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The majority of planning appeals are decided by reporters from Planning and Environmental Appeals Division (DPEA) of the Scottish Government. Whilst Scottish ministers have the power to recall an appeal for their own decision, they would normally only do so in appeals that raise issues of national importance.

Windfarm appeal decisions are made on the planning merits of the case and in overall accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Reporters take full account of all submissions made by parties, including any representations from members of the local community. The reporter will carry out an inspection of the appeal site and surrounding area.

The current starting salary for a fully qualified/registered teacher in Scotland is £37,896, compared to (a) £28,000 in England and (b) £29,278 in Wales.

The £2m programme commitment was initially set out in the digital health and care delivery plan and aims to benefit more than 2,000 people by providing devices and building digital skills and confidence to access growing online services such as digital therapies.

As part of this, an initial £600,000 “Digital Pioneers” project funding call was issued in April 2023 . An announcement will be made on the Digital Pioneer projects who have been selected shortly.

Under the Equality Act 2010, which is reserved to the UK Parliament, employers are required to make reasonable adjustments if health conditions are or are likely to be long lasting and have an impact on an employee’s daily life. This may apply in the case of thyroid disease, however this would depend on the circumstances surrounding each individual case.

The Scottish Government currently invests in a range of initiatives to support people with health conditions to sustain or return to work, including through the NHS delivered Working Health Services Scotland and the Public Health Scotland led Healthy Working Lives resource. They provide advice and support on work related physical and mental health promotion and ill health prevention, return to work practices and workplace safety for employers.

We also recognise that improving access to flexible working is an important means to help people balance work and health conditions, without dropping out of the workplace with the loss of income, experience and skills that this entails. To that end, we have provided a total of £222,000 in 2022-23 to flexible working experts, Flexibility Works to promote flexible working and support employers across Scotland to adopt flexible and family friendly workplaces. A further £86,000 has been committed so far this financial year.

The Workforce Action Plan and Delivery Plan which support the Scottish Government’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy will be published in Autumn 2023.

The decision to close the SME Loan Scheme to new Solar PV was taken on 20 June 2023 and was implemented on 27 June.

Solar is a key part of our energy transition and is recognised as such in our draft strategy. Solar PV is also an increasingly established technology which is often deliverable without government support. On this basis, and considering finite budgets, the decision was taken in order to keep remaining budget resource available to support SMEs to install zero direct emissions heating and energy efficiency measures, in line with our Heat in Buildings Strategy priorities. We will regularly review our budget position and consider reinstating a more targeted Solar PV offering if additional funding becomes available.

The Scottish Government is working to issue the Primary Care Improvement Fund allocation letter to all Health and Social Care Partnerships as soon as practicable and by end of August 2023 at the latest.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. Local authorities may hold this information.

The Scottish Government’s guidance ‘Included, Engaged and Involved Part 1: a positive approach to the promotion and management of attendance in Scottish schools’ makes clear the need for schools to follow up absence immediately, and to continue to follow up absence for those for whom there are welfare concerns.

Local authorities are expected to have robust processes and guidance for children who do not attend school from the first day they are missing until they are re-engaged with education. Where children are missing for extended periods of time, or are not on a school roll or being educated otherwise, the Children Missing from Education Guidance and Service can support local authorities in this.

The following table shows the average amount of time it has taken from a loan application being received to either a loan offer or rejection being sent. Applications processed are not dependent on measure types and there is a single application form for the SME Loan covering all technologies that are funded.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-19534 on 24 July 2023. 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 .