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Priority two in our new Stroke Improvement Plan , published in June is focused on awareness raising and includes a commitment to establishing the current degree of public understanding of FAST and stroke symptoms.

This work is currently underway and will help inform the most effective way of raising public awareness of stroke symptoms, including FAST campaigns.

In addition to FAST campaigns, we will also consider how awareness of the less common symptoms of stroke can be increased. We will continue to work with third sector organisations to consider how best to deliver future public health campaigns to raise awareness of stroke symptoms.

While the Scottish Government holds information on the number of overall psychology posts and vacancies, we do not hold information on specialty psychology roles. Decisions on such specialty roles are for Health Boards to address.

Psychology staffing has more than doubled (+131.6%, as of 30 June 2023) since 2007 and we are increasing the postgraduate student intake for Psychology Masters and Doctorate programmes by a total of 60 trainees between 2021 and 2023.

We published a new Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Plan on 7 November, which set out the actions we will take to ensure we have a resilient and sustainable workforce, with the right skills who are able to deliver the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

The Scottish Government does not engage directly with local authorities regarding the Celtic Connections Festival. The Scottish Government provides Celtic Connections financial support through EXPO funds, administered through Creative Scotland, to help Celtic Connections meet key strategic objectives linked to the fund.

In 2023/24 Celtic Connections received £101,000 to help them raise their international profile and promote Scottish artists by enabling Celtic Connections to enhance their programmes through exciting and innovative co-productions and collaborations. The EXPO application process and allocation of EXPO funding is managed through Creative Scotland.

Data on employer type was not collected during the first year of the Flexible Workforce Development Fund (FWDF) which was academic year 2017-2018. Information on Levy Paying employer spend on the first four years of the Fund is available in the FWDF evaluation report which was published in January 2023: https://www.gov.scot/publications/evaluation-flexible-workforce-development-fund-fwdf/ .

Based on the information provided by our delivery partners, the Scottish Funding Council and Skills Development Scotland, the level of FWDF accessed by private sector organisations in the academic years 2018-2023 was:

• 2018-2019 - £7 million.
• 2019-2020 - £6.7 million.
• 2020-2021 - £8.3 million.
• 2021-2022 - £9.1 million.
• 2022-2023 - part year as delivery continues to end of December 2023 - £7.1 million.

The Scottish Government is committed to upholding its robust standards when it comes to Human Rights. I visited the UAE between 24-27 October and met senior government and business leaders to promote Scotland’s planned COP28 business programme and advance our bilateral trade and investment relationship with the UAE. I took the opportunity to raise Human Rights as part of the discussions around the Scottish Government’s commitment to creating a wellbeing economy to drive not just a wealthy society but a fair and just society. It was agreed to share further insight and intelligence about this work in Scotland and also to learn more about the measures the UAE has taken to tackle issues in their own society.

The area of High Conservation Value Woodland (HCVW) on Scotland’s national forests and land has not decreased in real terms. The method used to calculate HCVW area has been refined to more accurately reflect where native trees would naturally occur.

Plans are in place for Forestry and Land Scotland to increase the amount of HCVW they manage through (a) greater rates of restoration of Plantations on Ancient Woodland Sites from funding awarded by SG totalling £2.8M between FY 2022-23 & FY 2023-24. This will be used to commence a programme of rainforest restoration works, as part of the Programme for Government commitment to support the restoration and expansion of Scotland’s rainforests, and establish a National Register of Ancient Woodlands. This funding has enabled FLS to underpin the restoration of 658 hectares of priority rainforest area in Cowal, Argyll (Kintyre & West Loch Awe), Loch Lomond Basin, Wester Ross and the Isle of Arran (North Sannox). Activity includes INNS control, clearing non-native tree regeneration and deer management.

And (b) improvements to the condition of ancient semi-natural woodlands. This will be achieved on 4,663 ha of Ancient Semi-natural woodland areas on Scotland's national forests and land within the Rainforest Zone. Work is underway to remove non-native tree regeneration and invasive non-native species from prioritised areas.

Deer management will continue to increase, with positive benefits for PAWS restoration and ASNW condition already being observed. It is anticipated natural tree regeneration will occur within PAWS under restoration and colonisation more generally throughout rainforest habitat following a reduction in deer densities, buffering zones for natural colonisation are being planned within Land Management Plans .

Additionally improvements to the condition of ancient semi-natural woodlands areas in upper Spey-side are being achieved through participation with the Cairngorms connect project.

Out with the Rainforest Zone, alternative funding streams are being explored to support the continued restoration of iconic landscapes such as Glen Affric and the Black Wood of Rannoch.

All £15.5 million plus an additional £4.5 million was spent by Forest Enterprise Scotland (the predecessor to Forestry and Land Scotland) on rhododendron control between 2010 and 2020.

The area treated was in the region of 16,000 hectares. Complete eradication of this highly invasive plant is not realistic due in part to the continued reinvasion of seedlings from adjacent uncontrolled sites. FLS considers successfully controlled sites as those in the ‘maintenance phase’ where rhododendron no longer threatens the conservation interest on a site and recolonisation will be slow.

FLS continue to control rhododendron in priority sites on Scotland’s national forests and land, and where possible in collaboration with other land managers at the landscape scale.

A public health campaign to help remove stigma and raise awareness of the symptoms of menopause is in development and is planned at present to be delivered within the current financial year.

The Women’s Health Plan recognises that many women face multiple and often overlapping disadvantages and barriers to health and healthcare. That is why we aim to take an intersectional approach across all the actions in the Women’s Health Plan, so that all women enjoy the best possible health throughout their lives.

This includes the NHS Inform Women’s Health Platform which has comprehensive information on menopause translated into five languages, easy read and BSL.

We are working closely with The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) who continue to support the work of the Plan through their dedicated lived experience programme. This included a series of webinars on menopause, with live British Sign Language interpretation as well as visual resources. The resources are available online, or via hard copy.

The ALLIANCE have also produced a toolkit for delivering Conversation Cafes to facilitate informed and open conversations among women about women’s health – including menopause - with an accompanying resource hub . This model also supports the sharing of information with women who cannot or prefer not to access information online.

Forestry and Land Scotland accounting systems do not differentiate rhododendron control from other environmental expenditure such as Invasive Non-Native Species control. Therefore, figures of expenditure on a) new rhododendron and b) ongoing treatment cannot be provided.

It is not possible to say how many hectares of land managed by Forestry and Land Scotland rhododendron has been eradicated in each year since 2020.

For FY 2023-24, £1.0 million has been budgeted for INNS and rhododendron follow-up control over a minimum of 440 hectares.

Most of this expenditure will be targeted at ongoing treatment of existing areas of rhododendron.