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Public Health Scotland is currently leading the national roll-out of online postal self-sampling to test for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) with funding from Scottish Government. The service will initially offer testing for the most common STIs which are chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis and HIV. The scope of the service will be kept under review, with potential to add further tests if evidence suggests this would be an effective and cost-effective approach.

Testing for hepatitis C is currently available through a range of routes, with a particular focus on settings which are most likely to be accessed by people at highest risk of infection, such as drugs services and prison healthcare. The Scottish Government has also funded research and pilot projects – including opt-out testing in three Emergency Departments – to help identify optimal approaches to testing for hepatitis C and other blood borne viruses in order to achieve our elimination goals.

It is vital that everyone has the opportunity to engage in decisions about future development. We are clear that this engagement must begin as early as possible by developers, at the pre-application stage. It should be effective, collaborative and meaningful, in order to truly influence the final application.

Once a section 36 or 37 application has been submitted to the Energy Consents Unit, members of the general public or groups may make direct representations and comment to the Scottish Ministers.

Scottish Ministers take these views into account, alongside all other application documentation in making their decision.

Since 2011, Transport Scotland has invested over £65 million, on behalf of Scottish Ministers, to support the installation of over 2,800 public EV charge points across Scotland as part of the ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) EV charging network. These public EV charge points are owned and operated by over 400 separate public, private and third sector organisations.

As a direct result, Scotland has over 4,880 public EV charge points and the best provision of public charge points per head of population of anywhere in the UK, outside of London, and the most rapid charge points per head of population of any region in the UK.

Overall reliability across the CPS network is typically very good, with all charge points on the network up and running around 95-98% of the time each month . The reliability of EV charge points will soon be regulated following the introduction of new UK-wide Public Charge Point Regulations , which were introduced under powers reserved to the UK Government, and came into force in November last year. All public EV charging networks in Scotland must comply with these new regulations, with the charge point owner and operator responsible for compliance.

The Scottish Government launched a new Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund (EVIF) in January 2022. Through a partnership approach with Scotland’s local authorities, it aims to leverage £60m of public and private funding to double the network to 6,000 charge points by 2026. A greater commercial sector involvement underpinned by fair, transparent pricing will help to drive up reliability standards across Scotland and encourage more drivers to make the switch to EV

The Scottish Government is committed to working with all stakeholders to ensure that the planning system is better equipped to deal with current and future challenges, and supports our net zero ambitions. Work is underway to deliver the commitments from the Onshore Wind Sector Deal relating to the standardisation of relevant templates, such as Environmental Impact Assessment Reports. Similarly, a Transmission Network Short Life Working Group provided recommendations to increase and develop resources to ensure planning authorities and statutory consultees are well equipped to accelerate decisions on grid applications.

Transport Scotland, through its four Trunk Road Operating Companies and five Design Build Finance Operate (DBFO) Concessionaires, is responsible for the management and maintenance of the strategic trunk road network, including motorways. Transport Scotland specify requirements for regular surveys and inspections to ensure that the trunk road network is safe and fit for purpose, and to provide appropriate information to support maintenance decisions. Transport Scotland commission contractors to undertake annual machine-based surveys on trunk roads using specialist vehicles to gather information on the surface integrity of the road; the friction characteristics of the surface; and the structural capacity (strength) of the underlying road construction. This is supplemented with a series of targeted inspections to obtain specific information about the road asset undertaken by Operating Companies under the term maintenance contract. The combined information is used to determine future maintenance programmes and investment requirements.

In addition Operating Companies have a contractual obligation to inspect the trunk road network at 7-day intervals. These inspections are primarily to identify defects that require prompt attention because they present, or could present, an immediate hazard to road users. The Scottish Government fully funds the inspection and repair of all such defects, and the term maintenance contract sets out strict timescales for their repair.

With regard to local roads, local authorities have a duty under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 to manage and maintain local roads in their area and duties under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of traffic. Neither the Scottish Ministers nor the Scottish Government would become directly involved in their day-to-day duties.

The Scottish Government continues to take whole population and targeted approaches to tackle alcohol-related harms. We have laid legislation seeking the agreement of Parliament to continue Minimum Unit Pricing, and set the price per unit at 65 pence. Members of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee voted to approve those orders on 26 March 2024 and I am pleased that there is cross party support for this policy.

We will continue to engage with all stakeholders, including public health organisations and the alcohol industry, around potential restrictions to alcohol marketing. This will take the form of targeted engagement, with the aim of consulting on a more specific set of proposals later this year.

We have asked Public Health Scotland to investigate the reasons behind the apparent 40% reduction in the number of people accessing specialist alcohol treatment.

