to which multi-year funding can be secured within the unpredictable and volatile fiscal circumstances we face and remain committed to increasing the number of arrangements.

We are still progressing our commitments and will report on our progress in due course.

Spending data on additional support for learning (ASL) is provided below. This data is collected from local authorities via the 2022-23 Local Financial Returns (LFR). These figures show that spending on ASL by local authorities reached its highest level on record, £926m in 2022-23.

Local authorities are asked to provide this data in line with guidance to ensure returns are completed on a consistent basis to allow for a reasonable degree of comparability. However, these figures may be affected by variations in local accounting practices and education strategies. It is important to bear this in mind when making comparisons between local authorities and years.

Local authorities are asked to record all centrally funded ASL expenditure under Special Education, irrespective of where it is delivered. Decisions about prioritisation and budgets, including those for the provision of services for pupils with additional support needs, are a matter for individual councils. We recognise the challenges facing authorities in balancing their need to meet a wide range of statutory duties, local priorities and local circumstances.

Table 1 shows gross revenue expenditure on (ASL) education for 2022-23, split by Pre-Primary, Primary, Secondary and Special Education.

Table 1 – 2022-23 ASL expenditure by Local Authority (£000)

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in Wales and Northern Ireland, have noted the petition PE1997: Introduce mandatory braille labelling for food products sold in Scotland and the interest in Scotland around progressing this issue under the UK Food Compositional Standards and Labelling Common Framework. Defra have indicated that the UK Government has no immediate plans to initiate a public consultation on policy proposals for the introduction of mandatory braille labelling on food products, citing several factors that need to be explored before policy development can be considered on a UK-wide basis. This includes how viable braille labelling would be on a wide range of packaging, as well as the relative effectiveness and associated costs alongside using alternative different digital technologies. FSS intend to initiate stakeholder engagement in this respect during the 2024-25 business year and will keep the other UK lead departments updated at Common Framework discussions.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-26075 on 18 March 2024, which outlines the progress the Scottish Government has made in moving towards a targeted lung cancer screening programme.

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 .

The Scottish Government remains committed to co-designing a National Care Service (NCS) which fits the needs of our unique communities and considers the needs of people who face additional barriers to engaging with us.

We’ve heard from thousands of people already and our focus remains on ensuring that those with lived experience and stakeholders will continue to be at the heart of developing the National Care Service. A new Expert Legislative Advisory Group will be established to supplement, rather than replace, the extensive engagement which is underway.

We are engaging with people with lived experience of accessing and delivering social care support through the Social Covenant Steering Group, which advises on how we can engage people in co-design in a more accessible and inclusive way.

We also continue to work closely with stakeholder groups, organisations with close ties to ‘seldom heard’ communities who have had less opportunity to engage in the co-design work to date, and with people through last year’s regional forums, the National Forum and opportunities offered by the Lived Experience Experts Panel.

We take online safety very seriously and our expectation is that online service providers will act responsibly.

Though regulation of the internet is a reserved matter and falls to the UK Government, the Scottish Government is committed to securing the online safety of our children and young people. That is why the First Minister urged the UK Government to include additional measures in the Online Safety Act 2023 to protect children and vulnerable adults online and go further to encourage tech firms to design out illegal and harmful material.

The regulation of the internet is a reserved matter and falls to the UK Government.

Notwithstanding, the Scottish Government has been very clear that providers also have a responsibility to enforce their own policies on harmful online content. We continue to engage with the UK Government and Ofcom, on the implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023 in Scotland, and to press for stronger protections to keep children and vulnerable adults safe online.