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We committed in our 2018-19 Programme for Government to invest up to £5 million over a three year period to support 2,000 women who have had a career break to return to the workplace. This commitment and the scale of ambition built on the learning from our 2017 pilot Women Returners Programme.

An initial Programme commenced in late 2020 which offered immediate support to women during the pandemic. Within the three month period of delivery it attracted twelve projects offering support to over 450 women. This included projects such as HRC Recruitment which provided employability workshops combined with menopause support and mental health fitness coaching to women over 50 years old.

The programme for government published in September 2021 committed to continuing the programme. SDS are delivering the programme this year on behalf of Scottish Government backed with up to £2 million. Bids from prospective providers are currently being assessed. Women will be given support to enable them to apply for jobs or take part in activity such as further training that suits their own personal needs, timescales and circumstances for returning to work.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The following table provides the number of SPS issued mobile phone handsets that have been confiscated at HMP & YOI Grampian, each month, since implementation in July 2020:

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Whilst this is primarily an operational matter for the SPS, the SPS and Scottish Government have been in communication regarding the reported tampering of mobile phones used by individuals in custody and security measures in place. A solution was identified with the provider in relation to the concern of illicit SIM cards being used in prison issued mobile phones and it is currently being implemented across the prison estate. This solution enables the SPS to blacklist handsets on various network providers rendering the handsets unusable with a non-prison issued SIM. The security measures in place will continue to be monitored by the SPS.

I welcome the efforts of Plus Perth, Dundee Healthy Minds Network, Angus Voice and the Tayside Independent Inquiry Stakeholder Participation Group in producing this survey and report. I recognise the value that it has provided to David Strang in informing his progress report on Tayside's mental health services which was published in July. I met with representatives of the Stakeholder Participation Group to hear more about their experiences and recommendations for Tayside Mental Health Services in September and have made clear to Tayside partners that the voices of lived and living experience on mental health services in Tayside is critical going forward.

The Scottish Government is working to establish independent scrutiny of Tayside’s Mental Health Services, an action that is strongly supported by the survey report.

Following closure of the Lowit Unit at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital in 2014, a programme of CAMHS redesign started in 2015. This included all services for children and young people with mental health issues being redesigned to support children aged 0-18 years.

During this redesign, the majority of staff were co-located in a new purpose redesigned CAMHS building funded by the Scottish Government. The remainder of staff are now based in Moray as part of a Hub and Spoke model of care. This includes Unscheduled Care and Tier 4 staff to support children, young people and their families. All Tier 4 patients are cared for by a Multi-Disciplinary Team, using a Care Programme Approach. The CAMHS service in NHS Grampian is now also part of a North of Scotland regional Tier 4 network with Tayside and Highland and in-patient beds can be accessed within the Young People's Unit, if required.

It is for individual Health Boards to ensure that they provide mental health services in line with the needs of their local population.

NHS Grampian is currently meeting the CAMHS Waiting Times target of patients starting treatment within 18 weeks, with compliance at 90.8% in the last quarter. Waiting times performance since the whole service redesign in NHS Grampian was completed shows the positive impact this has had on access and care.

We are aware that, following our successful public awareness campaign, there is significant public interest in carrying out work to comply with the new standard for fire alarms in all Scottish homes. It is, therefore, possible, that some retailers will have short term supply issues. However, we have been assured by manufacturers that there is a sufficient supply of alarms available to meet the expected demand by 1 February 2022, when the new standard comes into force.

Home owners are responsible for the costs of on-going work needed to protect and preserve their own property, which includes the costs for the fire alarms to meet the new standard. We have provided £0.5 million additional funding for Care and Repair Scotland to provide help installing alarms for older and disabled homeowners on low incomes. We have also provided £1 million to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to provide alarms for owners who are considered most vulnerable to the risk of fire. Local authorities also have broad discretionary powers to provide advice and support to owners.

The Scottish Government has undertaken a comprehensive awareness raising campaign across a range of channels including TV, Radio and digital to ensure people are aware of the new legislation and encourage compliance. This includes material to support third sector stakeholders and messaging on the importance of using reputable tradespeople, including signposting to local government Trading Standards.

