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The Scottish AI Alliance continue to align their work with the delivery of Scotland’s Digital Strategy and the Scottish Technology Ecosystem Review (STER) programme, to realise potential synergies in areas such as infrastructure, skills, and investment. In particular, In July 2022, the Scottish Government awarded a five-year £42m contract to Codebase for the delivery of a national network of Tech Scalers. Tech scalers are a major piece of infrastructure designed to support the creation of more tech start-ups in Scotland, and to help them to grow to scale.

Similarly, while use of AI attracts a set of AI-specific ethical questions, the Scottish Government recognises that the ethical challenges and opportunities of using data and digital technologies are interlinked. Work is currently underway across several Government directorates to identify synergies and to explore how to bring the different aspects of ethics in the digital world together while ensuring responsible use of data.

We meet regularly with colleagues from across government and further afield to ensure our work is joined up and responsive.

Civil servants operate flexibly across a range of policies and programmes according to the specific requirements of the work at any time. They do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of their time that they spend working on particular matters. It is therefore not possible to say specifically how many hours were spent by civil servants involved in this work.

The design of the ship is the responsibility of Ferguson Marine Port Glasgow. We are aware that detailed design of Hull 802 will draw upon lessons learned during the design and build of MV Glen Sannox.

An Islands Community Impact Assessment was not completed as part of the due diligence exercise. Previous analysis of the value to island communities of ferry services was however considered.

Wide-ranging progress has been made since the publication of the Women’s Health Plan in August 2021 and the first report on progress , published on 26 January 2023, sets this out in more detail.

Our Women’s Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier, recently published her first blog , highlighting her initial work and priorities for the months ahead. Future blogs will be published quarterly, and provide updates on the work of the Women’s Health Champion, as well as the delivery of the Women’s Health Plan more broadly.

The draft route map to achieving a 20% reduction in car km driven in Scotland by 2030 published in January 2022 outlines our approach to achieving this. A period of engagement and consultation followed publication, and the analysis and consideration of the consultation responses have shaped the final route map which will pe published in the coming months. The route map was co-produced with CoSLA, in recognition of the importance of local-level interventions, and we will continue to work closely with local and regional partners to achieve this commitment.

The route map contains over 30 national-level interventions, and recognises the need to shift towards sustainable alternatives to car use. We know that to reduce car use, public transport has to be available, affordable and accessible so, as part of the Fair Fares Review, a pilot to remove ScotRail peak fares on all routes will start in October. In addition, £421.8 million has been allocated in funding for bus services and concessionary fares in 2023-24, providing up to 2.3 million people in Scotland with access to free bus travel. This is part of a total of over £2 billion spent on supporting public transport by the Scottish Government annually.

We continue to work on this issue and will provide an update to Parliament on this commitment when appropriate.

Gender reassignment surgery is a specialised field of surgery, accessed by a small number of patients each year. Given the highly specialist nature of this surgery it is carried out in the UK under a four-nations contract, managed by NHS England.

NHS Scotland monitors the number of surgical referrals to the service. Patients referred for assessment do not necessarily proceed to surgery. A patient’s surgery will not necessarily take place in the same year as the referral.

There are several components to the DRS evaluation. This includes the consumer survey which is based on a three phase nationally representative sample where efforts will be made to ensure urban and rural/island areas are sufficiently accounted for within the sample design. Litter Monitoring System survey (funded by Scottish Government and developed by Zero Waste Scotland in partnership with Keep Scotland Beautiful and other stakeholders) will be used to collate litter data with the aim being to cover all Local Authority areas. Data from Management information will also be used to monitor and evaluate DRS, and this will include both national level and local authority level data. Given the recent changes and announcements the monitoring and evaluation plans for DRS may need revisiting to bring them in line with any changes made to the objectives of the scheme.

Over 670 producers responsible for more than 2 billion drinks containers, representing 95% of products sold in Scotland have registered with Circularity Scotland. This covers producers from global brands to small craft breweries and distilleries.