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The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that everyone who needs it can access seamless, timely and high quality palliative care.

That is why later this summer we will publish our new palliative care strategy, Palliative Care Matters for All. The strategy will set out a series of aims and outcomes designed to help to improve palliative care services across Scotland.

The strategy will be accompanied by a delivery plan which will set out how the actions will be delivered through collaboration with a variety of service providers such as Integration Joint Boards, Health Boards, third sector organisations (including independent hospices) and other independent service providers such as care homes.

Information on the number of classroom assistants for the years 2003-2020 was provided in answer to question S6W-01069 on 14 July 2021 which is available on the Scottish Parliament website at: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/questions-and-answers

Data on classroom assistants by sector and local authority is available from 2019 to 2023, here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/school-support-staff-management-information/

The Scottish Government welcomes the finding that eligible patients are increasingly accessing CAR-T therapies.

NHS Board Chief Executives have endorsed a three-centre regional service model for delivering CAR-T therapies across Scotland, in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Grampian and NHS Lothian, to expand capacity and provide easier access for people requiring this treatment. This service delivery model fully commenced on 1 April 2025.

The development of our new palliative care strategy – Palliative Care Matters for All - has been informed throughout by ongoing collaboration with relevant policy areas across Scottish Government, such as health and social care, housing, equalities and social security.

This co-design approach across Scottish Government will help ensure that palliative care is considered and reflected in other relevant policies, delivery plans and standards, and supports their outcomes.

In referring to "clawback", Scottish Government assumes the question relates to differences in funding provided by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) via its annual allocations process to institutions based on forecast uptake of places at colleges and universities, and any subsequent adjustment made by the SFC to that funding on the basis of reduced take up of college and university places. While there are regular funding reconciliation exercises between the Scottish Government and public bodies, no funds have been returned to the Scottish Government for that specific reason.

The Scottish Government has not identified any funds returned from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) for penalties. The member may wish to contact the SFC for further details.

The Scottish Government welcomes the findings from Public Health Scotland’s (PHS) report on chimeric antibody receptor therapies (CAR-T) for haematological malignancies. The report, which is a collaboration between PHS and the Cancer Medicines Outcomes Programme (CMOP), describes the impact and clinical outcomes of cancer medicines in the real world and can be used to both analyse the outcomes from CAR-T therapies across Scotland and assist with planning future treatment pathways.

The report demonstrates that by developing, and refining, a robust and reliable process cancer medicines intelligence may be routinely generated to support informed decision making at individual, local, and national levels. The data assists healthcare professionals to understand the real-life impact of cancer medicines, supports clinical decision making by enabling a more individualised approach to the provision of cancer care using CAR-T therapies and helps ensure the safe and effective use of these complex medicines.

Scottish Government has not had discussions with Boards about expanding CAR-T cell therapy provision beyond the current centres in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Until late 2024, adult CAR-T cell therapy in Scotland was delivered through a single specialist centre. The move to a three-centre model from April 2025 reflects a clinically-led and phased approach to scaling this complex and resource-intensive treatment.

CAR T-cell therapy requires specialist facilities, accredited services, and expert clinical teams to manage serious side effects. Because only a small number of patients are eligible, concentrating treatment in a few centres helps maintain safety, quality, and clinical expertise.

It is too early to assess the need for further expansion. The impact of the current model must be fully evaluated before considering additional centres. Any future decisions will be based on clinical need, service capacity, and workforce sustainability.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-38196 on 17 June 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Responsibility for developing Skills Investment Plans currently sits with Skills Development Scotland (SDS). We are exploring an approach for skills planning in collaboration with SDS and the Scottish Funding Council as part of the Post School Education and Skills Reform Programme, which will clarify how these processes are run in future.