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The Scottish Government work closely with NHS Grampian and NHS Scotland Assure on all capital investment projects. The priority is ensuring that a safe, high quality healthcare facility is delivered and the Key Stage Assurance Review (KSAR) process has been recently introduced to ensure that happens. NHS Grampian are preparing an action plan to address the issues identified in the KSAR and we will review timelines once that exercise has been completed.

The Scottish Government has committed to providing a full breakdown of the implementation of Medication Assistant Treatment (MAT) standards in June 2023.

The Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy will update Parliament on progress in June and this will coincide with the publication of the 2022-2023 implementation update which will be produced by Public Health Scotland. The data published will be broken down by each local authority implementation area, detailing the progress each area has made on all MAT standards since the 2021-22 Benchmarking Report on Implementation which was published in June 2022.

The number of empty homes returned to use with support from the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership in 2021-22 is 1,152.

This information is published each year in their annual report and available to view on the website:

https://emptyhomespartnership.scot/ . The report for 2022-23 is due to be published in June 2023.

We do not collect a breakdown of homes brought back into use by local authority.

The Scottish Government is committed to investing in Changing Places Toilets during this parliamentary term, in order to increase the number of these facilities across the country and to support mobile Changing Places Toilets to allow people easier access to events and outdoor venues.

Further information will be available over the course of this parliamentary term.

The Scottish Government is committed to investing in Changing Places Toilets during this parliamentary term, in order to increase the number of these facilities across the country and to support mobile Changing Places Toilets to allow people easier access to events and outdoor venues.

Further information will be available over the course of this parliamentary term.

The Scottish Government is in regular contact with COSLA and representatives from local authorities regarding the expansion of free school meals.

NTC Forth Valley will open in summer 2023 at a projected cost of £12.7 million.

NTC Golden Jubilee Phase 2 - will open in winter 2023 at a projected costs of £82.3 million.

The business cases for the remaining National Treatment Centre in NHS Ayrshire & Arran, NHS Grampian, NHS Tayside, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Lothian, including the new Edinburgh Eye Pavilion, are under development and costs/opening dates will be confirmed when final business cases are submitted.

We are committed to ensuring the highest standards of animal welfare. Where lethal control of beavers is required to be undertaken, this must be carried out under licence by an authorised person who must have attended training in beaver ecology, the law, and best practice in beaver control as well as holding the appropriate firearms certificate. Furthermore, NatureScot now require carcasses from licensed control to be submitted for independent post mortem in order that aspects of beaver health and welfare can be monitored, other than in the exceptional circumstances where a carcass cannot safely be retrieved.

The latest available figures for the number of beavers killed are for the calendar year 2021. A summary of licence returns for 2021 is publicly available on the NatureScot website at https://www.nature.scot/doc/summary-beaver-populations-and-licence-returns-covering-period-1st-january-31st-december-2021 .

To summarise, during that period eighty seven beavers were killed under licence and thirty three animals were trapped and translocated from conflict areas to licensed projects. NatureScot intends to release the figures for 2022 as part of a Beaver Management Report planned for the end of May this year. We expect to see a further shift in the proportion of beavers being trapped and translocated as opposed to being lethally controlled.

The Waste Industry Safety and Health (WISH) Forum develops and promotes health and safety guidance for the waste management industry with input from industry experts and other bodies, such as the Health and Safety Executive.

Existing WISH guidance offers advice on eliminating or reducing the risk of serious injury associated with the handling, storage and disposal of unwanted or unidentifiable gas cylinders (‘orphaned’ cylinders) that may appear in the waste stream.

WISH has also advised that it is developing new guidance on how Material Recovery Facilities can address the dangers of gas cylinder and aerosol explosions.

Following discussion at the Waste and Resources Sector Forum, waste sector stakeholders are considering any other actions that could be taken to address key fire safety risks. We will continue to work closely with the sector to consider any further actions required to ensure safe recycling and disposal of nitrous oxide canisters.

The information requested on how many staff vacancies there have been in older people's medicine (a) across Scotland and (b) in NHS Ayrshire and Arran, in each of the past five years can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence (vacancy tab - Medical & Dental consultants, Geriatric medicine specialty drop down)