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Health Boards and Health & Social Care Partnerships are responsible for considering local health needs and taking population growth and infrastructure expansion into account when planning and providing for General Medical and Dental Services.

The Scottish Government annually uplifts General Medical Services funding specifically to account for population growth. In 2023/24, this amounted to £8.3 million.

The Scottish Government also introduced dental payment reform on 1 November 2023; this programme aims to better reflect the increased costs of modern dentistry, providing longer term sustainability and encouraging the dental sector to increase its existing NHS provision.

The latest statistics from Public Health Scotland show 90.9% of the population of Lothian Health Board were registered with a NHS dentist on 31 March 2024, over 833,000 adults and children: tables.xlsx (live.com)

The Scottish Government does not collect specific data on short-term lets who have chosen to stop operating. We have begun to publish regular official statistics on the number of short-term let license applications received, broken down by local authority here: Short Term Lets Licensing Statistics Scotland to 31 December 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) This is an evolving dataset which will give us reliable information on the number of licensed properties, and the size of the sector in Scotland. So far less than 1% of licence of applications have been refused.

We also publish a range of regular statistical updates on tourism, which we use to monitor the health of the sector and take action where appropriate. The Industry Advisory Group, hosted by Visit Scotland also plays a role in considering information on short-term let licensing including the experience of hosts, which has informed several operational improvements to the scheme which will take effect shortly.

Scottish building regulations already set requirements for venues, for new buildings and new building work, that are intended to assist people with visual impairment to safely navigate a building.

However, building regulations are not applied retrospectively to existing buildings.

The Scottish Government expects building owners and managers to be familiar with their duties under equalities legislation and where necessary make reasonable adjustments following the relevant codes of practice published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The Scottish Government believes everyone should have the right to access a cultural life of their choice, and are committed to advancing disability equality and tackling systemic barriers that affect the daily lives of disabled people. We are working with Disabled People’s Organisations, Glasgow Disability Alliance, Inclusion Scotland, and Disability Equality Scotland to ensure disabled people’s experiences are heard.

Facilitating access and participation to culture, is central to the artistic purpose of all Scottish Government funded culture bodies and they all share a desire to communicate with as large and diverse an audience as possible. The Equality Act 2010 requires service providers to make reasonable adjustments where a disabled person in placed at a substantial disadvantage in comparison with non-disabled people. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has produced a Code of Practice that gives more information on the application of reasonable adjustment. However the Equality and Human Rights Commission is an independent, and reserved public body, and therefore cannot be directed by Scottish Ministers.

The Scottish Government-funded National Performing Companies all offer relaxed and adapted performances, this includes Audio Described and Captioned performances across Scotland, and in some cases pre-show Touch Tours for visually impaired audiences.

The Scottish Government is committed to promoting the rights of disabled people and ensuring that they benefit from all that we are doing to improve people’s lives. This includes ensuring that all serving Armed Forces personnel and veterans living in Scotland, as well as their families, are able to: access the best possible care and support; enjoy their rights on an equal basis to others; and participate fully and lead their own lives.

Those involved in ticket sales, such as venues or ticket providers, should be familiar with and address their broader duties under UK health and safety and equalities legislation including, for the latter, the requirement for service providers to make reasonable adjustments in circumstances where a disabled person is placed at a substantial disadvantage compared with non-disabled people.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has produced a Code of Practice that gives more information on the application of reasonable adjustments. The Scottish Government expects all relevant organisations to comply with the requirement of the Equality Act 2010 and relevant codes of practice published by the EHRC.EHRC is an independent, and reserved public body, and therefore cannot be directed by Scottish Ministers.

Our Culture Strategy sets out our ambition for everyone across Scotland to lead a cultural life of their choice, ensuring that everyone has an equal opportunity to enjoy and contribute to culture, the creative industries and the arts.

Creative Scotland’s regularly funded organisations are contractually obliged to develop and implement Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plans. This covers all aspects of the organisation across governance, staffing, programme, audiences and marketing. Creative Scotland are also involved in “All In”, a UK wide initiative from Arts Council England, developing a new UK arts access scheme for D/deaf, disabled, and neurodivergent people, representing the Scottish perspective.

VisitScotland’s website already provides information on the benefits for event organisers of engaging further in accessible tourism and how events can create their own access guides. In addition, amongst other resources, VisitScotland’s successful inclusive tourism project sets out the existing non-statutory Accessibility Guidance for Events produced by VisitScotland.

Regards to training of venue and security staff in relation to visual impairment, the Scottish Government expects all relevant organisations to comply with the requirement of the Equality Act 2010 and relevant codes of practice published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and address their broader duties under UK health and safety and equalities legislation including the requirement for service providers to make reasonable adjustments in circumstances where a disabled person is placed at a substantial disadvantage compared with non-disabled people. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is an independent, and reserved public body, and therefore cannot be directed by Scottish Ministers.

Public Health Scotland’s (PHS) annual Acute Hospital Activity and NHS Beds information publication will include data on National Treatment Centre (NTC) admissions up to and including 31 March 2024. This publication will be released in September 2024 and will be available to view here: All releases of Acute hospital activity and NHS beds information (annual)

Social Security Scotland has not been subject to any denial of service (DoS) attacks during the period between 30 June 2023 and 24 July 2024. During that same period, our security mechanisms protected our environment against 345,027 cyber events, the majority of which being external actors scanning our internet facing benefit systems to identify potential weaknesses.

The Independent Review of Audiology Services in Scotland made recommendations with regard to ensuring that audiologists are eligible for registration upon completion of training but did not include a recommendation for audiologists to be regulated by statute. At present, audiologists below the academic qualification threshold for statutory registration with the Health and Care Professions Council are expected to join the Professional Standards Authority-accredited voluntary register held by the Academy of Healthcare Science (AHCS). The review implementation group will be considering whether accreditation with the AHCS remains appropriate and sufficient. Discussions on the statutory regulation of audiologists would also need to take place on a four-country basis.

This information is not held by the Scottish Government. The Academy for Healthcare Science is accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) , which demonstrates that it has achieved the PSA standards in governance, standard-setting, education and training, management of the register, complaints handling and equality, diversity and inclusion. It is the register itself that is accredited by PSA, not the practitioners who register with it.