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Although it is the statutory duty of local authorities to manage their school estate, the Scottish Government will convene a working group - including representatives from COSLA, community organisations and sports organisations - to explore how community access to facilities, such as the school estate, can be enhanced. The first meeting of this group will take place in March.

Schools in Scotland have the flexibility to decide on the content of their physical education lessons. The Scottish Government does not specifically evaluate the extent to which swimming lessons form a part of those decisions.

We know that some local authorities offer swimming lessons as part of their physical education classes. In other cases, schools may take into account a range of factors, including the time that is required to travel to a swimming pool, in deciding against offering swimming lessons as part of PE.

However, the Scottish Government has been working with Scottish Swimming, Education Scotland and other stakeholders to develop interventions and approaches to provide opportunities for children to become confident, competent and safer swimmers.

Community youth work remains an important pillar of local authority provision, including in schools. The Scottish Government utilises a Block Grant system, affording local authorities significant autonomy in allocating financial resources, including those designated for youth work in schools. This approach empowers councils to prioritise local needs and tailor services accordingly, while fulfilling mandatory obligations and adhering to nationally-agreed priorities. Transparency is ensured through annually-published breakdowns of spending on the Scottish Government website, though there is no statutory obligation for youth work activity to be recorded or monitored by local authorities, third sector organisations or voluntary organisations.

An independent review of Community Learning and Development (CLD), encompassing youth work, was launched in December 2023 and is expected to conclude in June 2024. This review aims to assess the impact of CLD on learners across Scotland, providing valuable insights for the future.

Community youth work remains an important pillar of local authority provision. The Scottish Government utilises a Block Grant system, affording local authorities significant autonomy in allocating financial resources, including those designated for youth work. This approach empowers councils to prioritise local needs and tailor services accordingly, while fulfilling mandatory obligations and adhering to nationally-agreed priorities. Transparency is ensured through annually-published breakdowns of spending on the Scottish Government website.

Furthermore, an independent review of Community Learning and Development (CLD), encompassing youth work, was launched in December 2023 and is expected to conclude in June 2024. This review aims to assess the impact of CLD on learners across Scotland, providing valuable insights for the future.

The UK Government did not inflation-proof its capital budget which has resulted in nearly a 10% real-terms cut in the Scottish Government’s capital funding over the medium-term between 2023-24 and 2027-28. The result of this cut is that new health capital projects have currently been paused.

Work is underway to update the pipeline of projects and programmes relating to the 2021 Infrastructure Investment Plan to ensure it is affordable and deliverable and provides best value for money. Our emphasis for the immediate future will be on addressing backlog maintenance and essential equipment replacement.

We remain committed to driving down waiting times. We have increased investment in frontline NHS boards by more than half a billion pounds in the draft Budget. We will continue to target resources to reduce waiting times, particularly for those waiting longest for treatment, through maximising productivity and additional resources.

We are working with Health Boards on detailed annual plans to demonstrate how waiting lists will be managed to see reductions, improved productivity and clear evidence on how this will help free additional capacity.

The Scottish Government continues to protect investment in digital within health services, as shown in the published budget. Planning remains underway to fully assess the impact on planned activity for 2024-25 that takes into account the considerable financial challenges facing the Scottish Government in the forthcoming financial year, and we will publish our Delivery Plan for Digital Health & Care in April 2024. This will confirm delivery priorities for the year ahead using the investment available.

The Scottish Government and COSLA committed to the provision of suicide bereavement support across Scotland in their Creating Hope Together action plan ( 2022-25). The bereavement support service is a core element of our approach to ensuring everyone affected by suicide is able to access high quality, compassionate, appropriate and timely support.

Since August 2021 we have funded bereavement support service pilots in NHS Ayrshire and Arran and NHS Highland. Over 2023-24 we have worked with partners to design and plan the roll-out of the service, drawing on the positive evaluation of the pilots. Expansion of the bereavement support service will begin from 2024-25, working closely with local partners. Further details will be confirmed as soon as possible.

Following the completion of the Allied Health Professions (AHP) Education and Workforce Policy Review, an advisory group has been established to oversee the effective implementation of the recommendations. The group held its second meeting on 4 March 2024 where the group considered the delivery plan.

The delivery plan takes an outcome based approach and the group recognises the complexity and interdependency of how the suite of recommendations contributes to achieving the overarching positive change required.

The group will consider the timescales required to meet the overarching aims at its future meetings, scheduled in June and October 2024.

We remain committed to eradicating long waits to ensure all people receive the treatment they need as soon as possible.

We opened two new National Treatment Centres in Fife and Highland in Spring 2023, and NTC-Forth Valley and the second phase expansion of NTC-Golden Jubilee will open in 2024. These centres will deliver eight orthopaedic theatres and will provide additional and protected capacity for hip and knee replacements.

This year NTC Highland is providing 1,500 orthopaedic procedures and NTC-Fife plans to deliver more than 700 orthopaedic procedures by 2025/2026.

Significant progress is also being made in the delivery of same-day discharge arthroplasty, allowing patients to be safely discharged home on the same day as their procedure, increasing capacity within Orthopaedics.