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While the Scottish Government provides the overarching guidance/framework for patient travel expenses reimbursement, NHS Boards are responsible for developing local policy to best meet the needs to their populations, and for assessing eligibly for financial support and level of that support.

The cost of reimbursement is met from Boards’ budgets and all Boards must balance value for money with patient need, ensuring that patients are supported in identifying and accessing available support and that patient care is at the centre of all decisions.

It is recognised that transport to health is a key enabler to ensure equitable access to healthcare, and work to bring travel/transport and health planning closer together is in progress. This work will include bringing local bodies together at a regional level to consider the options for transport to health. This work will also inform how and when a review of the overarching patient travel expenses reimbursement guidance is taken forward.

The Scottish Government is more than halfway towards achieving our ambition for 2GW of community and locally owned energy by 2030, with an estimated 1,028 MW of community and local renewable energy capacity operational in Scotland at the end of December 2023. We are taking action to continue to help ensure people and communities benefit from the energy transition, including support for community and locally owned energy.

In 2024-5, the Scottish Government’s Community Energy Generation Growth Fund awarded up to £1.5 million in grants to community groups across Scotland to develop their own renewable energy projects. We are also taking action to increase ownership opportunities. Through our Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) we provide online guidance, resources, and support to access funding and contractors to enable communities to engage with shared ownership opportunities.

The Scottish Government has made no assessment. The charter of the vessel is a commercial agreement between CalMac Ferries Ltd (CFL) and Pentland Ferries. Any reduction in capacity on the route would be for the operator of that route to consider when leasing the vessel.

This Scottish Government has made no assessment. As per the terms of the Clyde & Hebrides Ferry Services contract CalMac are required to consider and address capacity issues. As part of this they record and publish carrying statistics.

As pre-announced in the forthcoming publications document, Official statistics: forthcoming publications - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) statistics for domestic abuse incidents recorded by Police Scotland for the reporting year of 2023-24 will be published on Tuesday 19 November.

COPFS has 16 contracts and service level agreements in place for pathology mortuary and toxicology services across Scotland.

All pathology agreements require pathologists to discuss post mortem findings with bereaved relatives if requested. Their assistance is invaluable to relatives seeking to understand the circumstances of their loved one’s death and is greatly appreciated by COPFS.

All doctors receive undergraduate medical school education in patient communication. This continues into forensic pathology training and consultancy when meeting with families to discuss post mortem findings. All doctors are expected to work within the standards set out by the General Medical Council for good medical practice.

The Royal College of Pathologists and NHS Education for Scotland oversee training standards in pathology and their uniformity across Scotland.

The purpose of the Death Investigation Improvement Board is to take forward three key areas for improvement in the death investigation system – (i) raising public awareness of the death investigation service, sharing lessons learned to reduce the incidence of avoidable deaths, (ii) providing bereaved relatives with the timeous provision of information they need to ensure they can effectively participate in the process and (iii) reducing the journey time for concluding death investigations, including FAIs.

The Board is chaired by the Deputy Crown Agent, Specialist Casework and its membership has representatives from each of the specialist death investigation units, Communications and Business Management.

The Board has a number of ongoing workstreams, including the creation of a Lived Experience Advisory Panel to enable participants with experience of the death investigation process to help inform improvements to the process by providing independent advice to the Board on issues such as the provision of information to relatives.

COPFS regularly meets and engages with pathology providers on a range of issues, including communication with bereaved relatives. These also allow discussion on any feedback received. Consideration is being given to the terms of the review and any further appropriate measures to be put in place.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of reducing violence against employees of bodies delivering public services. In addition to work undertaken by public bodies themselves, we are currently working on a range of targeted initiatives including:

• Invested over £4 million in the delivery and implementation of the Violence Prevention Framework, including supporting the Mentors in Violence Prevention school-based programme.
• Published a joint action plan with COSLA to tackle violence towards staff in educational establishments.
• Co-chairing Your Safety Matters (YSM) External Partners Group (EPG).
• Promoting the Equally Safe at Work (ESAW) employer accreditation programme.

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) recommendation that the four UK Nations should move towards implementing a programme of targeted lung screening for those between 55-74 with a history of smoking, was based on evidence from the lung health check pilots which continue to inform the Scottish Expert Advisory Group (SEAG) work.

The UK NSC established an expert Lung Task Group to oversee modelling work and explore the issues around implementation, which is attended by all four UK nations. In addition, representatives from the SEAG attend both the NHS England Lung Screening Implementation Group and the Welsh equivalent. Representatives from these groups have in turn attended the SEAG, to share learning and develop evidence-based feasibility advice.

Officials continue to invest in the University of Edinburgh who have been conducting a research study, LungScot, into targeted lung health checks across four health boards. This important work will help to inform the considerations of the SEAG as work progresses towards a business case which will highlight the challenges and opportunities for a Scottish Programme.

Lung cancer remains a national priority, with Scotland's first optimal cancer diagnostic pathway for lung published 12 December 2022. This pathway sets optimal timeframes for each step to enable diagnosis by day twenty one and treatment for most by day forty two. Work continues to develop and share best practice to ensure patients receive faster access to treatment.

In 2022, the Scottish Health Survey reported that the proportion of all children aged 5-15 undertaking at least 60 minutes of activity on average per day in the previous week was 69% (including school-based activities). These levels have been relatively stable since 2019 and are broadly comparable with levels in England.

In partnership with COSLA, the Scottish Government published a new Physical Activity for Health Framework on October 2nd 2024. This document provides a framework for action to improve levels of physical activity at both national and local level which is firmly founded on evidence-based international guidance from the World Health Organization and other global partners as to the approach which is needed to deliver sustainable change.

There are a range of ways we are ensuring children and young people continue to be physically active, including the following:

• We are committed to ensuring that all children in primary schools receive at least two hours of physical education each school week, and all young people in secondaries 1 to 4 receive at least two 50-minute periods of physical education each school week.
• Our Active Schools programme takes place in all local authorities and is free for all children and young people. It provides a focus on inclusion, for example to support children living in poverty, those with additional support needs, and care-experienced young people to participate. The Active Schools programme is a long-term investment in health and wellbeing, supported by a network of over 400 Active Schools managers and coordinators working with schools to deliver quality sporting opportunities for children and young people. In 2023/24, there were 4.9 million visits by pupils over 262,000 sessions – a 6% increase from the previous year.
• sportscotland invests in and supports approximately 47 Scottish Governing Bodies of sport (SGBs) to develop their sport-specific pathways, including undertaking work to increase participation levels for children and young people in their sports.
• Our Active Play Development Project, which targets areas of disadvantage, provides children with the opportunity to develop physical skills in their early years and to encourage a long-term, positive relationship with physical activity.

The most recent workforce publication shows that in June 2014 the workforce comprised of 5,101 FTE directly employed staff, and 1,249 contingent workers.

For June 2024 showed the core Scottish Government workforce comprised of 8,911 FTE directly employed staff and 1,214 contingent workers.

This represents an increase of 75% in the directly employed workforce and a reduction of -3% in the contingent workforce.

The growth in the directly employed workforce in the last ten years has supported the devolution of new powers to the Scottish Government, for example Social Security and Exchequer functions. The growth in the core Scottish Government has also supported the response to exiting the European Union and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since March 2022 the Scottish Government has increased its permanent workforce while prioritising the reduction of the more expensive contingent workforce such as contractors and consultants. The number of contingent workers is now 40% lower than in March 2022.

The number of core Scottish Government staff is available at Scottish Government workforce information - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).