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(a) The Scottish Government does not actively publish all meeting notes, however copies of the meeting notes referenced in question S5W-12220 can be accessed at the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 59412).

(b) The Data Protection and Information Asset Team, of the Scottish Government, has advised not to release any names due to past circumstances which have caused significant distress to those who attended meetings and whose
names have been released. The organisations names have been released who attended the meetings referenced in question S5W-12220.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills has met with –

The Royal College of Nurses - 11^th October 2017 –

The Deputy First Minister and the Chief Nursing Officer met with RCN officials.

Information Sharing Front Line Practitioners - 31^st October 2017

The Deputy First Minister met with front line Information Sharing Practitioners from NHS Dumfries and Galloway, NHS Tayside, Stirling Council, Edinburgh Young Carers, East Ayrshire Council and Dundee Council.

In line with recognised best practice our expenditure predictions are determined from our backlog models on a network basis. As the calculation of the maintenance backlog involves the analysis of the trunk road network as a whole, backlog figures are not available for individual routes.

Currently there are no plans to connect Dumfries and Annan directly to the West Coast Main Line. However, the Scottish Government is committed to improving connectivity to promote sustainable economic growth and proposals will be considered subject to the Scottish Government’s investment priorities for the strategic transport network, which are supported by a robust business case, subject to affordability and other competing priorities.

In the first instance, promoters should contact the South West Scotland Regional Transport Partnership (SWestrans) to establish if the proposal fits with their local and regional transport strategies.

Members of the Children and Young People (Information Sharing) (Scotland) Bill Team attended the National Child Protection Leadership Group, a Social Work Scotland / Scottish Government Strategic Workshop and a NHS Information Sharing Group Meeting.

The Children and Young People (Information Sharing) (Scotland) Bill Team have had a phone conversation with the Scottish Guidance Association on the 2 October 2017 – no notes of this conversation were taken.

This information is not held centrally.

DATIX reports are held locally by individual NHS Boards and the information is part of Staff Governance Reporting (primarily through Boards' Health & Safety Departments). NHSScotland Workforce data published by ISD Scotland on 6 December 2017, available at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/index.asp#2056

shows a record number of staff working in our health service, with an overall increase of 9.8 percentage points since September 2006.

This information is not held centrally.

Through the Scottish Attainment Challenge we have committed £750 million over the course of this parliament to tackle the poverty related attainment gap. This includes £120m Pupil Equity Funding in 2017-18 allocated to schools on the basis of the number of children and young people in P1-S3 known to be eligible for free school meals, a recognised proxy for families affected by poverty. Pupil Equity Funding extended the reach of the Scottish Attainment Challenge to every local authority in Scotland and provides additional resources to the majority of schools in rural communities.

The Government issued guidance on the use of Pupil Equity Funding to support schools and local authorities to work in partnership and to plan how to effectively invest the additional funds. This guidance is available on the Government website at http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Education/Schools/Raisingeducationalattainment/pupilequityfund/guidance. This sets out that Headteachers can work at an individual school, cluster or community level to address common interests. This may include, for example, how best to target the funding to address the impact of rural deprivation on the educational outcomes of children and young people.

We are committed to developing national programmes to further extend the reach of the Scottish Attainment Challenge and are engaging with stakeholders to consider the impact of rural deprivation on attainment.