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There were significant capacity constraints across the medicines homecare market in 2022. A key challenge has been recruitment of staff in a challenging labour market, with some providers more adversely affected than others. The situation is improving but continues to be closely monitored.

Certain homecare providers have highlighted issues with nursing capacity in recent months. Where this has been raised as an issue, there has been close working with providers to ensure that available staffing resource is used in a way that helps minimise disruption to service performance.

Homecare providers have not reported any recent issues with staffing within their pharmacy departments.

Several homecare providers have experienced staffing shortages within customer services departments, and this has been a major contributing factor to the capacity constraints experienced.

There have been a small number of instances where there have been delays to the delivery of medicines to patients, which has the potential to impact on patient safety. Medicines homecare providers and Health boards have processes in place to support managing and learning from any patient safety incidents that arise during service delivery.

The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 is a key part of the Scottish Government’s help for tenants facing the impact of the cost crisis. The Act introduced a temporary rent cap and moratorium on the enforcement of evictions, along with increased damages for unlawful evictions – until at least 31 March 2023.

The Scottish Government has made clear it will retain and use the provisions in the Act only where they remain necessary and proportionate in connection with the cost of living crisis. This is demonstrated in the regulations laid before Parliament today, which:

• expire the rent cap provisions for the social sector on 26 February, so that it allows landlords to implement changes from the end of March; and
• also suspend the rent cap provisions for purpose-built student accommodation, recognising that new tenancies in the academic year
  ‎ 2023-24 would not be covered by the Act as it stands in any case.

In light of the differences in how the social and private rented sectors operate and the clear economic evidence demonstrating the continued pressure being placed on private rented households due to the ongoing cost crisis, the Scottish Government will bring forward regulations to extend the remaining provisions in Part 1 of the Act for a further 6 months to 30 September 2023, provided it remains necessary and proportionate. Subject to the approval of Parliament, this will mean that the rent cap for the private rented sector will continue, along with the moratorium on enforcing evictions - which will continue to apply across all sectors.

In order to ensure the provisions are proportionate, the Act gives powers to vary the level of the rent cap. And whilst the focus of the emergency measures continues to be on protecting tenants, the Scottish Government recognises that the ongoing impacts of the cost crisis may also be experienced by some landlords.

The Scottish Government is of the view that it would be proportionate to raise the rent cap in the private rented sector to allow within-tenancy rent increases of up to 3%. Landlords will continue to be able to apply for an additional rent increase based on prescribed property costs and the maximum increase on this basis will be raised to 6% of overall rent in these specific and limited circumstances, in effect preserving the existing landlord safeguard which allows rent rises of 3% above the rent cap if prescribed property costs can be evidenced.

Finally, the 2022 Programme for Government set out the intention to bring forward a new Housing Bill in 2023 and that exact timings would be kept under review, in light of our emergency work to support tenants through the costs crisis.

Having reviewed that work and recognising the extension of our emergency legislation, the Scottish Government can confirm that it intends to introduce that Housing Bill – which will include long-term rent control measures – as soon as possible after the 2023 summer recess.

The published 2023-24 Stage 1 budget showed at level 4, a total investment of over £1.2 billion in Social Care support and NCS delivery. This is made up of a number of areas including an additional £100 million for adult social care pay up to £10.90, on top of the £200 million in 2022-23 for £10.50 and £144 million for the £10.02 before that, £124 million for care at home investment,
‎ £60 million for the Carers Act and inflationary uplifts for Free Personal Nursing Care Rates and others. All of the areas above underpin increasing the sustainability of the social care sector ahead of implementation of the NCS. It is important therefore to look at all areas of spend rather than one in isolation.

The Scottish Government will invest in Changing Places Toilets over this parliamentary term, in order to increase the number of these facilities across the country and to support mobile Changing Places Toilets to allow people easier access to events and outdoor venues.

This investment will be delivered in phases over the course of this parliamentary term. The Scottish Government is progressing the first phase of work to design an investment programme that ensures that the Changing Places Toilets which are built are fit for purpose.

Further details will be available soon.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on how many 3D-printed-guns or 3D printers being used for illicit purposes and seized by Police Scotland.

A range of charges could be relevant, depending on the facts and circumstances of individual cases. For example, 3D-printing of guns and other offensive weapons would potentially be charged and prosecuted under s3(1)(a) and s5(2A)(a) of the Firearms Act 1968 or s141(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. However, neither the COPFS dataset nor the Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings dataset holds information at the requested level (i.e. 3-D printing).

The Private Water Supply Grant is a demand led scheme which involves private water supply users and owners making an application to their local authority. The local authority reimbursement claims combine the total for all grants awarded, rather than distinguishing between home and commercial claims. Between the years of 2007 - 2022, the South Scotland region was awarded a total of £3,627,986.80. The breakdown for each year is:

The Scottish Government does not hold information relating to the financial value of the dark web in Scotland. Regulation of the Internet is reserved to the UK Government.

The Scottish Government maintains a close working relationship with Police Scotland, The National Crime Agency and other UK Government Departments and Agencies with respect to cyber security, cyber enabled and cyber dependent crime to ensure an effective response to the threat from cyber criminals to Scottish people and businesses.

The monitoring of the Dounreay foreshore area is undertaken by Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL) which is a subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and is agreed and regulated by SEPA.

All radioactive particle finds are removed, analysed and reported on the DSRL website. The finds in February and March 2022 were reported on the DSRL website in March and April 2022. The Dounreay Stakeholder Group was also provided with information regarding the particle finds in a written update from SEPA at one of its subgroup meetings in April 2022.

The NDA and SEPA remain content that the monitoring and retrieval programme in place continues to provide appropriate protection for the public.

The Scottish Government produces a range of Official Statistics that include information on crimes involving firearms, crimes of possessing an offensive weapon and drug seizures, However, we do not hold any information on the number of firearms, weapons or prohibited drugs that were specifically seized within mail and courier delivery services.