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All children and young people have the right to be cared for, protected from harm, and to grow up in a safe environment in which their rights and needs are respected. We expect all children and young people to have their needs met by the mental health system, and the improvements we want to see made to the CAMHS system must take into account the needs of particularly vulnerable groups. The Scottish Government has invested £15 million to support better access to CAMHS and innovation, and we have indicated in our draft budget for 2018-19 an increase for Mental Health Innovation and Improvement of £17 million – this includes money for the transformation of CAMHS.

There is a focus on vulnerable children and young people in the Mental Health Strategy, with specific Actions supporting that focus, including:

• Action 5 - Ensure the care pathway includes mental and emotional health and wellbeing, for young people on the edges of, and in, secure care.

• Action 6 - Determine and implement the additional support needed for practitioners assessing and managing complex needs among children who present a high risk to themselves or others.

• Action 7 - Support an increase in support for the mental health needs of young offenders, including on issues such as trauma and bereavement.

• Action 20 - Scope the required level of highly specialist mental health inpatient services for young people, and act on its findings.

Effective and accurate collection and monitoring of employment data is important to ensure we can assess the extent to which we are making progress helping particular groups, including young people with autism. We are working to ensure that through the new devolved employment service, Fair Start Scotland, we are able to capture accurate data on types of disability.

This approach is in line with the recommendations of the 2016 report from the Scottish Commission for Learning Disability which highlighted the need to ‘substantially improve recording and reporting of learning disabilities data’.

We recognise the particular challenges people with autism face, including that only 16% of adults with autism are in full time paid employment.

Since the publication of the current autism strategy, a range of projects have been put in place to help support people with autism:

• One of the thirteen projects selected to receive funding from the Employability Innovation and Integration Fund over the period of 2017-19 will see West College Scotland implement a package of employment support for 50 people with disabilities, including Autism.

• The Autism Innovation and Development Fund has supported a number of third sector organisations to provide individuals with the skills to take up employment opportunities.

• We are supporting a range of supported employment models, including Project SEARCH, to support people with autism to find employment. We will continue to work with our partners to promote personal outcomes approaches.

• The Open Doors Consortium is providing specialist employer support to young people across Scotland, tailored to the needs of the individual.

• Through the Scottish Government’s Cashback for Communities initiative, the National Autistic Society Scotland have received 3 years funding to deliver their employment project Moving Forward to over 300 young people between 16 – 24.

Following national engagement, and building on the work undertaken during the period of the current strategy, we will publish a new Autism Strategy for 2018-2021. This will include further action to increase employment levels among people of all ages with autism as part of our ambition to more than half the disability employment gap.

Front-line diagnostic testing is undertaken in local laboratories attached to NHS hospitals and clinics. They process samples (blood cultures, wound swabs, urines, sputa etc.) taken directly from patients by NHS health professionals. Health Protection Scotland has responsibility for the commissioning of Reference Laboratory Services, which provide support to NHS Scotland in guiding the clinical management of individual patients.

It is a clinical decision whether to accept other results such as those obtained from private or overseas laboratories but they would usually be repeated if required.

The system of Clinical Pathology Accreditation is run by the UK Accreditation Service (UKAS) and inspects laboratories on a regular basis. This is a very thorough review of the processes in each pathology discipline undertaken by that laboratory and is done to international standards (ISO 15189 medical laboratories). There is an expectation that all laboratories, whether they are part of the NHS or private, comply with these standards.

The Scottish Government’s Resilience operation is active every day of the year, including weekends and public holidays over the festive period, analysing and responding as required to any weather and flood alerts that are identified by the Met Office and the Scottish Flood Forecasting Service.

In the event of severe weather being forecast, the Scottish Government Resilience Room (SGoRR) facility can be activated to support and co-ordinate an effective national response, supported by Transport Scotland’s resilience arrangements and other relevant parts of the public sector. Scotland’s network of Resilience Partnerships, which bring together emergency services, local authorities, health boards, utility companies and other responders, can also be activated at any time to co-ordinate the local response to the consequences of severe weather.

