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I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

HMP Glasgow will have a design capacity of 1,344 prisoner places which includes 120 cells designed to accommodate two people.

Scottish Government through its national Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) has formed a Specialty Delivery Group for Liver Disease with the first meeting on 6th November 2024. Early Detection is one of the pathways being prioritised.

The Early Detection Pathway has already been passed through the first Gateway in the CfSD delivery pathway. The challenges are around how individual boards can implement this before the National Laboratory Information Management System.

There has been progress in developing the Early Detection pathways in individual boards using the technology as currently available while others are using the their Referral Advice to Primary Care with increased use of the FIB-4 and Fibroscan with advice for Lifestyle changes and repeat investigation as required.

sportscotland’s Institute of Sport delivers tailored support services for athletes. Their Female Athlete Performance Working Group have developed a range of resources specifically for female athletes, designed to support anyone working with girls and women in sport. The Group have also launched a learning platform which provides access to e-learning resources such as the menstrual cycle in sport.

These resources are available for free to all, with the ambition that all within the sporting system are comfortable having conversations about female athlete health and understand the impacts on training and performance.

Menstrual health and wellbeing education is a key part of relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education. RSHP education is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the Scottish curriculum, Curriculum for Excellence.

The RSHP teaching resource, refreshed in 2023, equips young people with information on a wide range of issues, including menstrual health and wellbeing, depending on their age and stage of learning, enabling children and young people to build positive relationships as they grow older.

Through programmes such as sportscotland’s Fit For Girls and Young People’s Sport Panel, tutors are holding workshops with girls where menstrual education and impact on physical education is a key topic of discussion.

The legislative duty provides flexibility for the development of future communication equipment technology. Through the assessment process health boards should ensure they have justification based on the circumstances of each individual regarding necessity and reasonability, and taking into consideration the needs, views, and choices of each individual, as is the case with other health provision.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Since 2018, NHS Boards across Scotland have had a legislative duty to provide children and adults who have lost their voice or have difficulty speaking with communication equipment and support, necessary to meet their requirements.

Information on the specific technology and communication equipment that is available in NHS boards is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) support is being delivered across Scotland by NHS boards, primarily through speech and language therapy and often in collaboration with Education, Social Work, and the Third Sector, as appropriate to the assessed needs of each individual.

Teachers in Scotland are directly employed by local authorities, who will have their own local payroll arrangements; therefore provisions relating to the backdated payment of pay awards will differ between authorities. The Scottish Government does not hold data on the number of teachers in Scotland who have received backdated payments, because this data is held locally by Councils as the employer of teachers.

On 2 October 2024 the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT) issued a joint circular to local authorities regarding the agreed 4.27% pay increase for teachers, at all points in the SNCT pay scales, to be backdated to 1 August 2024.

The Scottish Government will provide a full response to the Committee’s report within two months of its publication as consistent with Parliamentary Guidance.

Education authorities have duties under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004 to identify, provide for and review the additional needs of their pupils.

Where a young person needs support from other agencies to transition from school, the authority should work with those agencies, taking into consideration the views of the young person, to establish the support required and ensure it is put in place.

Skills Development Scotland’s careers advisers work closely with local schools to support young people with additional support needs, including disabled young people and this is captured in their school partnership agreements and close work with guidance and pastoral care to identify the young people who require more intensive support. They also offer support to transition planning and take an individual centred approach.

When a young person is expected to leave school the education authority has a duty to request and share information within specific timeframes to help support their transition. This should take place no later than 12 months before the expected leaving date. They must provide information to other agencies no later than six months before a child or young person is expected to leave school. Local authorities are encouraged to prepare for children and young peoples’ transitions wherever possible in advance of these timeframes.

All planning and support for disabled children and young people should be underpinned by ‘Getting it right for every child’ (GIRFEC) – Scotland’s holistic approach to upholding the rights and wellbeing of our children and young people. Using the GIRFEC approach, practitioners and lead professionals should support a child or young person's wellbeing through transitions by working alongside them and their family, and other practitioners involved in transition planning. They should ensure the views and rights of the young person and family are considered in decisions throughout a transition. Effective transfer of information between services during transitions, in line with information sharing guidance, is also essential to achieving successful outcomes for the child or young person and their family.

The Design Team is the group of people with lived or living experience of drug harm that has been recruited by Deciding Matters, the small company charged with developing the nature and direction of the Stigma Plan (which was a recommendation of the Drug Death Task Force, rec. 22).

The call for expressions of interest asked for “ 20-24 people broadly representative of Scotland (age, gender, sex, race, disability with lived or living experience of substance use including family or friends of people with lived or living experience) who would like to inform how Scotland tackles stigma related to drugs and alcohol. Participants must be aged 18+” The existing group reflects that and were chosen through a recruitment process run by Deciding Matters.

Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership will assess the impact of the opening of the Safer Drug Consumption Facility on the community in which it is operating. This will be led by Public Health Scotland academics.

Significant time has been invested in engaging with the local community through drop in sessions. Feedback from these events has informed implementation planning, the formation of a Community Engagement Forum (that will address community concerns after the service is operational) and work with other relevant partners.

The independent evaluation team has also begun to gather community information on the impact of injecting drug use in the area. This will be monitored as the services becomes operational to assess the impact of the service on these issues.