We are working with stakeholders to develop a National Service Specification, informed by the forthcoming UK alcohol treatment clinical guidelines. They will aim to provide clarity on the types of treatment and recovery services available.

The resource for Mental Health and Wellbeing in Primary Care Services was published in June 2022. The resource was developed to support staff working as part of a multi disciplinary team within GP settings. The resource provides a directory of additional sources of help, which patients can access, to complement the support, assessment and treatment they receive from the team. It brings together a range of national resources and tools that support and improve mental health and wellbeing. Section 7 of the resource contains links to sources of support specifically for Perinatal and Parent Support. The resource was promoted via the Mental Health in Primary Care National Oversight Group, Mental Health in Primary Care Leads and NHS Board Mental Health Leads.

The Scottish Government recognises the document is not exhaustive and there will be a number of local resources and tools that staff will also want to use. The resource can be found at the following link the link for the resource Resources for Mental Health and Wellbeing in Primary Care Services (www.gov.scot) .

In addition to this wider work, there is also a resource dedicated to promoting third sector perinatal and infant mental health services. This resource is available to provide information to families and professionals, including in primary care, to raise awareness of over 110 local third sector services. In the last year the resource page has received 2,693 views. Inspiring Scotland have been promoting the tool on X and in their recent newsletter which reaches NHS staff as well as wider partners. The resource can be found here: Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Third Sector Service Directory - Inspiring Scotland .

The Scottish Government has worked with NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to develop ‘Perinatal mental health curricular framework : a framework for maternal and infant mental health’. This framework sets out the different levels of knowledge and skills required by members of the Scottish workforce who have contact with mothers and their babies, to enable them to support mothers, babies and their families to have positive well-being and good mental health during the perinatal period.

The Scottish Government has also worked with NES to advance training on Perinatal and Infant Mental Health. Training in evidence-based approaches and interventions is delivered to staff across sectors and across practice types including informed, skilled, enhanced and specialist, as appropriate to their role.

This includes education and training within Perinatal and Infant Mental Health through e-learning modules which are available on TURAS, covering seven topic areas of essential knowledge. We have also worked with NES to create a specialist Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Learning Programme which allows NES to track the progress of staff in Specialist Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Services including Mother and Baby Units, Community Perinatal Mental Health Teams and Maternity and Neonatal Psychological Interventions.

During 2024-25, NES will continue to promote training at all levels across the sectors that support the development of positive relationships and attachment in the early years. This will be achieved through increasing workforce capacity to deliver evidence-based parent-child relationships focused interventions and approaches from the antenatal period, through infancy and across childhood.

Public Health Scotland published a summary of evidence on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on alcohol consumption and harm in Scotland and England looking at data up to around 2021. This found that, overall, alcohol consumption decreased following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, changes in drinking behaviours were polarised with some increasing their alcohol consumption and others decreasing . This was associated with drinking behaviour before the pandemic: those who increased their alcohol consumption tended to drink more before the pandemic, and those who decreased consumption tended to drink less. Over the COVID-19 pandemic, alcohol-related hospitalisations decreased, and alcohol-related deaths increased – potentially due to changing patterns of consumption and to the decrease in access to services over the pandemic.

More recent data shows that:

• For all adults, prevalence of hazardous or harmful drinking has generally decreased over time, with levels dropping from 34% in 2003 to 22% in 2022.
• In 2022/23, there were 31,206 alcohol-related hospital admissions (stays) in Scotland, a decrease of 11% since 2021/22.
• In 2022, 1,276 people in Scotland died from alcohol-specific causes, a 2% increase from 2021 and the highest number of annual deaths recorded since 2008

It is not possible to know the extent to which these trends are attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, increases in alcohol-specific mortality since 2019 are observed across many other countries including all 4 nations of the UK, other European countries, the US and Canada. It is widely observed, including by The Office for National Statistics, that these rises are likely in part to be the result of increased alcohol consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public Health Scotland’s evaluation has found that the evidence points to minimum unit price having a positive impact on health outcomes. It is estimated to have cut alcohol consumption, alcohol-attributable deaths and likely to have reduced hospital admissions during the study period.

Following the 2024-25 budget settlement, the Scottish Government reviewed a number of budget lines in Education and Skills. In relation to Gaelic the outcome of this review is that there will now be no reduction to the MG ALBA funding for 2024-25. There will also be no reduction of the Gaelic, Education and Culture budget line which would have had an impact on the funding of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Storlann and other organisations and the Scottish Government has now provided additional funding to enable Bòrd na Gidhlig to continue its support for the Gaelic Officers’ Scheme in 2024-25.