Seòmar agus comataidhean

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

SPS is currently preparing a new Health & Wellbeing Strategy to address health inequality among prisoners. The Strategy is being drafted to align with the development of the SPS 2023-2025 Corporate Plan.

Scottish Ministers have to date provided £2.4m of funding to local authorities to allow them to undertake their required road assessments. Additionally, Transport Scotland have consulted with Local Authorities and the public on the proposed Ministerial Directions and secondary legislation, which will detail procedures Local Authorities must follow to exempt any areas of footway from the pavement parking prohibition.

Transport Scotland has also consulted with local authorities on the proposed Parking Standards Guidance, which will formally be issued to all local authorities once the exemption order procedures are in place.

It is currently envisaged that the exemption order procedure regulations will be laid in Parliament in the latter part of September and come into force in early December, if approved. Following this, local authorities will have an additional 12 months to complete their assessments and put any exemption orders in place.

The Scottish Government has accepted the recommendation by the independent Doctors and Dentists Pay Review Body (DDRB) of an annual pay uplift of 4.5% for NHS medical and dental staff for this year backdated to 1 April 2022. This is for all NHS Scotland medical and dental staff, general medical practitioners and general dental practitioners.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with COSLA to find a way forward on the introduction of a Scottish Recommended Allowance for foster and kinship carers.

The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 places statutory responsibility for local roads, including structures, improvements, maintenance and repair with local roads authorities. As such it is the responsibility of the local authority to determine how best to meet its duties on local roads in their respective areas and no formal guidance is issued on this matter. Transport Scotland does however share knowledge and best practice through a number of forums. In particular the benefits of Warm Mix Asphalt has been discussed at a number of Transport Scotland Pavement Forums and representatives of SCOTS (Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland) attend these meetings.

We currently have no plans to extend the statutory free bus schemes to include Edinburgh Trams.

We are, however, undertaking a Fair Fares Review that will look at look at the range of discounts and concessionary schemes which are available on all modes including bus, rail and ferry.

The information is not held centrally. You may wish to contact Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol & Drugs directly to request additional information. An evaluation of the National Development Project Fund is also available on the Scottish Government website.

The whole family approach framework, launched in December 2021, sets out principles of how we will improve support for families affected by substances. A £3.5 million uplift per year is provided to ADPs to implement this framework by allocating funding to local family support services.

We also fund Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol & Drugs for family support services while the Children and Families Fund, administered by Corra, provides £3 million for family support each year to front-line and third-sector organisations.

Our Equally Safe Strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls emphasises the importance of challenging the underpinning attitudes which enable such violence to take place. Education settings have an important role in challenging these attitudes through teaching children and young adults about healthy relationships, consent and gender stereotypes which drive gender-based violence.

Our Equally Safe at School (ESAS) project, developed by Rape Crisis Scotland and Zero Tolerance, applies a whole school approach to inequality and gender-based violence in schools. Rape Crisis Scotland have reported that 3 schools in the Glasgow region are currently registered for an ESAS account. This year, Rape Crisis Scotland anticipate the number of schools registered for ESAS will grow as they continue to focus on the promotion of ESAS and work both nationally and with local authorities to develop ESAS implementation strategies.

The Scottish Government also funds and supports other education-based programmes and initiatives aimed at preventing gender-based violence such as our Mentors in Violence peer education programme, the Gender Equality Taskforce in Education and Learning, the Gender-Based Violence in Schools Working Group and Rape Crisis Scotland’s national sexual violence programme for secondary schools

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-09757 on 2 August 2022. 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

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-09757 on 2 August 2022. 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