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Emergency stroke care is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Anyone who believes they, or someone else, is showing the symptoms of a stroke should call 999 immediately. Work is ongoing to establish the most effective means of further expanding service hours for access to thrombectomy, one emergency treatment option for certain strokes, to maximise the number of patients able to benefit from this treatment.

Scottish Government research shows that an estimated 340,000 single-use period products are incorrectly disposed of every day in Scotland. Sewage treatment facilities will remove a portion of these, however it is known that some will reach the marine environment. Although there is no differential impact specifically caused by period products, plastic pollution in general has a significant, negative impact on the marine environment, and incorrectly disposed of period products are part of that litter problem. In recognition of that, the Scottish Government has actions within the Marine Litter Strategy to tackle the issue of marine litter caused by sanitary items.

As reported by the Deputy First Minister on 21 st November, the £13 million originally allocated for 2023-24 has been announced as part of the savings required to reach a balanced budget. We are now considering all options for the device commitment, including a range of delivery options. Ultimately, local authorities have responsibility for the procurement and management of their own digital assets.

The Scottish Government is taking action to support families with the cost of school uniform and clothing so that every child in Scotland can attend school feeling comfortable, confident, and ready to learn.

In partnership with local authorities, we have delivered on our commitment to increase the level of school clothing grant in Scotland. This vital support for families has increased to at least £120 for eligible primary school pupils and £150 for eligible secondary school pupils. As part of action to further reduce the cost of the school day for families, we have committed through the 2023-24 Programme for Government to increase funding to local authorities for school clothing grant in the next financial year. This is in addition to the increased funding for school clothing grant that was provided in 2023-24 financial year which took the total funding provided to local authorities to £13m.

To further support families, we will also introduce national guidance on school uniform and clothing. This will support schools to work with families to develop and implement affordable and sustainable uniform and clothing policies that recognise the individual needs, circumstances and identities of all pupils and reduce costs of families. It is anticipated that the guidance will be published in spring 2024.

These measures are being taken forward as part of our wider action to tackle child poverty and protect people as much as possible during the ongoing cost of living crisis.

The Scottish Government is in regular contact with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) about registration waiting times for teachers qualified outside of Scotland (QoS) and I have raised this directly with Pauline Stephen, Chief Executive and Registrar, at the GTCS. We are aware that they receive a high number of applications – approximately 1,300 a year – and that GTCS has been taking steps to improve waiting times for decisions.

In August, GTCS reported that it had recruited additional staff to deal with the QoS workload, which initially had a greater impact on processing times for ‘qualified within the UK’ applications. They are continuing to look for ways to manage the workload as efficiently as possible.

(a) The NHSScotland Staff Governance Standard includes the requirement for Health Boards to demonstrate that staff are appropriately trained and developed. There is an expectation that employers will ensure that resources are appropriately allocated to meet local training and development needs taking into account the current priorities of both the service and service users.

There are examples of Health Boards delivering on these expectations in relation to BSL. For example, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde offer a suite of BSL professional learning opportunities including courses for staff to learn basic BSL. Public Health Scotland also offer professional learning to support NHS staff to increase their awareness of BSL and to reflect on their own practice.

(b) Under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004, local authorities have duties to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils, including those who are deaf. Local authorities are supported in implementing their duties under the 2004 Act through the statutory code of practice on additional support for learning. Where a teacher wholly or mainly teaches a pupil who is deaf, local authorities have a duty to ensure they are appropriately qualified.

The Scottish Government funds the Scottish Sensory Centre to provide advice and training to school staff on support for children and young people with specific communication and sensory needs. Education Scotland has also developed a professional learning resource which seeks to support staff to engage more effectively with BSL users.

Following the first meeting of the Ministerial taskforce, we announced a grant scheme to support those suffering from the impacts of Storm Babet. After the second meeting of the Taskforce held on Wednesday 29 November, I can announce that applications for these grants will open on Monday 4 December. The grants will comprise a £1,500 community recovery payment for people whose properties have been flooded, and a £3,000 business recovery grant for businesses, community groups and organisations impacted by flooding. Grants will be administered by eligible local authorities which are those that had an exceptional red warning for rain during October’s storm - Angus Council and Aberdeenshire Council - and also in areas that were affected with catchments that cross local authority boundaries.

As well as these individual grants, the Scottish Government is providing more support in a range of ways. We want to do all we can to help people rebuild their lives. The Scottish Government is therefore providing additional funding of up to £100,000 to help those families who have lost everything to resettle. We have announced funding to help farmers repair floodbanks damaged by the extreme rainfall during October.

We have also initiated the Bellwin Scheme to help councils with weather related costs, and have extended it by two months. We will also share technical advice and expertise to help Angus Council identify and provide for future housing need.

This support is over and above our long-standing annual funding of £42 million and the additional £150 million for flood risk management together with our £12 million commitment for coastal change adaptation over the course of this parliament.

We continue to work with local authorities and those directly affected by Storm Babet, to help councils, people, businesses and communities to recover in the short term, but also to consider longer term issues like repairing infrastructure.

As set out previously, since 29 August 2022 women aged 71 to 74, and those 75 and over with a history of breast cancer, were able to register for self-referral appointments by contacting their local breast screening service. From 1 st December, all women aged 75 and over regardless of their history with breast cancer, will be able to register for self-referral appointments by contacting their local breast screening service, if they have not been screened in the last three years,. As a result, all women aged 71 and over will now be able to self-refer for breast screening, in line with procedures in place before the pandemic.

The impact of the restart on programme capacity and wait times will continue to be monitored closely to ensure there is no adverse impact on those who are invited for screening and for whom there is the clearest evidence of benefit.

The Accounts Commission oversees the audit of local authority Annual Accounts. Audit Scotland would advise the Accounts Commission of any concerns who would then investigate and advise the Scottish Ministers if required.

All local authorities have published their unaudited 2022-23 Annual Accounts and these are publicly available for inspection.

The Scottish Government is aware of minor delays to the completion of some local authority Annual Accounts audits, primarily as a continuing consequence of the pandemic. These challenges apply across the UK with only 5 out of 467 local authority Annual Accounts audits for 2022-23 in England having been completed in line with the statutory deadline.

Audit Scotland were anticipating that most audits will be completed by 30 November, following which local authorities will be able to publish their audited Annual Accounts.

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

In compliance with the deadline set out in Section 22 of the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act, SPS will publish their annual report and accounts for 2022-23 in December 2023.