Seòmar agus comataidhean

The recruitment and deployment of police officers is a matter for the Chief Constable.

We recognise that Police Scotland are undertaking a wide range of actions in response to the increase in officers choosing to retire including the recruitment of 300 new officers each quarter to help return officer numbers to appropriate levels.

The Empire, Slavery and Scotland’s Museums steering group is an independent group and the Scottish Government is not, therefore, able to comment on its discussions.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting and empowering women and girls to reach their full potential through our sustainable and inclusive economic growth ambitions.

In our recently published Best Start, Bright Futures: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022-26, we committed to building on existing work to remove barriers to employment, taking a strategic and intersectional approach to tackling employment inequalities. We know that the voice of lived experience is vital in developing and implementing policy to tackle poverty, and will continue to work with partners in the delivery of this plan.

To incorporate understanding of women’s experiences, we will be working in partnership with our key stakeholders and partners, as well as key advocacy groups who work directly with parents in the priority families groups outlined within the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan. We have committed to establishing a Parental Lived Experience Panel in Summer 2022, to help inform our activity around employability. This will build on the on the success of our existing Lived Experience Panel, which has been invaluable in co-designing No One Left Behind, and aligns with our wider commitments to embedding the Scottish Approach to Service Design in employability. Work is also underway to develop a lifetime skills offer to support individuals and businesses to develop the skills needed now and in the future, and as these proposals are developed, we will link with key expert groups to inform the process.

SEPA has an extensive network of rainfall monitoring gauges across the country and the data collected are available at SEPA’s Rainfall data for Scotland website.

Scotland’s National Water Scarcity Plan is available on the SEPA website. This sets out how water resources will be managed prior to, and during, periods of prolonged dry weather.

SEPA has started publishing a weekly Water Scarcity Report for this year as some parts of the country are already experiencing drier than average conditions. The current report can be found on SEPA’s water scarcity page.

The report uses a range of hydrological and meteorological data to set water scarcity levels across the country. The National Water Scarcity Management Plan explains what the different levels mean in terms of communication with licence holders and further regulatory action.

Scottish Water routinely monitors water levels at abstraction points and will contact public to advise them to use less water where there is a risk of a water shortage. Local Authorities are contacting owners and users of Private Water Supplies to remind them to check on their water supplies to ensure that they are resilient to the impacts of a dry summer.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Scottish Health Service Costs are published annually in arrears by Public Health Scotland.

The most recent cost book data available covers 2020-21 and was published on 22 February 2022. Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services spend is not routinely published in the cost book publication but is available from Public Health Scotland on request through phs.costsinfo@phs.scot.

Data for 2021-22 is not currently available, but will be available on request after publication of the 2021-22 cost book, which is currently scheduled for November 2022.

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the National Neurodevelopmental Specification: Principles and Standards of Care for Children and Young People, published in September 2021, which specifies service standards that all children’s services should follow, to ensure access to support is effective and consistent across Scotland.

In 2021-22, through our Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund, we allocated around £40 million to NHS Boards across Scotland to improve their Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and Neurodevelopmental services for children and young people.

The Scottish Government understands that delivering service improvements can only be achieved with the right workforce capacity and capability. Therefore to support this, £3.06 million from the Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund was allocated to NHS Boards in 2021-22 to build professional capacity within Boards to support children and young people with neurodevelopmental support needs.

Against a backdrop of a 6% increase in NHS Psychology staffing in 2021, we are also working in collaboration with NHS Education for Scotland and NHS Boards to undertake a UK level National Psychology Recruitment drive. In addition, we are increasing the student intake for Psychology Masters and Doctorate training programmes and creating new roles, and Enhanced Psychology Practitioners in primary care, community, early years, and schools. These professionals can support the delivery of the National Neurodevelopment Specification, including contributing to diagnosis, but also importantly in training and support for universal services and delivering family support interventions tailored for children and young people with neurodevelopmental support needs.

Alongside the important role played by psychologists, other registered health and social work professionals can be trained in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnostic tools such as Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), and provide ASD assessment, contributing to diagnosis. Diagnosis is recommended from at least 2 professionals using a number of information sources, including parental reports.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on payments of kinship care allowance as local authorities are responsible for deciding levels of care allowance based on local decision making practices and specific needs of individual children or young people. The information can be found using the following link Allowances surveys | The Fostering Network

Since its launch in October 2020, the value of the Self-Isolation Support Grant has been aligned to the value of the Real Living Wage (RLW) during the period that a worker might be required to self-isolate.

The Grant was initially available to workers in receipt of Universal Credit, but was expanded to workers who earn less than the RLW on 16 February 2021.

The Scottish Government is taking a range of action to ensure that we minimise the blight of litter on communities. We recently consulted on proposals for our new National Litter and Flytipping Strategy, including measures to strengthen enforcement measures, including raising fixed penalties, improve data collection, support private landowners and promote responsible behaviours. We will publish the final Strategy later this year, taking account of consultation responses. The Strategy is being developed in partnership with Zero Waste Scotland, Keep Scotland Beautiful and SEPA, and we are actively engaging with stakeholders throughout this process.

Local authorities are responsible for, and best placed to make decisions on the prioritisation of, measures to tackle litter at local level. However, the Scottish Government continues to work collaboratively with local authorities on this issue and our draft Strategy proposes measures to develop and adopt a shared approach between Scottish Government, local authorities, public agencies and the third sector, to effectively support litter prevention and behaviour change across Scotland.

Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging, which will be implemented from 2024, will include requiring producers across the UK to cover the costs associated with litter-prevention communications and managing litter disposed of in bins. The Scottish Government considers that producers should also cover the cost of managing litter disposed of on the ground, and we are working with the Welsh Government to explore options to put this in place.

Poverty is the single biggest driver of poor mental health and there is a structural relationship between wider socio-economic inequality and mental health. The Scottish Government is aware that many people across Scotland will experience financial hardship as a result of the economic downturn and we know that heightened stress can be a risk factor in relation to suicide.

This is why in our mental health Transition & Recovery Plan we have committed to strengthening alignment of mental health policy with work to tackle poverty and reduce inequality and we have committed to further develop a response to those whose mental health has been affected by issues relating to debt, working closely with a range of advice organisations including Citizen’s Advice Scotland to better understand and tackle these issues.

Our Transition & Recovery Plan, is backed by our £120m Recovery and Renewal Fund, is transforming mental health services, with a renewed focus on prevention and early intervention and funding allocated since it was introduced in 2021-22 includes:

? £9m to enhance Psychological Therapies, including £5m to address waiting times.

? £15m to improve the mental health estate and physical environment for both service users and staff.

? Nearly £5m to support the NHS 24 Mental Health Hub, ensuring a 24/7 response.

? Almost £2m to roll out digital innovations, including online access to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

? Funding to improve mental health care for children and young people, including £40m for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

The Scottish budget confirmed the direct programme budget for mental health in 2022-23 at over £290m – a 6% increase on the current year, and 139% more than in 2020-21.