Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people living in Scotland with long term conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis are able to access the best possible care and support.

The Scottish Government is working to ensure an overarching approach for advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) is in place in order to facilitate a ‘once for Scotland’ approach, where possible. We recognise that there are wide-ranging implications and challenges for the managed introduction of these personalised medicines, and are committed to adopting a co-ordinated approach where practical. We are working across Government to develop our understanding of the future direction for this area of medicines policy, including associated genomic testing and service planning implications for the NHS.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring everyone lives free from violence, in communities that are inclusive, empowered, resilient and safe.

For Police Scotland to take any action, the uploading images of violence would be deemed criminal if they breached the evidential threshold of Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 in terms of sharing grossly indecent, obscene, menacing character or offensive messages etc.

The removal of offensive content is the responsibility of the social media platforms themselves and can be done by users flagging the content as breaching the community guidelines/terms and conditions. There are report/removal tools operated by Police Scotland’s partner organisations to remove content from the internet, however these are generally aimed at indecent images.

We are providing nearly £13.5 billion in the 2023-24 Local Government Settlement, an increase of over £793 million compared with the 2022-23 budget. The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate financial resources available to them, including on youth services, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government accepts the Supreme Court’s judgment as to whether the Scottish Parliament has the power to legislate for an independence referendum without a Section 30 order.

There is however a democratic mandate for an independence referendum, and we stand ready to engage with the UK Government to give the Scottish people the right to choose their constitutional future in line with the result of the 2021 Scottish Parliament election which resulted in a clear majority in the Parliament in favour for a referendum.

Given the legislative and other arrangements that would be necessary, the Scottish Government is not planning for a referendum in October of this year.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-15269 on 8 March 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at Questions and answers | Scottish Parliament Website .

From November 2021 to December 2022 (the most recent available data), six fines were dispensed for charges under the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953, section 1(1)&(6). The value of these fines are in the following table:

Table 1: Fines dispensed between November 2021 and December 2022 for livestock worrying.

The Scottish Government expects health care professionals to deliver high quality person-centred care in line with best practice guidance. The NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) guideline on management of rheumatoid arthritis in adults (NG100) is available on its website: www.nice.org.uk. The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guideline on management of psoriatic arthritis in adults (SIGN 121) is available on its website: www.sign.ac.uk.

Scottish Government gives very serious consideration to the maintenance of plant and animal health and welfare through a range of biosecurity measures that aim to prevent the introduction and spread of harmful organisms.

On Plant health Scotland’s Chief Plant Officer for Scotland provides advice to Scottish Ministers and ensures strategic and tactical leadership, across forestry, crops and the natural environment, to minimise the risk and impact of plant health biosecurity threats in Scotland. The CPHOS works closely with UK Plant Health service colleagues to co-ordinate the Scottish Government’s plant health response in terms of policy, inspections and surveillance activities. Scotland’s Plant Health Centre of Expertise provides rapid call down evidence to inform policy and SG invests £50 million a year into a portfolio of strategic research.

On animal health and welfare, in both wild and farmed populations, SG funds ongoing disease surveillance and risk communication work through the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) and SRUC, as well as working with the other UK Administrations to collate data on current threats through International Disease Monitoring and Veterinary Risk Groups. Outputs from these groups inform policy decision making, both with regards to our borders and within Scotland. In addition the EPIC Centre of Expertise on Animal Disease Outbreaks is funded to provide epidemiological advice which informs actions to protect health and welfare.

On the specific examples, ash dieback is present across Scotland and management efforts are now focused on mitigating safety risks from diseased trees. Scottish forestry recently published advice for forest managers, Scottish Forestry - Ash dieback in Scotland . The Scottish Government provides funding through its Forestry Grant Scheme to control grey squirrels, Sustainable Management of Forests – Species Conservation – Grey Squirrel Control (ruralpayments.org) where they are a threat to the red squirrel population. The Forestry Grant Scheme also grant aids removal of regeneration, Seedling Tree Removal (Mechanical) (ruralpayments.org) where it will affect the hydrology of a raised bog or blanket bog, and hinder the recovery of the open bog habitat.

Work to develop the prospectus is drawing on a range of officials across the organisation who will contribute to varying extents as part of their wider responsibilities in supporting the Scottish Government. The exact number of officials contributing as part of their wider responsibilities is not known as the Scottish Government has no need to record this information.

The Constitutional Futures Division coordinates work on the Building a New Scotland series. As of 22 February 2023, it comprises 24 civil servants, including one Deputy Director. This equates to 23.3 FTE .

The global pandemic was the biggest shock our NHS has faced in its 74 year existence. Our NHS Recovery Plan published on 25 August 2021 invests £1 billion of targeted funding over five years to increase NHS capacity, deliver reform, and ensure everyone has the treatment they need at the right time, in the right place, and as quickly as possible.

The Scottish Government has sought advice from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service regarding their views on making changes to muirburn legislation.