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Sections 9-11 of the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007(The Act), require local authorities to assess a person’s needs for adoption support services and then provide that support if it is deemed necessary. This applies to children, young people, adoptive and birth families and adult adoptees.

Adoption support services are defined in section 1 of The Act as the provision of counselling, guidance and any other assistance that the local authority considers appropriate in the circumstances of that case. The accompanying Guidance on the Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009 and the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 explains that support services provided by local authorities can include:

• support to groups of adopted children, adopters and birth children
• assistance, including mediation, in arrangements for contact between adopted children and their birth parents, siblings and other relatives
• services to meet the therapeutic needs of adopted children
• assistance to adopters such as training to meet special needs and respite care
• mediation and other services if there is a disruption in an adoption placement, or risk of one.

Local Authority adoption services, including the post adoption support they provide, are monitored through inspections by the Care Inspectorate, which has the role of looking at the quality of care in Scotland to ensure it meets high standards, and supporting services to make positive changes where improvement is needed.

The Climate Change Saltire Fellowship and Light up Malawi projects were carried out in 2009 and 2014 respectively. There is no information available relating to the reasons for not measuring the carbon impact of these projects. At the time there was a focus on supporting Climate Justice by increasing vulnerable communities' resilience to the impacts of climate change. No assessment has been made of the impact of these projects on carbon emissions as there is insufficient data available from the time.

Future projects will be assessed based on their estimated carbon savings, biodiversity improvement score or ability to change behaviours, resulting in direct and indirect carbon savings.

Details of all Ministerial engagements and expenses are proactively published by the Scottish Government, including the costs of travel and accommodation. The proactive release covering November 2025 will be published in due course.

The definition of ‘rewilding’ in the report ‘Defining Rewilding for Scotland's Public Sector’ prepared for the Scottish Government by the James Hutton Institute, has never been adopted by the Scottish Government.

There has been no communication between Scottish Ministers and Crown Estate Scotland regarding the provision of financial support for the Offshore Solutions Group (OSG) in relation to OSG's development of a proposal for a floating offshore wind (FLOW) park in the Moray Firth.

Crown Estate Scotland’s delegated authority for financial and other operational matters are set out in its Framework Document, agreed with the Scottish Government.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-42253 on 16 December 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

The Scottish Government welcomes the theme of Crohn's and Colitis Awareness Week 2025, “How it feels,” and values the work of charities like Crohn’s and Colitis UK in highlighting the challenges of managing often invisible symptoms.

The Scottish Government recognises that the health of children can have a significant impact on their education and they may require an individual healthcare plan to identify the level and type of support that will be needed to meet their healthcare needs whilst attending school. Where a child or young person has been diagnosed with Crohn’s or Colitis, NHS boards, education authorities and schools should work collaboratively to ensure that all staff receive an appropriate level of training in order to understand and respond to both the educational and health needs of any affected children and young people for whom they are responsible.

Furthermore, where a child or young person is unable to attend school for a prolonged period due to ill health then schools and local authorities have a statutory duty to continue to educate them to their fullest potential and make special arrangements for affected pupils to receive education elsewhere than at school.

These arrangements are likely to apply when a child or young person is absent from school for a prolonged period due to the impacts of either Crohn’s or Colitis upon their health. Further information is available within our guidance on education of children and young people unable to attend school sue to ill health which is available through the following web link: Education of children unable to attend school due to ill health: guidance - gov.scot.

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

A range of checks are carried out before the release of a prisoner is authorised including but not limited to, an identity check of the person, confirmation of liberation date and a check for any known outstanding warrants.

A liberation in error occurs when an individual is released from a Scottish Prison Service establishment without lawful authority. This situation typically arises due to an administrative or procedural mistake, such as incorrect interpretation of documentation, miscalculation of sentence dates or incorrect data sharing from other partners.

The following table provides the numbers of total liberations and the liberations in error since 2016-2017, up to and including 5 Dec 2025:

Scottish Government is fully committed to delivery of the bus fare cap pilot. Engagement has taken place with Regional Transport Partnerships regarding the pilot, via an Expression of Interest process. This process was taken forward for RTPs to provide information on how they would work with Transport Scotland and bus operators to deliver the pilot in their area. We expect to confirm the selected RTP area for the pilot shortly with operational launch in the new year.

The pilot committed to in the Population Health Framework (PHF) will represent the first phase of the roll out of a national programme. The Scottish Government has commissioned Screening Oversight and Assurance Scotland to plan and implement this. Due to the size and scale of the programme and the complexities involved, a multi-disciplinary Programme Board has been established to ensure that the roll out both improves outcomes while remaining sustainable for the wider NHS.

The Board met for the first time on 12 December, and will act as the vehicle to plan the scope and timing of the first phase. It is anticipated that the initial roll out will focus on inviting eligible individuals in areas experiencing the highest levels of socio-economic deprivation, as evidence shows that they are at higher risk of lung cancer, and have poorer outcomes.

This first phase is currently estimated to cost approximately £3.5 million, although this is subject to change depending on further planning discussions.

The lung screening Scottish Expert Advisory Group estimated that full implementation could take 7-10 years due to the complexities of establishing a screening programme of this size, which is also recognised by the UK NSC.