Detailed local resilience response arrangements are a matter for the statutory response organisations, including emergency services, local authorities and health boards.

The Scottish Government's vision is to be a place where innovation is built into our culture, society and economy. We recognise the role that innovators and inventors are playing in contributing to this aim and that is why we are investing in the development and application of innovation and technology. Some specific measures include:

Supporting the network of eight Innovation Centres; doubling our funding for CivTech® - enabling them to scale up their activity to address cross-sector public sector needs with business-led innovation; using public sector needs and spend to catalyse innovation by, for example, the £9m CAN DO Innovation Challenge Fund; investing £90 million towards development of the £180 million Oil and Gas Technology Centre in Aberdeen; and investing £48 million in the National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland, which will allow business to access expertise and cutting edge technology to design and develop prototype products in advanced manufacturing disciplines. We are also seeking to double Business Enterprise Expenditure on Research and Development (BERD) by 2025 and are stimulating growth in BERD through increasing Scottish Government support for business R&D grants, delivered by our enterprise network, by £45 million over the next three years to reach £111 million over this period - an increase of 70%.

We have made guidance available for individuals and businesses with early-stage ideas at www.mygov.scot/business/develop-ideas-for-businesses/ In addition, a range of public sector and other support information for businesses is available at www.mygov.scot/business/funding-businesses-ideas/. This support starts with Business Gateway, which is delivered through Scotland's local authorities.

Scottish Enterprise can deliver innovation support aimed at helping businesses commercialise new ideas and may include one-to-one specialist support, access to expertise and, where appropriate, grant assistance. Information is available at www.scottish-enterprise.com/knowledge-hub/articles/guide/innovation-support.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise delivers a regional innovation service called Innovate Your Business which supports businesses who are new to innovating. Information is available at www.hie.co.uk/business-support/innovation-r-d/.

The Scottish Government recognises that many different groups experience loneliness and social isolation, and that the most vulnerable in society are often more likely to be affected. The national strategy to tackle social isolation & loneliness which we will publish for consultation in the new year will look to provide for a more comprehensive, community level approach to this issue.

The Scottish Government offers a range of support to vulnerable groups, with our £500,000 social isolation and loneliness fund helping 36 local organisations tackle social isolation and loneliness within their communities. We continue to support the work of the Men’s Sheds Association and the Age Scotland helpline, and the First Minister has given her support to the 1 million minutes campaign which seeks to encourage people to volunteer a small amount of their time over the festive period to help someone who is feeling lonely.

The Scottish Government produces an online guide for students ‘Supporting You at University: A guide for people with additional support needs in Scotland’s universities’. This contains contact details for the National Autistic Society Scotland who can advise and support both students, and those staff working with them in universities.

While the Scottish Government does not publish specific national guidelines on supporting students with autism at university, universities are able to access specialist support and advice from the National Autistic Society Scotland to assist them in supporting students.

Universities receive additional funding from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), in the form of the Disabled Students Premium, which enables them to make their institution and course provision more inclusive through reasonable adjustments for students with additional needs. A total of £2.8m funding was allocated to universities in academic year 2017-18. In addition students with autism are eligible to apply for the Disabled Student Allowance (DSA). DSA is a non-income assessed allowance to cover any extra costs or expenses a student might have while studying, which arise because of their disability or learning difficulty. In 2016-17, £7.85m of support was provided to students through DSA.

The Scottish Strategy for Autism (published 2011) outlined recommendations to ensure that progress is made across Scotland in delivering quality services for people with autism and their families and since the publication of the strategy, we have invested over £13.4 million to support and deliver quality services for people with autism and their families. Work is underway to refresh the strategy for the period 2018-2021, and the refreshed outcomes will be published in early 2018.