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The requested information on how much has been spent on providing (a) staff bank cover and (b) agency staff cover by NHS board since March 2014 can be found on the following link: NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence (Bank and Agency) tab.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of reported fraud incidents committed against pensioner households. Some information is available from a 2018-19 study into police recorded fraud in Scotland, the findings of which were presented within the Recorded crime in Scotland 2018-19 National Statistics .

Further analysis from this study suggests that an estimated 1,260 crimes of recorded fraud (or 13% of all fraud that year) had a victim of pensionable age (specifically those aged 66 and over).

Table 1 presents the number of properties with a liability for the higher property rate before reliefs are awarded, broken down by local authority and property class. Table 1 has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre under Bib No. 63637.

The Scottish Government does not hold property level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

The Scottish Government is committed to the recruitment of a minimum of 1,500 additional staff to support the operation of Scotland’s National Treatment Centres (NTCs) and is supporting a range of activity to achieve this.

The recruitment data we are currently collating is management information and not suitable for publication. However, we are committed to exploring how this data can be published at a future date following with the opening of Centres in Fife and Forth Valley in early 2023.

The Cost of Living Crisis represents an unprecedented challenge and is undoubtedly having an impact on communities across Scotland. Effective fire safety, to prevent fires and reduce their impact, remains a priority for the Scottish Government and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and this was reflected in the latest Fire and Rescue Framework published earlier this year: Fire and rescue framework 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Our Programme for Government set out to use our Emergency Budget Review to double our Fuel Insecurity Fund to £20 million, which has helped households at risk of self-disconnection, or self-rationing their energy use, since late 2020. Support is provided to people either as fuel vouchers, or via direct payments to their energy suppliers, and is available to people on any tariff type and using any kind of fuel.

The Scottish Government has produced Home Fire Safety advice which can be found here: Home fire safety - Fire and rescue - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . SFRS also have fire safety advice relating to candle use on their website: Scottish Fire & Rescue Service (firescotland.gov.uk) .

Waste collection is the responsibility of individual local authorities and they are best placed to make decisions regarding the provision of waste and recycling services in their area.

The Scottish Government supports strong trade unions in Scotland and recognises the importance of collective bargaining in improving terms and conditions, and respects the right to strike. However, we would always encourage unions and employers to work collaboratively to resolve disputes.

Information on committee processes in relation to individual planning applications which are called in by Scottish Ministers is not recorded centrally. The figures below are the collective total of applications called in by Scottish Ministers per year from 2012 to date. This includes cases called in at points before, during and after consideration by a council committee, and also those where the council’s consideration had been delegated to planning officials.

The Scottish Government is taking the necessary steps to support NHS staffing capacity. The Scottish Government is continually in contact with all NHS Health Boards to ensure that services have sufficient support to deal with COVID-19, manage other risks and resume planned services as safely and effectively as possible.

Although Staffing levels across NHS Scotland have increased for ten consecutive years, we are fully aware of the challenges that Boards and frontline staff are experiencing. That is why we announced a £1 billion-backed NHS Recovery Plan and a record £300 million of investment last winter to support Health Boards and their staff.

This includes the 1,000 Health Care Support Workers brought in over the last winter and recent successes that has saw c230 nurses from overseas taken up roles within Boards in Scotland and our commitment to invest a record £11 million in the lifetime of this parliament in further domestic and international recruitment.

We are in the final stages of agreeing a stretching target for international recruitment of nurses, midwives and Allied Health Professionals with NHS Scotland Boards for 2022-23.

A review of the content of the Scottish Health Survey took place between 18 July and 26 September 2022. The review asked users to explain their use of the current survey content and provided the opportunity for them to suggest any new questions, which could include questions relating to eating disorders. A report will be published in advance of the 2024 survey reporting the findings of the review and decisions on the survey content going forwards.

It is important that NHS Boards can call on additional staffing when required, in order to deal with the exigencies of the service. It is for NHS Boards to decide when the additional support represented by agency staffing is required but the Scottish Government is clear that Boards should always make use of NHS bank staff as a first choice and the majority of additional staffing needs are met through NHS Scotland’s well established bank system. These act as, de facto, in house agencies. We have over 35,000 nurses registered on NHS Scotland Staff Banks. It would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to establish a commercial agency. Combined spending on all agency staff (medical and nursing) remains less than 1% of the overall NHS Scotland budget.