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Information on what the age profile of the NHS midwifery workforce was in (a) Scotland and (b) each NHS board, in (i) 2016 and (ii) the most recent year can be found in the following link: NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

The Employment - demographic tab gives the percentage of the workforce over the age of 55 and the median age, this information can be broken down by board and job role from 2012.

Somerville: Scottish Ministers are committed to developing a Scottish school milk scheme to replace current subsidy arrangements. We are working with stakeholders and local authority partners to develop a fully funded universal school milk scheme for primary and special schools, and a pilot in secondary schools within the current parliamentary term and stakeholder engagement will form part of that work.

This data is not held centrally by The Scottish Government, National Records of Scotland or Public Health Scotland. 

In September 2022 the Scottish Government and COSLA published Scotland’s 10 year suicide prevention strategy and action plan, ‘Creating Hope Together’. This sets out a comprehensive plan to reduce suicide deaths in Scotland.

The initial 3 year action plan will support continuous improvement in the quality of clinical care and support provided by mental health services for people who are suicidal. This includes embedding the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health (NCISH) guidelines into operating practices. NCISH is the UK’s leading research programme into suicide prevention in clinical services, and is supported by the Scottish Government. Data tables from their 2022 Annual Report are available to view here which provides information on location of suicides, but is not broken down specifically to mental health settings.

The new strategy includes a continued focus on rolling out multi-agency suicide reviews across Scotland, which will provide valuable learning about where service opportunities have been missed in preventing a suicide. The suicide reviews will include information on whether the person who died was a mental health services inpatient. It is expected the system will identify the location of death, including whether the person was an inpatient at the time of death. Along with other types of data and insight, the learning from suicide reviews will produce valuable intelligence to inform ongoing service improvements.

Data specific to Years of Working Life Lost (YWLL) for liver disease is not routinely published. Scottish Burden of Disease data published in Sept 2021 showed that for liver disease (cirrhosis and other chronic liver disease) the number of years of life lost (YLL) have fallen from 37,467 in 2016 to 32,279 in 2019. This is around 2.9% of all YLL reported in the 2019 study (1,100,944).

We know that 60 per cent of liver disease is caused by alcohol misuse and we are working on initiatives that will support communities across Scotland to reduce alcohol consumption.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10773 on 
23 September 2022.

As committed to in our Programme for Government, the Public Health (Restriction of Promotions) Bill will be introduced to the Scottish Parliament in the 2022-23 parliamentary year.

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 allocates a budget of £70,000 per annum to the Ready Scotland campaign, comprising a website, social media, radio and digital advertising. If required spend is likely to exceed this figure, facility exists within the relevant Scottish Government Directorate to increase the available funding.

This £70,000 budget has been in place each year since 2019-20. The actual amount spent on the Ready Scotland campaign in each financial year fluctuates markedly due to the variable number of Amber or Red weather warnings each year which require a campaign activation.

The costs in the table show the actual spend at financial year end. In the case of 2022-23 the total costs is shown as the actual spend at 31 October 2022. 

A list of all projects recommended for support through the Regeneration Capital Grant Fund can be found on the Scottish Governments Website at https://www.gov.scot/publications/regeneration-capital-grant-fund-rcgf-recommended-projects-2014-2022/ .

The Town Centre Capital Fund was allocated to local authorities in 2019-20.

The National Cancer Medicines Advisory Group (NCMAG) provides advice on the off-label uses of certain cancer medicines, which are out with the remit of the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC). Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCMAG provided rapid national decisions regarding the use of cancer medicines (sometimes out with the licensed indication for the medicine) to help meet the overall aim of reducing patient risk of COVID-19 infection and to mitigate the potential burden on cancer services.

Cancer services remain under considerable pressure, and cancer patients continue to be vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. As a result, it was agreed that existing COVID-19 NCMAG advice would remain in place until the end of March 2023, after which it will be withdrawn. More generally, extant Scottish Government guidance states that unless there is a specific clinical reason, clinicians should not continue to use an unlicensed medicine or a medicine off-label where there is an available licensed medicine, which has been accepted for routine use by the SMC.

Place Directors are senior civil servants (directors or deputy directors) who volunteer for the role alongside their day-to-day responsibilities. Each Place Director represents Scottish Government in one of Scotland’s 32 local authority and Community Planning Partnership areas. They don't receive any additional remuneration beyond their existing salary.

The role of Place Directors is to understand, promote and support how public services work together and with communities, to improve wellbeing and outcomes on local and national priorities. They provide a bridge between local areas and the Scottish Government, providing two-way intelligence, constructive criticism and, where valuable, support for local capacity building. Their strategic role complements the more detailed responsibility of civil servants in relevant Scottish Government policy teams for testing and supporting how specific policies, services and reform programmes are taken forward in places across Scotland.

Provisions within Part 1 of the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022, introduce a temporary cap on in-tenancy rent increases. The cap is set at 0% until at least 31 March 2023.

This means that a landlord is able to set the rent for any new tenancy and is allowed to put the rent up between one tenant moving out and the next tenant moving in.

Where a tenant remains the same person, but is required, in line with statutory processes, to be issued with a new tenancy agreement, the rent cap provisions within the Act do not apply.