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Local authorities are responsible for the recruitment and deployment of their staff. This includes providing a complement of teachers which best meets the needs of each of their schools and its pupils within the resources available.

While teachers are employed by local authorities, the Scottish Government is taking strong action to protect increased teacher numbers – supporting councils with an additional £145.5 million in this year’s budget, which assures funding for local authorities and removes this as a barrier to employing staff on permanent contracts.

Over the past 10 years the number of teachers in permanent posts has remained stable at over 80%.

A crime of drug possession may be disposed in criminal court or through direct measures such as a Fiscal Fine or Recorded Police Warning. The following tables provide the most recent five years of data for persons convicted in court, where main charge (Table 1) or given a non-court disposal (Table 2).

Data for 2020-21 are affected by the pandemic and subsequent court closures and should not be viewed as indicative of long term trends.

Table 1

The monitoring of the quality of drinking water from private water supplies is the responsibility of their owners and users. For larger supplies and those used for commercial or public activities, the drinking water must be sampled once every year. This mandatory sampling is carried out by local authorities, who are also responsible under statute for any enforcement action.

The package of support this year, including the "sensitive approach" to grading was agreed following discussion with stakeholders, including through the National Qualifications Group on which Scottish Government is represented.

SQA’s approach to grading the exams in 2023 was based on its established awarding processes where grade boundaries are set to determine the marks needed for each grade.

The key difference when taking a "sensitive approach" to grading is that decisions on where the grade boundaries are set at each subject and level, consider all factors that could have impacted on performance, such as the impact of course modifications, to ensure fairness to young people while maintaining national standards. Full information on SQA’s approach to awarding, including grading, is available in their National Qualifications 2023 Awarding Methodology Report .

Adjustments to grade boundaries are smaller this year than in 2022, reflecting the continuing recovery in skills, knowledge and understanding on the part of students.

The Scottish Government have no current plans to publish a Ministerial statement.

Parliamentary scrutiny has been possible through two sessions the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee has held with sport scotland and Cricket Scotland. In addition sport scotland publish quarterly updates on progress against the Changing The Boundaries report. The most recent update was published on 25 July and can be accessed on the sport scotland website.

We will continue to work with sport scotland and Cricket Scotland to ensure all recommendations in the Changing The Boundaries report are progressed and ensure lasting change within the sport.

The 2022-23 Local Government Finance Settlement included £351 million for the Council Tax Reduction Scheme. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on the Council Tax Reduction Scheme, on the basis of local needs and priorities. The Scottish Government has not allocated any funding to the Water Charges Reduction Scheme (WCRS); this is because the scheme is funded by Scottish Water’s general household customer base. In 2022-23, Scottish Water reported that the value of the WCRS discount was £58 million.

An Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) provides basic information about the energy efficiency of a building. EPC assessments are conducted by qualified Domestic Energy Assessors who must be members of an Approved Organisation. An EPC assessment for existing buildings is a non-intrusive survey and assumptions are required based on the age and characteristics of the building. The Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) is the underlying methodology used for EPCs and is owned by the UK Government. There are well-recognised limitations to the current methodology and assessment process and we are working with the UK Government to ensure planned updates to SAP across the UK help improve the accuracy of EPCs.

By their nature, EPCs are intended to reflect, and allow comparison of, the building assessed, rather than the way its occupants use it. For this reason, the calculations are based on standard patterns of occupancy and use. For example, this means that the cost figures in a domestic EPC are not bespoke to the current occupants.

Earlier this year, the statutory advisers on climate policy to governments throughout the UK, the Climate Change Committee, wrote to the Scottish Government setting out a series of recommendations for the reform on EPCs, noting that the current energy efficiency rating on EPCs is a measure of energy costs, not energy efficiency. In response to this advice, the Scottish Government published a consultation on EPC reform on 25 July 2023. This seeks stakeholder views on proposals to reform the current metrics to provide more holistic information about the efficiency of a home that is relevant to current and potential owners and occupiers.

In most cases it is a legal requirement to provide a Home Report to prospective buyers when selling a home. The home report comprises of a single survey, property questionnaire and energy report and is completed by a qualified surveyor. The energy report gives information on the home's energy efficiency in the form of an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). An EPC states the energy efficiency of a building based on standardised assumptions about the way in which a building is used.

The Scottish Government published a consultation on EPC reform on 25 July 2023 seeking stakeholder views on proposals to reform the current metrics to provide more holistic information about the efficiency of a home that is relevant to current and potential owners and occupiers. Our reform proposals include responding to recommendations on improvements to the EPC scheme made by the Climate Change Committee, our statutory advisers on climate matters.

I have met with sport scotland and Cricket Scotland on a number of occasions to discuss progress against the Changing the Boundaries report and will be meeting the interim CEO on 21 September.

The issue is also regularly discussed at monthly meetings between myself and sport scotland’s Chair and Chief Executive.

In addition, Scottish Government officials meet on a fortnightly basis specifically to discuss the work resulting for the Changing the Boundaries report as well as the issue of racism more widely.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to discuss with the UK Government the licensing of testosterone treatments for perimenopause or menopause for use in Scotland. As noted in the answer to question S6W-18294, on 14 June 2023, regulations for the licensing, safety and efficacy of medicines are currently reserved to the UK Government and are the responsibility of the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). For a medicine to be routinely prescribed, it firstly needs to receive a licence from the MHRA. It is the responsibility of individual pharmaceutical companies to apply to the MHRA for a marketing authorisation (licence). Whether to submit an application to the MHRA is a decision made by a pharmaceutical company. The application process requires a company to provide data demonstrating the quality, safety and efficacy of the medicine.

The National Institute for Health and Care Research’s (NIHR’s) Health Technology and Assessment Programme (HTA) is considering several research applications against the call ‘Testosterone for the treatment of menopause symptoms beyond altered sexual function’. Any applications will be considered by the HTA funding committee in mid-November, with final outcomes known early December 2023. This should help identify any substantive new evidence on the use of testosterone to support pharmaceutical companies in applying to the MHRA for a licence.

The Scottish Government is supportive of the NIHR’s backing for this important research and will monitor the outcomes from the programme.

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