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The Scottish Government has outlined commitments to supporting local planning partners within the National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy. This includes considering how to make the current children’s strategic planning environment as effective as it can be, including opportunities to strengthen the visibility and messaging around the importance of multi-agency partnership planning for transitions from children’s to adult services as part of this process.

As set out in the strategy, there is also an action to deliver an enhanced offer of practical support to Children’s Services Planning Partnership Strategic Leads as they begin to develop their 2026-2029 Strategic Plans. This will include a joint workshop with Children’s Service Planning Partnership Strategic Leads and the Integration Joint Board Strategic Planning and Performance Officers Group focused on best practice for transitions between children’s and adult services as well as the role of planning and commissioning in transitions.

A provision in The Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill further seeks to ensure that the statutory duties for Children’s Services Planning placed upon a local authority and the relevant health board, are also placed upon integration authorities. The policy intention for this is to improve transitions for children and their families by enhancing collaborative working and joining up of strategic planning activities across adult and children’s services.

Actions outlined in the recently published The National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy that the Scottish Government will take forward to help young people to access networks of peer support include:

• exploring models of peer support which can help young disabled people who are making the transition to adulthood to build confidence and knowledge; and
• sharing aspirational success stories, where permission is granted, of young disabled people with lived and living experience of the transition to adulthood to inspire other young disabled people to achieve their fullest potential.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Details on how many drones are in operation in NHS Scotland would require to be requested from NHS Boards.

The Scottish Government has outlined a number of actions that will be undertaken to improve data collection – both qualitative and quantitative - in the recently published National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy. The intention is to utilise this data to:

• build a more accurate picture across Scotland of the number of young disabled people;
• have a better understanding of the experiences and outcomes of young disabled people who are making the transition to adulthood;
• focus on making the right improvements at a national and local level; and
• report and monitor progress.

The Scottish Government is already providing funding to Association for Real Change (ARC) Scotland who have developed Compass in response to the identified need to improve how we collect and use information from people with lived experience to better inform decisions about practice, commissioning and policy.

The development of a Children’s Services Plan requires planning partnerships to use available data and intelligence to undertake a multi-agency joint strategic needs assessment to identify the needs of children, young people and families living in that area, and inform service planning. This joint strategic needs assessment should be used to inform service planning and local strategic commissioning processes for the Children’s Services Plan, with specific consideration of the needs of young people as they move between receipt of children’s and adult services.

As set out in the strategy, there is also an action to deliver an enhanced offer of practical support to Children’s Services Planning Partnership Strategic Leads as they begin to develop their 2026-2029 Strategic Plans. This will include a joint workshop with Children’s Service Planning Partnership Strategic Leads and the Integration Joint Board Strategic Planning and Performance Officers Group focused on best practice for transitions between children’s and adult services as well as the role of planning and commissioning in transitions.

The Scottish Government is also progressing work to improve the equality evidence base more broadly which will support these intentions. This includes:

• developing the Equality Evidence Finder data platform, which will present available intersectional data on young disabled people;
• continuing to improve the availability of disability data through specific actions outlined in the Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025; and
• undertaking a Disability Evidence Review to support the delivery of the Disability Equality Plan. This Evidence Review will be finalised in partnership with Disabled People’s Organisations and will include intersectional evidence on disabled young people where possible.

Scotland’s Census also enables intersectional analysis of data on disabled young people, supporting a deeper understanding of experiences and outcomes across a range of policy areas at national and local levels.

The Scottish Government plan to publish the first progress report on the National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy by the end of 2026.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-39323 on 5 August 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.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-39323 on 5 August 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.

As set out in the Foreword of the National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy, the seven Principles of Good Transitions, developed by the Association for Real Change (ARC) Scotland, and endorsed by the Scottish Government, COSLA and many other partners, serve as a strong foundation for the strategy. These principles emphasise the importance of early, person-led planning and decision making, and access to information and co-ordinated support. They guide professionals across paediatric and adult health, children’s and adult social work, education, and other sectors to collaborate effectively to both plan and deliver support for young disabled people during this period of their lives.

The priorities within the National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy build on the ARC Scotland’s Principles of Good Transitions. Stakeholders agreed with this approach during engagement on the Statement of Intent for the strategy. Whilst the strategy itself is non-statutory, it sets out the standards expected in delivery of transitions support for young disabled people across Scotland.

The information requested is not collected by the Scottish Government.

Flood risk management implementation reports for the years 2010 to 2012 are available on the Scottish Government’s archive website. These reports are joint publications detailing progress in implementing both the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009.

Relevant links are provided below.

Report for year 2010:

[ARCHIVED CONTENT] Implementation of the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009: Annual Report to the Scottish Parliament - 2010

Report for year 2011:

[ARCHIVED CONTENT] Annual Report to the Scottish Parliament, 2011 - Implementation of the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009

Combined report for years 2012 and 2013:

[ARCHIVED CONTENT]

Under the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 (legislation.gov.uk), an eligible patient is to start to receive agreed treatment within the 12-week Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG). Health Boards must take all reasonable steps to ensure they comply with this legislative guarantee.

However, the pandemic has seen the NHS under the most severe pressure in its 77-year existence. Pausing of non-urgent activity has inevitably led to a build-up of both the number of patients waiting for treatment as well as increasing the length of wait for patients.

We know many people are still waiting too long and this is not good enough. We are determined do more and our Budget which will provide a record £21.7 billion for health and social care, with more than £110 million allocated to health boards to help tackle the longest waits for procedures and operations. This includes more than £12 million for ophthalmology.

This funding means 213,000 more appointments will be delivered this year than in 2024-25, exceeding our Programme for Government target of delivering 150,000 extra appointments by more than 60,000. By March 2026, we expect no-one to wait longer than 12 months for a new outpatient appointment, inpatient treatment or day case treatment.