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The Scottish Government will, throughout February 2024, undertake consultation events with members of the Student Mental Health and Wellbeing Working Group on a draft Student Mental Health Action Plan.

Following this, and the completion of attendant Impact Assessments, the Scottish Government will publish the Student Mental Health Action Plan.

The change in budget allocation to the Just Transition Fund is due to a reduction in capital and financial transactions funding allocations from the UK Government which the Fund relies on.

The UK Autumn Statement was the worst-case scenario for Scotland. The Chancellor had £27bn of fiscal headroom for the Autumn Statement, but rather than provide the funding needed in services and infrastructure, he cut taxes. These decisions have meant that the Scottish Government’s block grant has fallen in real terms by 1.2% since 2022-23 across resource and capital combined. Capital is due to contract by almost 10% in real terms over five years.

These decisions are not just an issue for the Scottish Budget. The UK Government’s ‘mini-budget’ in Autumn 2022 turbocharged the cost of living crisis, inflicting misery on individuals, communities and businesses. People have seen their living standards fall as a direct consequence of UK Government mismanagement of the economy over the past 13 years.

The Scottish Government remains committed to the 10-year Just Transition Fund programme and existing projects will continue to be funded in 2024-25. We will undertake an evaluation of phase one in this financial year aiming to commence the next phase in the following financial year.

The independent review will consider the current rules and experience of delivery in the first year of Adult Disability Payment and will take no more than 18 months to complete. Whilst it is for the chair of the review to decide how to conduct it, the review remit requires engagement with disabled people and stakeholders, including members of the former Disability and Carer’s Benefits Expert Advisory Group (DACBEAG).

Of the 114,869 premises currently expected to be connected through the R100 contracts, only 1,600 will be connected through Fibre To The Cabinet broadband. The remaining 113,269 will be connected with Fibre To The Premises which is a gigabit-capable technology.

Of the 36,100 premises connected so far through the R100 contracts, 1,600 have been connected through Fibre To The Cabinet broadband which can provide a minimum of a superfast service. The remaining 34,500 connections have been delivered utilising Fibre To The Premises which is capable of delivering a gigabit broadband service.

The Scottish Government has sought views regarding the implementation update on Short Term Let Licensing from the Short Term Let Industry Advisory Group (IAG). The group most recently met with all members in attendance on 19 January 2024 and subsequently shared further feedback, in addition to that already gathered throughout the development of the scheme. We will continue to work with stakeholders to monitor the operation of the scheme and that is why we have committed to providing an update to Parliament on licensing implementation early this year. I wrote to the Local Government Housing and Planning Committee on 30 Jan 2024 to set out progress we have made to date.

Ministers have decided that the £5.8m allocated to the Scottish Government, as consequentials arising from spending on the Regional Innovation in England, will be used to support university research and innovation in Scotland within the current financial year.

The Scottish Government has not provided funding for the John Shivas Memorial Trust.

Working with the other UK governments, the Scottish Government is introducing packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) from October 2025. Packaging EPR will see producers taking financial responsibility for the full net cost of responsible management of their packaging, including plastic packaging, at end-of-life. This will create a strong incentive for producers to reduce their use of packaging and drive more sustainable design choices.

As part of this process, the four governments meet regularly with industry representatives, including retailers, to discuss their perspectives on these proposals. A new packaging EPR Scheme Administrator Steering Group has been set up, with retailer representation, recognising industry’s significant role in delivery of the scheme; the first meeting of this group was on 2 February 2024.

The following table shows the number of participants undertaking Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training over the last 5 years, including numbers to date in 2024, based on the latest available data, as well as the total number of MHFA trainers (active and inactive) since 2020 to date.