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The ongoing response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been and continues to be the focus of our activity. We have agreed with BMA Scotland that the report and its important recommendations will be released when it has been fully considered.

The guarantee is compliant with EU state aid rules and did not require EU approval.

The Scottish Government is in regular contact with the GFG Alliance both at the Lochaber and Dalzell sites, as well as at Group level, mostly via officials. I chair the Lochaber Delivery Group meeting which last met on 23 February 2021.

Following extensive research to determine motivations to vaccinate we launched a mass communication public health marketing campaign ‘Roll up your sleeves’ to promote the roll out of the vaccine programme, on 21 st January. The Roll Up Your Sleeves campaign will run across TV, radio, outdoor, press, PR and social media channels until end March and plans are in place for future phases of the activity to support the younger audiences and encourage vaccine uptake.

The campaign will reach a very large (99.1%) of all adults (4.36m) in Scotland who will see the advertising a minimum of 20.6 times. The campaign signposts the public to a national helpline and to NHS Inform where more further detailed information on the vaccine programme is available and is updated regularly.

A vaccine door drop leaflet was sent to all households in Scotland (2.6m) in the first week of January to communicate the vaccine programme. As cohort 6 is invited forward we have a bespoke unpaid carers campaign planned to reach this audience many of whom are unaware of their eligibility for vaccination, launching 15 th March. The campaign will signpost this audience to an online portal and to the helpline where they will answer a series of triage questions to determine eligibility and be offered an appointment.

The Scottish Government is working with faith based, third sectors and community groups to reach out to more people from deprived communities to increase the vaccine uptake. We have also put in place financial and practical support to ensure all parts of our community have the knowledge and confidence to participate in this vaccination programme and to remove any barriers.

More information on Covid-19 can also be accessed via the link here: Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Scotland | NHS inform .

We recognise the crucial role both Rape Crisis Scotland and Women’s Aid Scotland centres play in providing specialist support for women and children at risk of gender-based violence.

At present, over £12 million this year is being invested into frontline services and across the sector to help tackle violence against women and girls. We have also opened our new Delivering Equally Safe Fund, which will provide up to £13 million of funding every year between October 2021 to September 2024.

Furthermore, at the start of the Covid pandemic, all organisations and projects currently being funded under the existing Equally Safe Fund were granted an extension on their funding until September 2021. Last year we also allocated an additional £5.75 million to frontline support services to ensure that women and children can safely access the support they need.

Women having access to frontline services dealing with violence and domestic abuse is vital. This is why we have also committed to review the funding and commissioning of frontline specialist services to explore how we can ensure both quality and sustainability of services. Councils also have a responsibility to recognise the importance of such services and to fund them accordingly.

Our previous reply highlighted this information is not held centrally, as there is no Classification of Surgical Operations and Procedures (4th revision) code suitable to identify operations for the treatment of lipoedema in the data supplied by NHS Boards.

We are able to provide data for the number of liposuction and brachioplasty procedures that have been carried out by financial year, from 2006-07 to 2019-20 as these are procedures frequently used to treat lipoedema. Please note that these figures are for the total number of these procedures completed for all conditions; it is not possible to identify how many of these procedures were carried out to treat lipoedema.

Table 1. Number of liposuction procedures 1,2 ; by NHS Board; 2006-07 to 2019-20

We are driving forward an ambitious and progressive agenda to ensure women’s equality rights are embedded within our economic recovery planning, and in all we do, to mitigate against the disproportionate impacts COVID-19 has and will continue to have on different groups, including women, women from minority ethnic communities, older women and disabled women.

We will develop an equality and human rights mainstreaming strategy, as promised in our Programme for Government, that is underpinned by a comprehensive approach to improving data collation and analysis, and that harnesses the voices of those impacted to shape our approach and policies. As part of our wider mainstreaming strategy and to inform the development of approaches across the Scottish Government, we will establish an Economy Centre of Expertise on Equality and Human Rights to drive progress in this area.

Furthermore, improving women’s position in the labour market remains a priority for the Scottish Government and a key part of delivering inclusive economic growth. We committed in our Programme for Government to review the actions within our Gender Pay Gap Action Plan in light of the pandemic, ensuring they continued to support women through the economic recovery. We have taken this work forward and published our Gender Pay Gap Action Plan Annual Report on the 8 March 2021, setting out our progress to date and new actions we will take.

As part of this work, we have commissioned research to explore and evaluate international mechanisms that revalue (or aim to revalue) women’s work. The research will consider the impact of COVID-19, and findings will inform our work to improve women’s position in the labour market going forwards.

(a) The latest Scottish Government Growth Sectors Statistics for the Creative Industries, published in December 2020, show that the music sector contributed £19.8 million to the Scottish economy in 2019 (Source: Growth sector statistics - gov.scot ( www.gov.scot ).

UK Music estimates that the number of full-time equivalent jobs sustained by music tourism in Scotland was 2019 was 4,757. It estimates that in 2019 1.3 million tourists attended live events across Scotland (up from 1.1 million in 2017) and the total amount of spend generated by music tourists in Scotland in 2019 was £453 million (Source: Music by Numbers 2020 - UK Music ).

(b) Scotland’s music sector has a significant cultural impact domestically and internationally. Scottish musicians excel in every genre, including classical, contemporary classical (new), folk, trad, rock, pop, indie, electronic, hip hop, and jazz, which all combine to create a vibrant music scene that is recognised across the globe. Our music sector supports our vibrant oral and music cultures and traditions, including those relating to Gaelic and Scots, as well as traditional arts, and contributes to Scotland as a creative and cultural nation through festivals, live music and performances as well as providing music networks across communities.

(i) and (ii) The Scottish Government supports the music sector and Scotland-based recording artists primarily through Creative Scotland, which awards funding through its Regularly Funded Organisations (RFO) programme and its Open Project Funding (OPF). In 2018-21 it awarded £11.45m of RFO funding to music organisations, including the Scottish Music Industry Association (SMIA). In 2019-21 it awarded £2,408,805 of OPF to 121 projects, ranging from funding for touring, for individual artists and support for sector organisations.

Creative Scotland also provides a range of other support to the music sector and recording artists through initiatives which can support artists throughout their careers such as the development of new work by composers, through initiatives such as Create: Inclusion, its international showcasing at Womex, the world music expo; the annual Classical: NEXT event in Rotterdam,Showcase Scotland; and the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Awards, funded through the SMIA.

Creative Scotland’s support for the music sector and recording artists is set out in its annual report. (Source: Creative Scotland annual report 2019-20 ).

The Scottish Government directly funds and promotes the National performing companies the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

The short-life Ministerial Working Group will form part of our approach to establishing a Centre of Expertise in Equality and Human Rights to work across the Economy portfolio within Scottish Government. This involves ensuring that it advances upon our wider equality and human rights mainstreaming strategy to inform the development of approaches across the Scottish Government.

Once we have established the Centre of Expertise, then the working group would form part of its initial governance.

We are currently developing our approach to establishing a Centre of Expertise in Equality and Human Rights to work across the Economy portfolio within Scottish Government. This involves ensuring that it advances upon our wider equality and human rights mainstreaming strategy to inform the development of approaches across the Scottish Government.

As promised within our Programme for Government, this mainstreaming strategy will be underpinned by a comprehensive approach to improving data collation and analysis, and that harnesses the voices of those impacted to shape our approach and policies.