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This question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court and Tribunals Service (SCTS) corporate body. The question has been passed to the Chief Executive of the SCTS who will reply in writing within 20 days.

This question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court and Tribunals Service (SCTS) corporate body. The question has been passed to the Chief Executive of the SCTS who will reply in writing within 20 days.

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

SPS does not record this information.

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

SPS do not record information on the number of staff who may have been hospitalised as a result of assaults by prisoners.

The six-month secondment of two officers from the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security to Police Scotland concluded in April 2021. The Scottish Government has not held recent discussions with Police Scotland on plans to further engage with the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security.

Human trafficking has no respect for borders and it is vital that Police Scotland develop and strengthen professional relationships with international law enforcement partners in order to disrupt the networks behind this crime.

Police Scotland’s National Human Trafficking Unit continues to seek out and engage with relevant international partners.

As noted in my response of 3 November 2022, for survivor privacy reasons, given the small number of applications which have been determined in which NHS Scotland Boards are named, we cannot provide a further breakdown to the level of individual organisation as this would not be appropriate at this time.

NHS Scotland Boards contribution to Scotland’s Redress Scheme is a collective contribution on behalf of all 22 NHS Boards and NHS Scotland Boards have committed to pay an agreed proportion of all relevant cases. This is noted on Scotland’s Redress Scheme: contributor list, which also details NHS Scotland Boards joining Scotland’s Redress Scheme on 23 May 2022.

There are agreed financial arrangements in place between Scottish Government and NHS Scotland Boards to ensure NHS budgets are adjusted accordingly to account for any relevant Redress Payments.

I am extremely disappointed that there has been a further delay to the introduction of the new booking ticketing and reservations system.

I have been assured by CalMac that the new system should now be operational in early 2023.

The Scottish Government provides funding to local authorities of over £11 million per year to provide the school clothing grant for eligible children and young people. Local authorities are directly responsible for setting the eligibility criteria at the local level, therefore the Scottish Government does not hold information about how many children and young people are eligible to receive the grant.

However, the Scottish Local Government Finance Statistics workbooks contain information about the number of school clothing grants issued by local authorities in each financial year. In 2020-21, the most recent year for which this data is available, Inverclyde Council issued a total of 1,400 school clothing grants to primary school children and North Ayrshire Council issued 3,689 grants.

In total, Inverclyde Council issued 3,282 school clothing grants to eligible pupils across all age groups and North Ayrshire Council issued 6,283 grants.

This information is available on the Scottish Government’s website through the following link: Scottish local government finance statistics (SLGFS) 2020-21: workbooks - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Whilst responsibility for recruitment and retention of pharmacists in community pharmacies is a matter for individual community pharmacy contractors, Scottish Government is increasing the number of pharmacist pre-registration training places by 120 over 5 years from December 2019, to create the opportunity for more pharmacists to enter the profession. To date we have increased places by 66, with the remaining places due to be available by 2024-25.

In addition to ensure the competencies required of pharmacists to meet future workforce demands, the pharmacy regulator, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), has introduced new standards for the initial education and training of pharmacists to ensure pharmacists are equipped for their future roles. These changes include: incorporating the skills, knowledge and attributes for prescribing in order to enable pharmacists to independently prescribe from the point of registration; introducing a new set of learning outcomes to assess the full five years of education and training (undergraduate and pre-registration) and which can link into post-registration education; and making the fifth year of initial education and training a pre-registration foundation training year with strengthened supervision and support and collaborative working between higher-education institutions, statutory education bodies and employers.

In order to aid retention of pharmacists in community pharmacy we have developed a Community Pharmacy NHS Post Registration Foundation Programme, which sees up to 130 places made available for a two and a half year programme for early career pharmacists. The programme is an experiential learning programme designed to develop confidence in pharmacy practice specific to Scotland, building on the skills and resilience established during the pre-registration Foundation Training Year. A Scottish NHS community pharmacy contractor will employ post-registration pharmacists qualifying in the summer of each year as pharmacists in a permanent role.

Save a Life for Scotland maintain a portal showing how many people have been equipped with CPR skills by partners in the delivery of the Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Strategy.

Recent figures can be found here: Home - Save a Life for Scotland .

Beyond this, The Scottish Health Survey 2021 , published 8 November 2022, finds that nearly two thirds of adults have reported ever attending CPR training.