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We are fully committed through our employment policies and procedures to support employees who experience pregnancy loss at any stage of pregnancy and our current package of support measures fully reflect the spirit and intent of the Pregnancy Loss Pledge.

This includes the terms of our bereavement policy, which include miscarriage and stillbirth, as well as through a number of sources of support for colleagues who have experienced loss including:

• guidance and support from line managers;
• HR People Advice and Wellbeing support; and
• an internal Counselling and Wellbeing Team.

Colleagues can also access the Employee Assistance Programme for external confidential support.

The independent Barclay Review of non-domestic rates reported in 2017 and made 30 recommendations, the majority of which were accepted by the Scottish Government in the implementation plan published in December 2017. All of the agreed recommendations of the Review have been implemented, including those which came into effect on 1 April 2023 such as the move to revaluations with a one-year tone date, the introduction of a new two-stage appeals process, and powers for councils to tackle rates avoidance.

The Scottish Government commissioned the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland to undertake a programme of lived experience engagement and information sharing, that supports the implementation of the Women’s Health Plan: 2021 - 2024 over the lifetime of the plan.

An update on the delivery of this work since the publication of the Plan can be found in our recently published Women’s Health Plan: A Report on Progress .

The jointly funded £250,000 endometriosis research project with Wellbeing of women covers a period of 3 years, and began in the financial year 2022-23.

The findings from the research will be published in an open access journal after the research completion in 2025. The results will also be presented at national and international endometriosis conferences.

The shift to electric vehicles is an important part of responding to the climate emergency. To help incentivise this shift, Scottish Government and Transport Scotland have since 2011 invested over £65 million to support a range of organisations – including local authorities, other public bodies, businesses and third sector organisations – to install public charge points across Scotland. These organisations own the charge point infrastructure, and many of them use back-office services provided by ChargePlace Scotland, which is funded by Scottish Ministers.

A shift towards a public charging network largely financed and operated by the commercial sector is necessary to grow the network at pace and improve the consumer experience overall. To support that, the Scottish Government recognises that it’s vital that the public charging network has tariffs which are fair, sustainable and which enable the growth and maintenance of the network.

Responsibility for setting tariffs and overstay charges on ChargePlace Scotland lies with charge point owners. In considering whether to set a tariff, owners may consider a range of factors including local circumstances, utilisation levels and running costs. ChargePlace Scotland routinely provides charge point owners with data relating to the utilisation of their assets. ChargePlace Scotland do not advise charge point owners on tariff levels or overstay fees, however, they may signpost owners to the EV Association of Scotland (an independent group who represent the interests of EV users) website where tariff guidance can be found.

The Scottish Government recognises that overstay fees have a role to play in ensuring the public charging network is used efficiently and that bays are not occupied by a single user, and therefore unavailable to others, for extended periods of time.

Responsibility for setting tariffs and overstay charges lies with charge point owners. A shift towards a public charging network largely financed and operated by the commercial sector is necessary to grow the network at pace and improve the customer experience overall. To support that, it’s vital that the public charging network has tariffs and fees which are fair, sustainable and which enable the growth and maintenance of the network. There are 680 public charge points out of 2475 on the ChargePlace Scotland network where an overstay fee applies.

Evidence over the last 6 months shows a continued growth in usage across the ChargePlace Scotland network with increases of approximately 25% in new driver account registrations, 8% in charge sessions and 13% increase in Kwh being drawn. Statistics published by the Committee on Climate Change in 2022 highlight that the share of total new car sales in Scotland which are electric rose from approximately 8% in 2020 to 12% in 2021.

Our Diabetes Improvement Plan, published in 2021, contains a key commitment to further increase access to existing and emerging diabetes technologies. A link to the Plan can be found at link: Diabetes Care in Scotland (www.gov.scot) .

Our national policy is to increase access to these life changing diabetes therapies to everyone who would benefit, and we expect NHS Boards to provide technology to all clinically suitable children and adults.

We are supporting the ANIA collaborative as they work through the current proposal of a national onboarding programme. We are also working with wider stakeholders, including health finance colleagues, to determine what longer term developments would be required to support ongoing roll out of technologies.

Public bodies, including NHS health boards, are responsible for monitoring the accuracy of interpretation services. The Scottish Government expects all healthcare services to be accessible to all people in Scotland, regardless of the circumstances of individual service users, including where an interpreter is required.

The Scottish Government works across public and third sector partners to improve the availability of translations and accessible formats. We collaborate to share best practice and signpost to translation, interpretation and transcription services that are accessible to all public bodies. Scottish Government resources to support this include the Interpreting, Translation and Transcription Services Framework .

Additionally, Public Health Scotland published the Interpreting, Communication Support and Translation National Policy in October 2020. Its aim is to ensure that NHS Scotland and its partners have a clear, consistent and fair approach to the provision of information and communication support for all. The policy outlines guidance for NHS Scotland to ensure that appropriate governance of interpreting and translation services is in place, as well as the need for systematic monitoring and review of local/contracted services and procedures.

As part of our review into the operation of the Public Sector Equality Duty in Scotland, we are proposing to create a new duty that would seek to ensure inclusive communication is embedded proportionately across the work of listed authorities when they are communicating with the public. This would include translation and interpretation into other languages.

The Scottish Government engages fully in the audit process and the related scrutiny. The Action Plan at Appendix 1 of the Annual Audit Report 2021-22 sets out the audit recommendations and the Scottish Government responses and agreed actions. It is the nature and timing of the audit process that there are aspects where action has already been taken and where action is in progress. The Public Audit Committee has considered the Auditor General’s report and the Permanent Secretary and relevant officials have attended a session with the Committee and responded to Committee questions.

The Scottish Government supports transparency and responds positively to suggestions for the inclusion of information in the range of reports that the Scottish Government produces. Since the publication of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts 2021-22 and the related audit reporting, the Scottish Government has updated the reporting on the financial position in the recent Finance Update and Spring Budget Revision, will shortly lay in Parliament the Final Outturn report for 2021-22, which will update the outturn reporting from the Provisional Outturn statement and in the suite of annual accounts and will continue to engage with Audit Scotland on how transparency can be further improved in the next round of financial reporting. Finance and Public Administration Committee: finance update and Spring Budget Revision 2022 to 2023 guide - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ).

The approach to performance reporting is developing; Audit Scotland reported in its Annual Audit Report on the 2021-22 Scottish Government’s Consolidated Accounts that improvements had been made in 2021-22 to the performance report in the Consolidated Accounts. The Scottish Government is committed to build on those improvements in 2022-23 and we will continue to enhance our approach across the organisation, with a particular focus on outcomes.

This is a matter for individual local authorities. The information is not held centrally.