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The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office (CSO) along with partners in the UK Clinical Research Recovery, Resilience and Growth programme considers it important that clinical trial populations reflect the populations that could benefit from the treatments as closely as possible. For this reason, a theme of this programme is the widening of opportunities for people to participate in clinical research. CSO is working with partners on the UK-wide Be Part of Research initiative and invests in the Scottish Health Research Register and Biobank (SHARE) with this aim. CSO is also funding a research project looking at ways to support ethnic diversity in clinical trials populations.  

The Statutory Guidance for the Scottish Welfare Fund sets out the responsibilities for Local Authorities in their administration of the Fund, including promotion and raising awareness across all potentially eligible individuals. This includes providing information on the Fund and making clear guidance available on how to apply for a grant. Local Authorities are also required to ensure that other services which have contact with people in crisis have up to date information about the Fund, including promotional posters and leaflets.

As recently indicated by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government in correspondence to the Committee for Social Justice and Social Security, the Independent Review of the Scottish Welfare Fund is due to publish soon and will inform next steps across a range of areas, including accessibility and promotion.

The Best Start North review was commissioned jointly by NHS Grampian, NHS Highland, NHS Shetland, NHS Orkney and NHS Western Isles. NHS Tayside now also participates in this work. The Best Start North review was commissioned jointly by the original five participating NHS Boards and is led by those NHS Boards. The Scottish Government understands that the primary focus of this work is collaboration towards continuous improvement of services in the North, support for the effective implementation of the recommendations in The Best Start and to work together on midwifery workforce and education. This work sits within the existing regional planning partnership, under the sponsorship of NHS Board Chief Executives, and was both established and operates at the regional level. You may therefore wish to direct specific queries regarding the work of the Best Start North group to the Nurse Director at NHS Shetland and Chair of the Best Start North group and the Director of Midwifery at NHS Highland.

The producer registration remains open for producers to register ( https://circularityscotland.com/producers/registration/ ).

Any producers who have not yet registered are encouraged to do so and can upload product details as part of the registration process.

Producers who have already completed the registration process will be able to add or amend product details using a self-service portal which will be available late Spring, well in advance of the scheme start date. This portal will remain open to allow producers to amend product details going forward.

The draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan is open for consultation until 9 May 2023. The final version of the Energy Strategy and Just Transitional Plan will be published once we have conducted a thorough review of the consultation responses and engaged with the full range of stakeholders.   The Scottish Government’s position on oil and gas is part of the consultation process and we will provide an update in the final Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan. We are not pre-empting responses.

Taking all 32 authorities into account, there is no median or average loss at 80% performance. In both situations, a saving has been projected. This is further increased when the scheme achieves it 90% target.

The Scottish Government does not hold the date range of local authority input data however; 27 Local Authorities used their own data to complete the modelling and 4 used national waste composition data based on their recycling performance at the time of modelling.  

The Best Start North review was commissioned jointly by NHS Grampian, NHS Highland, NHS Shetland, NHS Orkney and NHS Western Isles and is led by those NHS Boards. The Scottish Government understands that a group has now been set up with representation from the most senior Midwives from all six Boards in the North of Scotland, now including NHS Tayside.

The Scottish Government understands that the focus of this NHS Board-led work for 2023/24 is on collaboration to improve services in the north, support the effective implementation of the recommendations in The Best Start and to work together to improve midwifery workforce and education, training as well as taking forward joint improvement work. The groups will work within the existing regional planning partnership to shape and implement this work, under the sponsorship of the Board Chief Executives.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14838 on 9 March 2023. 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 .

Applications for additional providers to join the Accessible Vehicles and Equipment (AVE) Scheme opened on 16 January 2023 and closed on the 24 February 2023.

We will make a further announcement about the outcome of this current accreditation process in due course.

There will be further opportunities for alternative suppliers to join the Scheme at regular intervals, and we will work with any potential applicant to help them understand our requirements, as well as how to obtain accreditation.