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The cross-sector Building Digital Skills & Leadership Programme hosted by NHS Education for Scotland is our main programme to support the ongoing work of health and care employers, alongside the redesign work of individual change programmes (such as Near Me) required to ensure meaningful adoption and use of online services. Progress is reported in the 2022-23 Delivery Plan published last year.

Since April 2022, the Scottish Government has provided up to £642,500 to support the Scottish Crisis Fund project, being delivered by the British Red Cross, through the Ending Destitution Together strategy.

This project provides crisis cash grants to people facing destitution who are experiencing barriers to accessing support and is inclusive of people subject to No Recourse to Public Funds.

Funding currently runs to 31 March 2023. The Scottish Government is currently working with the British Red Cross on future funding and delivery of the project in 2023-24.

The Scottish Government will continue to do all it can within devolved powers to protect communities and support people.

The Scottish Government is currently supporting a range of sustainable transport projects and programmes across Glasgow and wider region.

This includes investment and development work on active travel infrastructure and behaviour change; bus priority measures to increase the attractiveness of using the bus over the private car; on the region’s rail network; on the subway and on developing the programme and business case for the multi-billion pound proposed Clyde Metro.

There are significant limits on any action that the Scottish Government can take in this area. Regulation of consumer protection is reserved to the UK Government, with responsibility for consumer enforcement, which is a pillar of consumer protection, split between trading standards officers and Trading Standards Scotland.

Trading Standards Scotland is funded directly by the UK Government with funding for trading standards officers delivered through Barnett formula consequentials. It is for local authorities to assess their individual local circumstances to inform their decisions on how they best support their trading standards departments.

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the recommendations set out in the Coming Home Implementation Report to reduce delayed discharges and out-of-area placements for people with learning disabilities and complex care needs.

The Scottish Government has accepted all 5 key recommendations in the Coming Home Implementation Report and is working with people with lived experience, COSLA, professionals from Local Authorities; Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs); the NHS; and other key stakeholders to implement these recommendations. This includes progressing the Dynamic Support Register, Peer Support Network and National Support Panel recommendations, focussing in the first instance on getting it right for people with learning disabilities using a collaborative and partnership approach.

We will work to address wider issues around the delayed discharge that people with enduring mental health conditions experience. Our work on the National Care Service, the Barron Forensic Services Review, and the Scottish Mental Health Law Review will further improve the care and support of people with enduring mental health conditions.

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the recommendations set out in the Coming Home Implementation Report to reduce delayed discharges and out-of-area placements for people with learning disabilities and complex care needs.

Significant work has been undertaken to develop and test a Dynamic Support Register, which has been led by a working group and co-designed with people with lived experience, HSCPs and NHS professionals across Scotland. We will be launching the Register soon following successful testing.

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the recommendations set out in the Coming Home Implementation Report to reduce delayed discharges and out-of-area placements for people with learning disabilities and complex care needs.

Following the publication of the Coming Home Implementation report, the Scottish Government has worked with key stakeholders to understand the role and remit of a Peer Support Network in order to design a model that provides value and allows for genuine collaboration across Scotland. Further details on the establishment of the Peer Support Network will be available soon.

The Scottish and UK governments received five strong bids for Green Freeport status from across Scotland. Each of the bids demonstrated strengths and ambition, however only two could be selected. The bids were jointly assessed by both Governments, and the winners selected following the rigorous process set out in the joint bidding prospectus. The selection of Firth of Forth and Opportunity Inverness and Cromarty Firth delivers Green Freeport Status to the strongest bids from the Central Belt and North of Scotland respectively. A document with more information about the assessment and selection process will be published in due course.

The care provided by Scotland’s independent secure providers is highly-regarded. We need to consider how the secure care system operates overall in the coming years, taking in to consideration the asks from the Independent Care Review’s Promise and the incorporation of UNCRC, before embarking on any redesign work.

In the short term, the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill will give effect to the necessary legislative changes to displace all under 18s from custody. Contractual and other non-statutory interventions to guarantee secure capacity and to minimise providers’ reliance on placements from elsewhere in the UK are already in train.

Over the coming years, preparing to keep the Promise by 2030 will likely entail a transformational change to the current secure provision for children in Scotland. A secure estate configured to meet Scotland’s future demands means we will need to undertake significant redesign activity with providers and purchasers. Resource shifts, system and practice change will also be required.

Alongside that, a national service specification for secure transport is being developed by the joint Scottish Government and COSLA led Secure Care Group. This specification aims to bring consistency to the expectations and requirements, wherever secure transport requires to be commissioned.