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(a) The NHSScotland Staff Governance Standard includes the requirement for Health Boards to demonstrate that staff are appropriately trained and developed. There is an expectation that employers will ensure that resources are appropriately allocated to meet local training and development needs taking into account the current priorities of both the service and service users.

There are examples of Health Boards delivering on these expectations in relation to BSL. For example, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde offer a suite of BSL professional learning opportunities including courses for staff to learn basic BSL. Public Health Scotland also offer professional learning to support NHS staff to increase their awareness of BSL and to reflect on their own practice.

(b) Under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004, local authorities have duties to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils, including those who are deaf. Local authorities are supported in implementing their duties under the 2004 Act through the statutory code of practice on additional support for learning. Where a teacher wholly or mainly teaches a pupil who is deaf, local authorities have a duty to ensure they are appropriately qualified.

The Scottish Government funds the Scottish Sensory Centre to provide advice and training to school staff on support for children and young people with specific communication and sensory needs. Education Scotland has also developed a professional learning resource which seeks to support staff to engage more effectively with BSL users.

Following the first meeting of the Ministerial taskforce, we announced a grant scheme to support those suffering from the impacts of Storm Babet. After the second meeting of the Taskforce held on Wednesday 29 November, I can announce that applications for these grants will open on Monday 4 December. The grants will comprise a £1,500 community recovery payment for people whose properties have been flooded, and a £3,000 business recovery grant for businesses, community groups and organisations impacted by flooding. Grants will be administered by eligible local authorities which are those that had an exceptional red warning for rain during October’s storm - Angus Council and Aberdeenshire Council - and also in areas that were affected with catchments that cross local authority boundaries.

As well as these individual grants, the Scottish Government is providing more support in a range of ways. We want to do all we can to help people rebuild their lives. The Scottish Government is therefore providing additional funding of up to £100,000 to help those families who have lost everything to resettle. We have announced funding to help farmers repair floodbanks damaged by the extreme rainfall during October.

We have also initiated the Bellwin Scheme to help councils with weather related costs, and have extended it by two months. We will also share technical advice and expertise to help Angus Council identify and provide for future housing need.

This support is over and above our long-standing annual funding of £42 million and the additional £150 million for flood risk management together with our £12 million commitment for coastal change adaptation over the course of this parliament.

We continue to work with local authorities and those directly affected by Storm Babet, to help councils, people, businesses and communities to recover in the short term, but also to consider longer term issues like repairing infrastructure.

As set out previously, since 29 August 2022 women aged 71 to 74, and those 75 and over with a history of breast cancer, were able to register for self-referral appointments by contacting their local breast screening service. From 1 st December, all women aged 75 and over regardless of their history with breast cancer, will be able to register for self-referral appointments by contacting their local breast screening service, if they have not been screened in the last three years,. As a result, all women aged 71 and over will now be able to self-refer for breast screening, in line with procedures in place before the pandemic.

The impact of the restart on programme capacity and wait times will continue to be monitored closely to ensure there is no adverse impact on those who are invited for screening and for whom there is the clearest evidence of benefit.

The Accounts Commission oversees the audit of local authority Annual Accounts. Audit Scotland would advise the Accounts Commission of any concerns who would then investigate and advise the Scottish Ministers if required.

All local authorities have published their unaudited 2022-23 Annual Accounts and these are publicly available for inspection.

The Scottish Government is aware of minor delays to the completion of some local authority Annual Accounts audits, primarily as a continuing consequence of the pandemic. These challenges apply across the UK with only 5 out of 467 local authority Annual Accounts audits for 2022-23 in England having been completed in line with the statutory deadline.

Audit Scotland were anticipating that most audits will be completed by 30 November, following which local authorities will be able to publish their audited Annual Accounts.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

In compliance with the deadline set out in Section 22 of the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act, SPS will publish their annual report and accounts for 2022-23 in December 2023.

The following table shows capital expenditure per head of population for the 32 local authorities shown.

In any given year, capital expenditure per person varies substantially between local authority areas. This will in part reflect the different priorities of local authorities. However it also reflects differences in the timing of capital projects. Expenditure on capital projects can be highly variable as some projects can be high-value and infrequent, and expenditure per head in local authority areas will move, possibly substantially, from year to year as projects begin or wind down.

Capital expenditure information is excluded from the table for Valuation Joint Boards, Tay Road Bridge and Transport Authorities (HITRANS, NESTRANS, SESTRAN, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), SWESTRANS, TACTRAN and ZetTrans).

See Scottish Local Government Finance Statistics ( Scottish Local Government Finance Statistics 2021-22 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ) for more information.

Capital Expenditure (£) per head of population by Local Authority, 2011-12 to 2021-22

Sources:

LFR CR & LFR CR Final. Various Years.

NRS Population Estimates Time Series Data.

Glasgow City Council published its audited 2021-22 Annual Accounts on 20 April 2023. These accounts are available for inspection on its website: CHttpHandler.ashx (glasgow.gov.uk)

In line with the Local Authority Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2014, all local authorities have published their unaudited 2022-23 annual accounts on their websites by 30 June 2023 and these are available for inspection.

Local authorities were required to publish their audited 2022-23 annual accounts by 31 October 2023 and are required to publish the audit report of those accounts by 30 November 2023.

As part of routine discussions between the Scottish Government and Audit Scotland, some audit delays have been identified, primarily as a continuing consequence of the pandemic. Audit Scotland have raised no concerns and expect most local authority audits to be completed by 30 November 2023.

The Scottish Government is aware that Comhairle nan Eilean Siar is dealing with a significant cyber incident. The Scottish Government, Police Scotland and the National Cyber Security Centre are working together to provide advice and support to the Council as they manage this incident.

It is the responsibility of every organisation to ensure they have their own cyber resilience arrangements in place. The Scottish Government works closely with the public sector to help improve its cyber security and resilience.

The Public Sector Action Plan associated with the Strategic Framework for a Cyber Resilience Scotland has recently been refreshed and sets out how the Scottish Government will continue to work with the sector to improve its cyber resilience standards and best practice.

We have established the Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre (SC3) to improve national incident response coordination, early warning and threat intelligence. Police Scotland, the Scottish Government and the National Cyber Security Centre are lead members. SC3 shares threat intelligence with the Scottish public sector, including early warning of critical software vulnerabilities which could be exploited to conduct a cyber attack. This helps the wider sector proactively defend their networks and systems from similar attacks.

In addition, the Scottish Government, through its delivery partners is providing:

• incident response training events aimed at preparing public sector organisations for responding to cyber incidents and attack
• upskilling funding to help bolster cyber security skills within public bodies, and
• cyber awareness training for public sector board members to improve knowledge and understanding at the highest levels within organisations.

There were no convictions under regulation 44(1) of the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 (where main crime) in 2021-22.