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In general, the Scottish Government has no role in day to day operations at airports in Scotland as these are regulated by the UK Government and its associated agencies.

Officials engaged regularly with Scottish airports during the disruption affecting Heathrow Airport in order to understand the impact on Scotland. Whilst no concerns were raised by Scottish airports in relation to power supply, we would of course be happy to engage further with the sector should any issues arise that directly affect Scotland.

NHS Grampian were escalated to Level 3 of the NHS Support and Intervention Escalation Framework in January 2025 for financial management and position. The Scottish Government are providing specific tailored support to NHS Grampian in order to help stabilise the financial position. Alongside additional cost improvement programmes, the support package includes a dedicated financial support lead within Scottish Government who frequently meets NHS Grampian Executives challenge their financial position and trajectories and ensure the Board is on track to meet financial improvement milestones.

Throughcare services are in place to support individuals being released from custody to reintegrate into the community, which includes providing support with any accommodation needs. A new national voluntary throughcare service, Upside, with annual funding of £5.3 million from the Scottish Government, launched on 1 April 2025.

The Scottish Government thanks the Marine Conservation Society and their volunteers for their considerable efforts in gathering the data within the State of Our Beaches 2024 report, and also removing beach litter during these surveys. Their citizen science is vital in helping us prioritise future policy and legislation development.

We recognise that marine litter is an important national and international problem and have prioritised action through the Marine Litter Strategy for Scotland to ensure that the amount of litter entering the marine environment is minimised to bring ecological, economic and social benefits.

We published our refreshed Marine Litter Strategy in September 2022, which sets out a co-ordinated approach to address the amount of litter entering the marine environment, and supports the removal of debris that is already there. The updated strategy contains multiple actions on the most problematic types of marine litter including sewage-related debris and wet wipes. We are working across the four nations to put an end to pollution caused by wet wipes containing plastic, with legislation forthcoming.

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

SPS Women’s Strategy delivers a focus on both therapeutic and trauma informed environments for women in our care, and through individualised case management processes, women’s safety is managed in a way that is sensitive to their individual and gender specific needs and risks.

SPS’ person-centred approach and Women’s Strategy acknowledges that safety and wellbeing needs can be different for each woman, and traumatic experience can show that one woman’s feeling of safety and secure looks very different from another’s.

In practice our approach allows us to create an environment that promotes safety in a way that is sensitive to individual past experiences of distress, abuse and trauma.

Additionally, SPS are acutely aware of the Supreme Courts Judgement regarding the ‘biological definition’ of a woman and are currently considering any impact this may have on existing policies and operations.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-36086 on 24 April 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 thanks the Marine Conservation Society and all the many volunteers for their excellent work in monitoring beach litter and cleaning our shores. Citizen science is valued, and in combination with data from our scientists and our wider international monitoring programme, it is useful in helping us prioritise policy development to effectively reduce marine litter.

The list of public appointments by public body, which was published on 25 March 2025, is an exhaustive list of Ministerial regulated public appointments only. Ministerial regulated public appointments are those governed by the Ethical Standards Commissioner and the Code of Conduct for Public Appointments (2022).

The list is intended to be updated regularly so that it reflects recently made appointments. It was corrected on 25 March 2025 following the identification of errors.

Details added to the spreadsheet should be correct at the point of the appointment commencing. These details may change over time and become out of date. A process is underway to update the spreadsheet to ensure accuracy, including rectification of any other errors identified, and it will be re-published when complete.

Scottish Government commissioned the Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) audit in July 2024 following a scoping exercise and business case by Public Health Scotland (PHS). PHS are responsible for the delivery and implementation of the FLS audit, which includes setting delivery and evaluation milestones.

I refer the member to the answers to questions S6W-35534 and S6W-35567 on 21 March 2025, S6W-36002 on 1 April 2025 and S6W-36035 on 17 April 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 have met the Chief Executive of the Scottish Prisons Service, the Chief Social Work Advisor, Chief Executive of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and Lord President of the Court of Session on a number of occasions since 29 March 2023.

Information is set out in the following tables on meetings with each individual and a small number of ad hoc additional meetings.

Meetings with Chief Executive the Scottish Prison Service