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Although the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) collates data on students who declare a Mental Health condition, neither it or the Scottish Government gather information on the number of students accessing mental health services in colleges and universities.

The Scottish Government is working closely with NHS Ayrshire and Arran to increase capacity and reduce cancellations. A number of improvement actions to enable the prioritisation of resources to areas where the capacity gap has the greatest impact are already underway, including:

• A bottom-up review of operating capacity within surgical teams;
• Increase resilience of the planned care service through protection of planned care beds to ensure that operations are not cancelled as a result of bed capacity; and
• Introduction of new enhanced roles across the wider multi-disciplinary teams to increase capacity and improve sustainability, such as surgical care practitioners, anaesthesia associates and theatre assistant practitioners.

These actions will help NHS Ayrshire and Arran deliver its plans to increase capacity which include targeted recruitment, extended workforce roles and new models of service delivery.

Scottish Ministers accept that the documentation published to date falls short of the requirements of Section 94A of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. Scottish Ministers are committed to complying fully with these requirements and are engaging with Environmental Standards Scotland on this matter through the informal resolution process. To this end, the Scottish Ministers intend to publish an assessment of the extent to which investment in accordance with the Infrastructure Investment Plan is expected to contribute to the meeting of the emissions reduction targets in Part 1 of the 2009 Act. In the context of the informal resolution process, it is the Scottish Ministers’ intention to share with ESS the proposed assessment prior to publication. This will be done as soon as possible and before the end of the calendar year, with publication anticipated in early course thereafter.

We have always been clear that we want the work of the Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry to be delivered at speed, addressing the range of questions that people have, so that we can learn and benefit from lessons as early as possible.

It is for the Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry itself to comment on its work.

Section 17 of the Inquiries Act 2005 gives an inquiry Chair alone, rather than Ministers, responsibility for deciding how an inquiry should operate. Operational matters such as the timetabling, procedure and conduct of hearings are for the Chair to decide, entirely independent of government.

It is for the Chair to determine how to strike the right balance between addressing the wide range of questions people have and making sure that the inquiry can be delivered at speed, so that we can learn and benefit from lessons as early as possible.

The Scottish Government remains committed, in its role as sponsor, to providing operational support as the Chair considers necessary and appropriate, in order to enable the Inquiry to carry out its independent work and help ensure the progress made so far is continued.

Updates from the external support team and other matters relating to the escalation of NHS Forth Valley are discussed at meetings of the NHS Forth Valley Assurance Board.

The Assurance Board was established by the Scottish Government to support NHS Forth Valley in determining what steps are necessary to ensure the delivery of high quality governance, leadership and culture, and in doing so support improvements in performance in out of hours, unscheduled care, mental health, and integration.

The minutes of the Assurance Board meetings and other information relevant to the escalation of NHS Forth Valley are published here: NHS Forth Valley Assurance Board - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The R100 programme comprises of three strands of activity – the R100 contracts, R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (R100 SBVS) and continued commercial build.

The R100 contracts are gap funded meaning that the Scottish Government subsidises Openreach to deliver connections to premises which would not otherwise be commercially viable. Subsidy is only paid to Openreach once premises have been delivered and delivery milestones have been achieved.

Suppliers to the R100 SBVS can only claim their evidenced costs, up to a maximum of the voucher value, once the installation work is completed and the voucher beneficiary is able to receive, as a minimum, a superfast broadband service.

The Scottish Government does not have a remit to intervene should a broadband provider choose not to proceed with their commercial build plans.

Forecasts provided by the recipients of the Green Jobs Fund awards estimated projects will support up to 4,462 full time jobs over the life of the individual project.

The Scottish Government recently convened a Multi-Agency Co-ordination Group in July 2023, in response to a cybersecurity incident at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS). The group was comprised of officials from the Scottish Government, UWS, NCC Group, the National Cyber Security Centre, the Scottish Local Government Digital Office and the Scottish Cyber Co-ordination Centre.

The Group was subsequently stood down once the initial attack and response work had come to an end, with communication lines remaining open in case any further assistance is required.

The Scottish Government recognises that a diverse and successful ports and shipping sector contributes significantly to the national, regional and local economies in which they operate. Ports and harbours are crucial gateways to Scotland and Scottish Ministers continue to support a market-driven approach to ports policy, and recognise the contributions of port and shipping operators to the economy of Scotland.

The Green Freeports model in Scotland has been carefully designed by Scottish and UK Government Ministers to build on the existing strengths of local areas, minimise displacement of local economic activity, and create new opportunities for disadvantaged areas within Scotland.

To track the impact of the Scottish Green Freeports against these aims, we are developing a monitoring and evaluation framework in partnership with the UK Government and a consortium of external evaluation experts. This framework will also monitor and evaluate the impacts of the wider English and Welsh Freeports within the context of the UK. Once the framework has been established fully, Scottish Government and UK Government will publish findings from data collected.

In the meantime, we will continue to work closely with the Scottish ports sector and trade associations going forward, to understand any issues affecting the sector, including – where relevant – any concerns around the impact of Green Freeports or Freeports.

I have lead responsibility for the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships.