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Our £1 Billion backed NHS Recovery Plan aims to continually increase capacity for outpatients.

We are seeing improvements in diagnostic waiting times, and we continue to prioritise those referred with an urgent suspicion of cancer for scope-based diagnostic tests.

Further statistics on additional inpatient and day case activity in 2022-2023 will be released alongside the NHS Recovery Plan update this autumn.

The Scottish Government is working closely with the Office of the Public Guardian (Scotland) (OPG) who have responsibility for registering powers of attorney in Scotland to highlight the concerns about recognition of these with UK financial institutions.

OPG have engaged directly with UK financial organisations when they have been made aware of common or recurring issues that require attention and on a case by case basis when needed.

OPG are planning a series of information based events later in 2023, aimed specifically at staff in UK financial organisations, with the aim of raising awareness of OPG’s role and of the financial provisions of the Adults with Incapacity legislation. The feedback will be raised at a meeting OPG is attending with Scottish banking representatives in August 2023.

OPG is also currently working in collaboration with colleagues from OPG England and similar departments in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, with the intention of delivering or preparing cross border training to highlight key differences in process and terminology across the jurisdictions as well as raising awareness of recognition issues. The aim of these efforts is to lead to a more cohesive and collaborative approach with the banks.

The following table illustrates the number of boarding's in Scottish waters by Marine Scotland Vessels each year since 2009.

In Scotland the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) Scotland is responsible for registering all power of attorney documents. If an individual has experienced any issues involving the recognition of a Scottish power of attorney in other parts of the UK they can contact the OPG for assistance.

There is already legislation in place that provides recognition of Scottish powers of attorney in England and Wales. This is about ensuring that the institutions and organisations have awareness and are educated on the legal status of Scottish powers of attorney.

The Scottish Government will be working with third party organisations to raise awareness and publicity about the validity of Scottish powers of attorney in England and Wales.

The 4 delivery model pilots of school swimming have now been completed and an evaluation is currently being undertaken which will be published in due course. We will work with Scottish Swimming and sportscotland to utilise the learning from these pilots to consider the best approach for a continued roll out of a National Framework for school swimming over the coming years.

This is a matter for individual health boards who are responsible for providing prisoner healthcare. The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

To ensure that changes to prison mental health services are evidence-based and person-centred, the Scottish Government commissioned a Mental Health Needs Assessment of Scotland’s prison population which was published in September 2022. It includes estimates of the likely prevalence of several mental health problems in Scotland’s prison population using academic research and modelling from the non-prison population. It estimated that the prevalence of these problems is generally higher for women relative to men, except for alcohol use disorder and depression.

Scottish Government has not had any recent direct engagement with the UK Government regarding cross-border recognition of powers of attorney granted in Scotland.

However, in previous meetings both parties have agreed the existing legislation allows for automatic recognition of powers of attorney in both jurisdictions. Difficulty in recognition is an issue of the training and knowledge of those being presented with a power of attorney from a different jurisdiction.

Prior to 2017, reports of alleged illegal fishing held by the Scottish Government were routinely disposed of in line with data protection legislation where – following investigation - no offence was found to have been committed, such reports were otherwise found to be unsubstantiated, or where there were no other legitimate operational grounds for retention.

No information on reports of alleged illegal fishing are therefore held for the period from 1 January 2009 to 25 February 2017 inclusive.

Recognising increased public and parliamentary interest in such information, however, and in compliance with Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 the Scottish Government began the retention of some information relating to reports of alleged illegal fishing on a strictly limited basis.

In line with that, the following table shows the number of reports of alleged illegal fishing made to the Scottish Government between 26 February 2017 and 6 June 2023.

Questions regarding day-to-day operational matters of Historic Environment Scotland, including information relating to any maintenance and monitoring works, are best answered directly by Historic Environment Scotland.

I have asked Historic Environment Scotland to respond directly to the member with a full reply to his question in writing.