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The Scottish Government are committed to working with COSLA, ADES and our partners to deliver improvements in additional support for learning implementation and to ensure meaningful change for children and young people through our Additional Support for Learning Action Plan. The most recent ASL Action Plan progress report published in November 2022 confirms the progress made on the development of the measurement framework, including measures to celebrate the successes and achievements of children and young people with additional support needs. Since the publication of the progress report, a draft of the framework has been considered by the ASL Network and ASL Project Board and officials continue to work with partners to further enhance the framework.

The Scottish Government will continue to report on the progress of implementation of the ASL Action Plan through formal progress reports. The next progress report is due to be published in May 2024.

NHS patients are eligible to have a free dental check-up every six months if required. The time between check-ups can vary from 3 months to 2 years, depending on the oral health of the patient.

As part of the recovery of NHS dental services, on 1 February 2022 we introduced an enhanced examination fee for all patients, which included for the first time a fee for a child examination. The latest statistics from Public Health Scotland show that over 1.6 million NHS examination appointments were completed between April and October with an average of more than 300,000 courses of treatment per month, meaning we are on course for over 3.5 million contacts in the 2022-23 financial year.

We are working closely with the dental sector to ensure it has the support necessary to offer continuity of NHS care to patients. This includes Scottish Government providing Scottish Dental Access Initiative Grants and Recruitment and Retention Allowances to dentists and dental practices.

Scottish Dental Access Initiative Grants support pays out a potential £100,000 for the first surgery, and £25,000 per additional surgery to practices setting up a new NHS practice, or extending an existing NHS practice. The Recruitment and Retention Allowance provides up to £37,500 across three years to eligible NHS dentists in qualifying areas.

Our recent consultation on restricting alcohol advertising and promotion reflects the WHO’s recommended approach and sets out a range of potential options to restrict alcohol advertising and promotion, in order to prevent and reduce alcohol-related harms.

The consultation closed on 9 March. An independent contractor will comprehensively analyse the responses and publish a report. We will then further consider possible restrictions.

This Government has already introduced free dental care for young people between 18 and 25 years of age. We have also made a commitment to abolish all NHS dental charges in the lifetime of this parliament.

We continue to support Health Boards to deliver NHS dental services and have put in place additional recruitment and retention incentives in rural and remote areas.

This data is not held by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government receives quarterly reports from Let’s Talk ASN, the national advocacy and legal representation service for young people (over 16 years old) and the parents and carers of children with additional support needs. In the last quarter, between October and December 2022, Let’s Talk ASN received 124 enquiries. Of those, 27 were retained as a Let’s Talk ASN case. The remaining enquiries were provided with advice.

In the last quarter, Let’s Talk ASN lodged 20 references to the Health & Education Tribunal to commence the process to a full hearing.

The Scottish Government does not hold disaggregated information on Let’s Talk ASN cases between ‘parents’ and ‘carers’.

As our recent consultation on restricting alcohol advertising and promotion set out, there is evidence that those who drink heavily have increased susceptibility to alcohol marketing and that this can translate into drinking behaviours. For those in recovery, alcohol marketing can be a trigger which threatens their recovery and can be responsible for relapse.

The consultation closed on 9 March. An independent contractor will comprehensively analyse the responses and publish a report. We will then further consider possible restrictions.

The independent review of the role of incineration in Scotland’s waste hierarchy made it clear that Scotland does not need additional municipal waste incineration facilities to treat our unavoidable and unrecyclable municipal residual waste, beyond those for which planning permission has already been granted, with very limited exceptions.

That is why we introduced restrictions on energy from waste developments in National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4), which came into effect on 13 February 2023. This sets out that development proposals for energy from waste facilities will not be supported except in limited circumstances where a national or local need has been sufficiently demonstrated (e.g. in terms of capacity need or carbon benefits) as part of a strategic approach to residual waste management.

SEPA cannot issue a Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) permit in respect of a waste incineration facility in the absence of planning permission. Introduction of restrictions on developments in NPF4, therefore, also prevent PPC permits being issued for new facilities in line with recommendation 4 of the incineration review, which noted that the Scottish Government should ensure that no further planning permission (i.e. beyond that already in place) is granted to incineration infrastructure within the scope of the Review unless balanced by an equal or greater closure of capacity, with very limited exceptions.

It is crucial that the voices of children and young people are at the heart of developing our next steps on alcohol policy.

Our recent consultation on restricting alcohol advertising and promotion directly references the recommendations of the Young Scot Health Panel. It contains questions on potential restrictions on alcohol sponsorship of events as well as potential restrictions on alcohol-branded merchandise.

The consultation closed on 9 March. An independent contractor will comprehensively analyse the responses and publish a report. We will then further consider possible restrictions.