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The Scottish Government has done no specific work to assess the costs of periods to women and girls. However there are undoubtedly genuine costs for women and girls associated with feminine hygiene and over an entire lifetime these could be significant.Feminine hygiene is not a health issue. Menstruation is normal. Where it becomes abnormal – excessive or infrequent – and potentially does become a health issue, treatments exist to help with this.While there is undoubtedly embarrassment and taboo about periods, we are not aware of any research evidence identifying particular stigma in relation to periods in Scotland.The Government currently has no plans to introduce free access to feminine hygiene products. However, we have invested in a range of other services to support people on low income or facing an acute income crisis. This includes the £33 million a year Scottish Welfare Fund which provides a safety net for vulnerable people on low incomes; investment in a range of advice services specifically designed to maximise income, support the transition on to new benefits, support lone parents and tackle unmet debt and financial capability; and our £1 million a year Fair Food Fund which will support community projects that help people access affordable food and develop skills, confidence and social networks.We are aware that food banks in Scotland will often provide sanitary products, usually as part of a broader offer of other personal hygiene products such as nappies or soap.

It is not possible to centrally quantify the number or contribution of nurses across Scotland that are involved in the provision of care to asthma patients.Asthma care services are delivered in a variety of settings in both primary and secondary care, and nurses involved in the delivery of those services may be directly employed either by NHSScotland or by general practices.Furthermore, nurses can be involved in delivering specialist care either wholly or as part of their role. Whilst some GP practices employ a dedicated asthma nurse, in others this function is covered by the practice nurse. In a hospital setting, patients may be seen by an asthma nurse or a specialist respiratory nurse.

The Hamilton Business Improvement District (BID) has received £75,525 in funding from the Scottish Government. This consists of:

A BID Seedcorn Development Grant of £20,000 in 2011 to develop the BID’s business proposal and prepare it for ballot.

Funding from Zero Waste Scotland of £35,000 in 2013 to fund a project manager to oversee a waste and recycling project aimed at ensuring businesses in Hamilton had the opportunity to recycle as much of their recyclable materials as possible from their premises as well as help them save money and ensure compliance with the new Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012.

Funding from the Town Centre Communities Capital Fund of £20,525 in 2015 to enable the BID to install town centre Wi-Fi infrastructure and associated software.

We continue to support the development and growth of BIDS through our contract with Business Improvement Districts (BIDS) Scotland. We encourage all operational BIDS to engage the services of BIDS Scotland to discuss local challenges to help identify further support available.

The Scottish Government continues to fund Scotland’s Towns Partnership (STP) to
co-ordinate learning and share good practice on town centre activity in Scotland. STP have agreed to meet with Hamilton’s Community Planning Partnership along with Architecture and Design Scotland to discuss how to progress Hamilton’s town centre regeneration strategy.

The Scottish Government recognises the impact bereavement can have on people’s lives, whether young or older, and where children and young people in particular are concerned it is supporting a broad programme of action to improve services including: Work across NHS Scotland to improve training and education for staff, patients, families and carers. Led by NHS Education Scotland, new education resources and a bespoke “Support Around Death” website for professionals are in place; The provision of funding to support third sector organisations who play a vital role in informing, supporting and counselling, including: Cruse Bereavement Care Scotland and their work to assist with the re-integration of children and young people into society after a bereavement; and Richmond’s Hope, to extend their successful Edinburgh based model of child bereavement services to the west of Scotland with a new Glasgow centre due to open next month; Through the Named Person provisions of Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC), providing a clear point of contact for children, young people and parents making it more straightforward to get help and advice; The establishment of more efficient and receptive support services around mental health services for bereaved children and young people as part of the additional £150m investment in mental health services over the next 5 years;Specific action is planned as part of the new Mental Health Strategy, which will be published later this year, aimed at ensuring that young people have good mental health and that agencies act early enough when issues such as grief and bereavement emerge and impact young lives.

The Scottish Government is in the final stages of developing guidance on the provision of healthcare in schools. This guidance provides advice to NHS Boards and education authorities on a range of issues including intimate care. The guidance has been developed with a range of key stakeholders including representatives from the Children and Young People's Commissioner Scotland. It will be published shortly for full public consultation. Finalised guidance will be published following the consultation.

