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Compliance with the Nutritional Requirements for Food and Drink in Schools (Scotland) Regulations 2020 is monitored by Education Scotland Health and Nutrition Inspectors who support local authority caterers to undertake a nutrient analysis of school lunch menus using appropriate software to assess compliance with the nutrient standards. They also support local authority teaching and catering staff to assess compliance with all other food and drink provision across the school day against the relevant specifications.

Under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 each local authority is responsible for ensuring that they comply with the statutory duties set out in the Regulations. The Regulations are flexible enough to allow for local variations in menu design which helps to ensure that local needs and preferences can be taken into account. As such we would expect to see different menus between local authorities and between schools within a local authority area.

SMEs and micro businesses are critical to the social, economic and environmental health of Scotland and we are committed to leveraging the full procurement rules to make it as easy possible for SMEs to bid for and win public procurement contracts and/or participate in local supply chains:

• Scotland outperforms the UK Gov target of 33% central government procurement spend going with SMEs by 2022. Even without target setting, in Scotland, 47% of public procurement spend in 2018-2019 went to SMEs; exceeding UKG( 26%), EU average (45%) and US(30%).
• last year, 58% of procurement spend on Scottish businesses went to SMEs, which account for only 40% of business turnover in Scotland, showing that SMEs are able to take advantage of the significant benefits that exist in relation to engaging with public procurement in Scotland.
• In 2019-20, over 26,000 suppliers were awarded public sector contracts worth £6.9bn through our Public Contracts Scotland portal; our data shows that 79% of suppliers awarded contracts in Scotland were SMEs from all locations and 63% were Scottish SMEs.
• We continue to provide funding (up to £150,000 in 2021-22) to the Supplier Development Programme which delivers free training and guidance on how to submit and win public procurement bids. During FY 2020-21, over 2,400 Scottish SMEs attended training events with 93% stating they were more likely to bid for public sector contracts as a direct result.
• The Supplier Development Programme also delivers free local and national Meet the Buyer events to put suppliers in touch with public sector buyers to learn more about up and coming contracts
• In March 2021, we published the results of a comprehensive survey of suppliers which received over 1550 responses. Its findings indicate that there is much to be positive about in respect of Scottish public sector procurement and the recent work done to improve it. At the same time it found that there are clearly areas in which the Scottish public sector could do more to build on the steps already taken to maximise the impact of public procurement in Scotland.
• This year we have also launched a series of SME round table meetings to hear directly from SME suppliers about their experiences of bidding for and winning public contracts.
• Of the [1] £369 million that Scottish Government spent through its contracts, over £120 million went directly to SMEs, with many more SMEs benefiting through our supply chains; they shared over £40 million of spend as subcontractors, with £30 million of that going to Scottish SMEs.

[1] Scottish Government Procurement Annual Report 2020

Children and young people who require inpatient support for an eating disorder will be admitted to either one of the 3 regional Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) inpatient units, as outlined below, or be admitted to a paediatric ward.

• 24 beds - Skye House Regional Adolescent Unit, Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow
• 12 beds - Dudhope House, Dundee
• 12 beds - Young People’s Unit, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Edinburgh

Similarly, adults who require inpatient support will be admitted to general adult mental health wards locally, or to one of the 3 adult specialist inpatient units in Scotland:

• The Regional Eating Disorder Unit at St John’s Hospital, Livingston, which is a 12 bed unit.
• The North of Scotland Eating Disorder Unit (Eden Unit), Royal Cornhill Hospital Aberdeen, which is a 10 bedded specialist eating disorder unit.
• There are also 4 specialist eating disorder beds in general adult psychiatry ward in Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow.

The Scottish Government is providing local authorities across Scotland with £21.75 million to provide targeted free school meal support during the school holidays throughout the forthcoming school year. We wrote to local authorities on 14 May to inform them of their allocations and I can confirm that North Ayrshire Council will receive £704,000 in additional funding to support the delivery of free school meal approaches in all school holidays.

This support will be available to all families who are in receipt of any of the qualifying benefits which would enable them to receive free school meals, regardless of whether their children are in primary or secondary school and this support will begin at the start of the forthcoming summer holidays.

Local authorities will be given the flexibility to support eligible families through any method which they feel will best meet local needs and circumstances within their respective areas.

To clarify, the one off pro rata thank you payment for all eligible health and social care staff is £500. We are working at pace with our key stakeholders to establish an effective way to pay Personal Assistants. We will issue further details as soon as this is agreed. We are confident that we have developed an online portal to reach all eligible Personal Assistants and we are aiming to have it open very soon.

Responding to incidents is an operational matter for our Emergency Services and the Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on response times to specific incidents or locations.

The Scottish Government is providing local authorities across Scotland with £28 million to expand the universal provision of free school lunches to include all children in primary 4 starting from August 2021, and to include all children in primary 5 starting from January 2022.

We wrote to local authorities on 14 May to inform them of their allocations and I can confirm that North Ayrshire Council will receive £651,000 in additional funding to support the expansion of universal free school meals to primary 4 and primary 5 children in 2021-22.

Since the start of the pandemic, businesses have directly benefitted from £3.6 billion in support and the Scottish Government has provided more funding than the consequentials received to support businesses. The Scottish Government publishes statistics, management information & budget allocations relating to its Covid-19 business grants on its website at Coronavirus (COVID-19): business support funding statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The next management information update is scheduled to be published on 11 June 2021.

The Scottish Government has launched a 10 week consultation into New Year’s Day trading for large retail stores today.

The consultation is seeking the views of shop workers and retail businesses and their representatives on whether the current law should change so that large retail businesses must close on New Year’s Day, as they currently do on Christmas Day. I would encourage all relevant parties to access the consultation on the Scottish Government’s consultation hub to ensure their views are taken into account.

While it is for the local authority or national park authority to ensure it has sufficient services in place, the Scottish Government has in recent years supported authorities through its Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund which has helped create new toilets, car parks and waste disposal facilities. To support critical tourism projects in our more remote areas we are more than doubling this Fund to £6.2 million in 2021-22, bringing our total investment to over £15 million.

The Visitor Management Group, consisting of public bodies, National Parks and local authorities, was also established last September and has now developed an interim strategy and a list of associated actions for this year.

A number of actions are already underway including the establishment of the new Better Places Green Recovery Fund by NatureScot. This Fund has provided over £400,000 to 35 community and third sector projects so far, with a new round of £2.75m allocated to deliver additional short-term action for the 2021 season. This includes support for temporary toilets and ranger posts. We are also providing our National parks with an extra £3.6m in 2021 which will support, among other things, seasonal rangers and improved infrastructure to better manage visitors this summer.