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Social Security Scotland carefully considers the information on counter fraud activity that can be placed into the public domain to ensure that any information released does not undermine the ability of Social Security Scotland to prevent and detect crime. We consider that releasing figures for referrals to the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal could be prejudicial to ongoing investigations.

Social Security Scotland regularly publishes information on detected suspected fraud in its Annual Report and Accounts. The most recent Annual Report and Accounts covering the period 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022, were laid before the Scottish Parliament on 7 November 2022 and were also published on Social Security Scotland’s website: Social Security Scotland - Annual Report 2021-2022 .

Development, management and use of surveillance technology in Scotland is a matter for local partners, including Police Scotland, working in partnership to consider their local needs.

Subject to all costs being settled, we expect to issue the release on Scottish Government's attendance and expenses incurred at COP27 by the end of January 2023.

Since short-term lets as a category have not previously been subject to regulation, there are no official statistics on the size of the sector. However, there are a variety of data sources which can provide indirect evidence of how the sector has evolved in recent years, particularly with the growing prevalence of on-line platforms. This is discussed in Section B of our Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment: Short-term lets: business and regulatory impact assessment - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Our licensing scheme will provide data on the number, type and location of short-term lets in Scotland. Licensing authorities must maintain a public register of applications for short-term lets licences which they are required to share with the Scottish Government on a quarterly basis. The Scottish Government will amalgamate licensing authority data to produce a national report. This national report on short-term let activity in Scotland will close a significant gap in knowledge that currently exists.

The evaluation of the Scottish Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme for GPs or GP Speciality Training bursary (GPST bursary) was led by Scottish Government Scottish Clinical Leadership Fellows in collaboration with NHS Education for Scotland (NES). The evaluation is expected to be completed by Spring 2023. The evaluation was instructed to inform policy consideration and was not conducted on the basis that it would in future become a publication. Nevertheless, once the evaluation is completed, consideration will be given to the publication of the final evaluation report.

We have been working with NHS Highland on an improvement plan for long-term, sustainable improvement to Psychological Therapies and we appreciate the hard work that the Director of Psychology and supporting staff in NHS Highland are doing to clear backlogs.

We recognise that performance in NHS Highland is not satisfactory. Long waits are unacceptable and we are continuing to offer tailored support to Boards, including NHS Highland, in the form of support from the Scottish Government Principal Psychology Advisor, Quality Improvement Advisor, Data Analyst and policy support. We are monitoring progress on this closely.

To help ensure that services deliver and measure Psychological Therapies in a more standardised way across Scotland, a new National Specification for the delivery of Psychological Therapies and Interventions is currently under development, with a consultation publication date of Winter 2022.

Addressing the wellbeing needs of the Health and Social Care workforce is now even more crucial than it was prior to Covid-19 and is key to both retaining our GP workforce as we press ahead with our commitment to increase the GP population in Scotland by at least 800 additional GPs by 2027.

Staff wellbeing is front and centre of our efforts to support the recovery of health and social care services. If we want our NHS and social care to provide the best care for us, we need to make sure we take care of them. The NHS Recovery Plan highlights that the recovery of staff is intrinsic to our collective ambitions for renewing our NHS, and highlights measures to support the physical, mental and emotional needs of the workforce.

Licensing fees must not be set at a level greater than the amount necessary to recover establishment and running costs. Guidance to licensing authorities on setting licence fees is contained within Chapter 3 of our short-term lets licensing guidance part 2: Supporting documents - Short term lets - licensing scheme part 2: supplementary guidance for licensing authorities, letting agencies and platforms - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Guidance sets out that licensing authorities are expected to have regard to minimising licence fee costs. It also encourages licensing authorities to offer lower fees for home sharing and home letting licences than for secondary letting. However, the exact fee levels are a matter for licensing authorities, and will likely depend on a number of factors such as volume of short-term let activity in their area, approach to physical property inspections and geography.

Licensing authorities must review their fees from time to time to ensure that revenue from fees remains in line with the running costs of the licensing scheme, as required by Paragraph 15(2)(a) of schedule 1 to the 1982 Act, as inserted by the Licensing Order.

Part (a) The Scottish Government does not hold data on missed GP appointments. Individual GP practices are responsible for their own appointment arrangements.

Part (b) Information on consultant led new outpatient appointments where the patient did not attend is published within Public Health Scotland’s annual acute hospital activity and NHS beds publication. Information can be found in ‘Table 1 – outpatient activity (consultant led).xlsx’ which presents data by NHS Board of Treatment for 2012/13 to 2021/22 (available under the ‘Data files’ heading on this Public Health Scotland web page: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual/acute-hospital-activity-and-nhs-beds-information-annual-annual-year-ending-31-march-2022/ ).

In addition, monthly trend information from May 2015 to September 2022 on the number of planned operations typically carried out within an inpatient or day case setting in NHS Scotland, that were cancelled the day before or the day of treatment by NHS Board of treatment (including cancellation reason, cancelled by patient). This information is published within Public Health Scotland’s monthly cancelled planned operations publication (available under the ‘Data files’ heading on this Public Health Scotland web page:

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/cancelled-planned-operations/cancelled-planned-operations-month-ending-30-september-2022/ ).

The next Public Health Scotland’s monthly cancelled planned operations publication covering October 2022 is due to be published on 6 December.

Both Scottish Ministers and the planning authority have a duty to ensure, whenever appropriate, that in granting permission for any development adequate provision is made for the preservation or planting of trees. In addition, a planning authority or the Scottish Ministers may make a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) if it appears to them to be expedient to do so and where relevant statutory tests are met.

The general principle under which the planning system operates in Scotland is that decisions should be taken at the most local administrative level unless there are compelling reasons for taking them at a higher level.

In line with this approach, Scottish Ministers will only use their powers with regards to tree preservation orders (TPOs) in exceptional circumstances where national issues of importance are raised. As such, we have no record of any TPOs made by Scottish Ministers since 2011.

More detail about tree preservation orders is available in Circular 1/2011: Tree Preservation Orders at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/01/28152314/0 .