The Scottish Government is committed to preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls, which includes ensuring a strong Justice response to protect victims and tackle perpetrators. Women and girls are protected from harassment and abuse through the criminal law, such as the general offence of threatening and abusive behaviour. Our courts do take into account all the facts and circumstances of a case before deciding an appropriate sentence in a given case. This means that where an offence is committed against a backdrop of misogynistic behaviour, the court can take this into account if they so choose. We regularly publish data, including the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey which provides details of people’s experiences of harassment and abuse.

Under Equally Safe, our violence against women girls strategy, officials have had discussions with women’s organisations regarding the issue of misogynistic hate. We will consider carefully what more can be done to tackle this, and we will continue to liaise with Police Scotland and others on how we can work together to tackle all forms of violence against women and girls. We anticipate that the findings of the Independent Advisory Group on Hate Crime, Prejudice and Community Cohesion will be published in the autumn, once Parliament returns from recess.

 

The Scottish Government supports a number of measures, both local and national, to successfully tackle air pollution and its impacts on health. These measures, which are applied across the country, include the establishment of a statutory framework and clear strategic aims for both air quality and transport; supporting the development of renewable energy; providing grant funding for local authority actions; and providing advice and information through the Scottish Air Quality Website and Scotland’s Environment Web.

These initiatives will continue to be taken forward in the context of Cleaner Air for Scotland - The Road to a Healthier Future - Scotland's first distinct air quality strategy which was published in 2015. The strategy sets out six key policy objectives, including one for health which is for 'A Scotland which protects its citizens from the harmful effects of air pollution, reducing health inequalities'.

The number of practising trained educational psychologists (full time equivalent), broken down by local authority and year since 2010, is shown in the following table:

	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
Aberdeen City	16	20	22	22	20	15
Aberdeenshire	23	23	23	22	22	20
Angus	8	8	7	8	8	6
Argyll and Bute	9	7	7	8	6	7
Clackmannanshire	4	4	6	6	5	4
Dumfries and Galloway	11	9	9	10	9	8
Dundee City	8	10	11	10	10	9
East Ayrshire	8	9	9	9	10	11
East Dunbartonshire	8	8	7	8	8	8
East Lothian	7	8	7	7	6	6
East Renfrewshire	12	13	12	12	12	10
Edinburgh, City of	33	28	37	42	38	30
Eilean Siar	2	1	2	2	2	2
Falkirk	10	11	10	8	7	7
Fife	27	19	24	26	26	25
Glasgow City	45	46	51	46	47	46
Highland	13	12	12	10	14	11
Inverclyde	10	8	7	8	8	8
Midlothian	7	7	7	6	7	6
Moray	4	7	6	4	7	6
North Ayrshire	13	14	12	12	13	9
North Lanarkshire	28	28	28	28	27	25
Orkney Islands	3	2	2	2	2	2
Perth and Kinross	9	9	10	9	9	9
Renfrewshire	11	9	9	9	9	10
Scottish Borders	9	8	8	8	8	8
Shetland Islands	2	2	2	2	2	1
South Ayrshire	6	8	8	8	8	7
South Lanarkshire	26	25	26	25	24	23
Stirling	8	8	8	9	8	7
West Dunbartonshire	9	9	9	9	11	8
West Lothian	14	13	14	14	12	13
Scotland	401	390	411	407	405	370

 

Source: From 2012 onwards, this information is available in table 10.3 of the supplementary tables of the annual Teacher Census, http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/teachcenssuppdata

This information is not held centrally. Educational psychologists are employed directly by education authorities; it is for authorities to take decisions around the numbers they need and employ, and how they fulfil their duty to provide an educational psychology service.

The number of students offered a place for an MSc in Educational Psychology in each year since 2010 is shown in the following table.

Intake Year	University	Number of Places Offered
2016	Dundee	19
2015	Strathclyde	12*
2014	Dundee	24
2013	Strathclyde	22
2012	Dundee	24
2011	Strathclyde	24
2010	Dundee	22

Source: Data provided by the University of Dundee and University of Strathclyde.

*Note: In 2015 Strathclyde University made 17 conditional offers initially which were subsequently reduced to 12 confirmed offers.