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Many of the calls received at the Mental Health Hub, via the NHS 24 111 line, are driven by a range of complex and interrelated social factors, including financial worries.

Callers to the Hub are connected to a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP), a specially trained advisor who can offer advice and support on coping with a range of mental health symptoms.

PWPs are able to signpost callers to sources of support and advice for financial worries, such as the Citizens Advice Bureau, when appropriate to do so.

The Scottish Government announced up to £115 million funding for the two Little Minch vessels, and associated port works and project costs, in October 2022. The total costs of the vessels are commercially confidential.

My officials in Transport Scotland are working with ATCO and COSLA on the development of the Community Bus Fund for launch within the financial year 2023-24.

There are 3 categories of non-departmental public bodies: executive non-departmental public bodies, advisory non-departmental public bodies and tribunals. There are 45 executive non-departmental public bodies, 9 advisory non-departmental public bodies and 3 tribunals. The following tables for each of these categories, contain year of establishment, funding and staff numbers.

Executive non-departmental public bodies

There are 10 executive agencies. Please see the following table for executive agencies contains year of establishment, funding and staff numbers.

Network Rail is ultimately accountable to the UK Government, however, Scottish Ministers have made it clear that any decisions it makes in relation to staffing and staffing levels must be in line with the Scottish Government’s Fair Work principles.

The security offered by the Scottish Government’s continued funding of Scotland’s Railway will assist with Network Rail’s future planning and work-banks for the supply sector.

The Scottish Government receives regular updates on all new vessel builds. The contract for the Little Minch vessels was signed on 11 January and all agreements including full Builders Refund Guarentees were put in place recently. The latest update was received from CMAL on 20 February 2023.

CMAL as procuring authority have confirmed that there have been no changes to the design or specifications for the vessels ordered from the Cemre Marin Endustri yard to serve on the Uig to Lochmaddy and Uig to Tarbert ferry routes.

The information requested is not collected or held centrally by the Scottish Government and would require to be obtained from Health Boards.

The Scottish Government is in regular dialogue with the sector, most recently through holding a series of roundtable discussions. While we have had to make difficult choices to live within budgets, we have also listened to the concerns raised by the culture sector. In response, as announced on 21 February, the Scottish Government will provide an uplift of £6.6 million for Creative Scotland for 2023-24 to ensure their accumulated lottery funding reserves can supplement rather than replace grant funding.

This decision means there will be a substantial increase in the Scottish Government’s funding for culture and major events in the next financial year.

We expect Creative Scotland to set out quickly for the culture sector how it will use these additional resources to support organisations and help protect culture sector jobs at this difficult time.

We will continue to have close discussions with Creative Scotland and the wider culture sector to support workers and ensure our diverse and world-class cultural scene and rich heritage continue to thrive.