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We are committed to engaging with the profession on a reform programme for NHS dental services. As part of that commitment we have recently issued a profession-wide survey asking for comments on a list of possible treatment items for inclusion in a future NHS model.

We have also asked for nominees for a NHS dental reform advisory group to the Chief Dental Officer. NHS Boards are currently reviewing the nominations and will put forward the nominees for each Board area in due course.

Construction of the masts at Rackwick and Stronsay is complete. Both masts are being developed in collaboration with the Home Office’s Emergency Services Network (ESN). 4G service will, ultimately, be provided on these sites by mobile network operator EE. To move these sites to activation requires the Home Office to execute a Change Request as part of their ESN programme. The Scottish Government is aware of a substantial delay in the Home Office enacting this Change Request which is preventing these masts from moving to service activation.

All efforts are being made by the Scottish Government to expedite this issue which, once resolved, will enable a number of masts including Rackwick and Stronsay proceed to activation.

Scottish Government has provided an unprecedented level of financial support throughout the pandemic to support NHS dentistry. The £50 million of COVID-19 funding was provided directly to NHS dental contractors through the financial support payments. Alongside this, practices have received £35 million of free PPE to support the provision of NHS dentistry.

In addition, £5 million of funding for ventilation improvements and £7.5 million for speed adjusting hand pieces, was made available to NHS practitioners to support recovery and help increase capacity within practices providing NHS dental services. This scope for this funding was subsequently expanded to allow practices to claim for repairs and replacement of a range of dental equipment. This funding was allocated to Health Boards and practices were advised of the process for claiming funding if they wished to submit an application.

Zero Waste Scotland strategy is to maximise the impact of investment in the circular economy and to partner across private and public sectors. This aims to leverage funding opportunities, and to increase co-investment and partnership models to support and to continue to deliver value across circular economy initiatives.

ZWS is also undertaking multi-party engagement with Scottish Government and Scottish Business Climate Collaboration (SBCC) which is 50:50 funded by public funds and SBCC and is working with several businesses to develop business cases for circular initiatives that will then be funded and delivered by companies themselves. In addition co-investment models have been developed with Social Investment Scotland to create a Net Zero Transition Fund for third sector organisations.

The Scottish Government does not require local authorities to record information regarding national identity of nursery pupils when an application for a nursery place is made.

The Scottish Government remains committed to Keeping The Promise, working in partnership with Local Authorities, The Promise Scotland, the third sector, health boards and importantly the care community.

On 30 March 2022 the Scottish Government published our Keeping The Promise Implementation Plan , which sets out a large number of actions, spanning a wide range of policy areas including education, health, justice and child poverty, that will all contribute to Keeping The Promise by 2030.

The Promise Scotland has been established to work across all stakeholders, including the Scottish Government, to support delivery of The Promise. Independent to this, the Promise Oversight Board, which includes a number of representatives with care experience, will monitor the progress organisations make individually, and the progress Scotland makes collectively towards The Promise's key priorities.

The Oversight Board will report to the care community and publicly on the progress made and will use its networks, relationships and governance structure to provide support and guidance wherever necessary.

No additional funding is provided to CalMac Ferries Limited to offset performance deductions. Any performance deductions incurred are applied as a reduction in the grant subsidy paid by Transport Scotland for operating the ferry services.

The Scottish Government is giving consideration to how best to ensure a consistent, effective and high quality approach to social prescribing and meets the Scottish Social Prescribing Network regularly to inform its plans.

Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) is an independent not-for-profit company, which is able to locate, apply for and accept funding from a range of sources. As an evidence-led organisation, any expertise and/or advice ZWS provide to Scottish Government would be based on balanced outputs from research by sector specific policy experts.

ZWS is a key delivery partner for the Scottish Government in relation to circular economy policy and it would be for Scottish Government to decide on whether to use the organisations advice in development of policies.

ScotRail does not record passenger complaints data by region, but by rail route. The following below table shows ScotRail’s complaints data for routes which serve the North East region.