The Strategic Framework within Scotland’s Scams Prevention, Awareness and Enforcement Strategy, published in 19 March 2021, focusses on prevention, disruption, awareness, education and enforcement. This is intended to help all consumers with practical steps they can take to recognise common scam tactics and avoid the risk posed by this criminal activity.

Further advice can be obtained from https://consumeradvice.scot/ , which is a free consumer helpline funded by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government understand the important role sport plays in communities, bringing people together, and contributing to a sense of local belonging and inclusion. Through the Programme for Government we have committed to double investment in sport and active living to £100 million a year by the end of the Parliament ensuring more people can enjoy active lives as we recover, improving physical, mental and social health.

We will work with sport scotland, and wider partners to understand how best to increase investment in physical activity and sport, while ensuring we address inequality of access. We will continue to work with sport scotland and wider partners to understand how best we can ensure opportunities are available for everyone.

Our National Agency for Sport, sport scotland, invests in and supports more than 50 Scottish Governing Bodies of sport (SGBs) to develop their sport-specific pathways, including pathways for participants with disability. The Equality Standard for Sport is a shared approach by all UK sports councils to help address the inequalities that exist within the sector. sport scotland has focused on supporting Scottish Governing Bodies of Sport to progress against the Equality Standard and implement the action plans that are developed through this.

More recently, sport scotland published their new equality? outcomes for 2021-25. These new equality outcomes are person centred and look to address inequalities and ensure everyone has the opportunity to take part in sport and physical activity.

Scottish Disability Sport is the Scottish Governing and co-coordinating Body of all sports for people of all ages and abilities with a physical, sensory or learning disability. Scottish Disability Sport have developed an Activity Inclusion Model (AIM) which is being used widely across Scottish sport to ensure inclusive sport to strategy, education and participation.

The Scottish Government are aware of the continued disruption as a result of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the significant impact on the sport and physical activity sector particularly, on disability sport. The Scottish Government and sport scotland worked with local and national partners across Scotland to ensure people with a disability were considered in any return to sport plans.

During the lockdown period , Scottish Disability Sport developed a suite of online projects and programmes to meet the identified needs of volunteers, coaches, participants and athletes to maintain engagement and support wellbeing .

The Scottish Government has committed to establishing a £10 million fund to allow companies to pilot and explore the benefits of a 4 day working week. The pilot will allow us to develop a better understanding of the implications of a broader shift to a 4 day working week across the economy, and aims to represent a broad cross-section of businesses and organisations spanning the Scottish economy, including those who would find the move to a four day work week more challenging.

There has been extensive engagement with individual businesses registering an interest in participating in the pilot and with business representative organisations. Discussions have also taken place with academic experts and organisations regarding the promotion of flexible working. All this engagement is currently informing the careful and rigorous design of the pilot and it is anticipated that a timetable for implementation will be announced later this year.

The Scottish Government recognises the disparity between men and women in leadership roles in sport. We will continue to work with sportscotland and wider partners to understand how best to identify future leaders and support their development through programmes of educational learning, mentoring and experiential opportunities.

Our National Agency for Sport, sport scotland, run a number of programmes to encourage women into leadership roles. These include the Scottish Sporting Leaders Programme which helps improve the leadership skills or increase the leadership capability of staff within the sporting sector throughout the country. Each cohort will include a mix of delegates from local and national partners. The programme is open to women and men, with women being 54% of the participants across the four cohorts to date.

In addition to these national programmes, the SGBs and local partners in which sport scotland invest operate a range of programmes relevant to their specific context to support women into leadership roles in sport.

The Scottish Government also provide funding to the Scottish Sport Association to ensure there is enhanced governance through increased diversity, skill-base and competence of SGB boards via their On Board for Sport (OBfS) programme.

In order to gain a better understanding on how to support women into leaderships roles, sport scotland are convening a session on 5 October with around a dozen women who have progressed a coaching or leadership career in sport. This will be an open conversation to learn from the challenges and successes these women have faced in their careers, and to discuss what they would like to see to support more women to progress into coaching and leadership positions in sport in Scotland.