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The Scottish Government recognises that physical bank branches provide an important service for many individuals and businesses across Scotland. The closing of branches in Scotland raises concerns around access to cash and banking services - particularly for rural communities, vulnerable individuals and digitally excluded customers

I engage regularly with the banking sector through bilateral ministerial meetings and the Financial Services Growth and Development Board, engagements in which concerns around the ability for consumers to access cash and banking services are raised. Following the Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) announcement in March to shut 19 Bank of Scotland branches, I met with LBG representatives to discuss their decision and Governments concerns on the potential impacts on affected communities.

The responsibility for the regulation of the financial services industry is reserved to the UK Government and Scottish Ministers are unable to intervene in the commercial decisions made by banks. HM Treasury announced their intention last year to legislate on “access to cash” and in the Queen’s Speech on 10 May 2022, “ensuring continued access to cash across the UK” is referenced as an intended outcome of the Financial Services and Markets Bill.

The Scottish Government is ready to work constructively with the UK Government on this matter to ensure that Scotland’s communities have fair access to convenient, local cash and banking services.

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the National Neurodevelopmental Specification: Principles and Standards of Care for Children and Young People, published in September 2021, which specifies service standards that all children’s services should follow, to ensure access to support is effective and consistent across Scotland.

In 2021-22, through our Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund, we allocated around £40 million to NHS Boards across Scotland to improve their Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and Neurodevelopmental services for children and young people.

The Scottish Government understands that delivering service improvements can only be achieved with the right workforce capacity and capability. Therefore to support this, £3.06 million from the Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund was allocated to NHS Boards in 2021-22 to build professional capacity within Boards to support children and young people with neurodevelopmental support needs.

Against a backdrop of a 6% increase in NHS Psychology staffing in 2021, we are also working in collaboration with NHS Education for Scotland and NHS Boards to undertake a UK level National Psychology Recruitment drive. In addition, we are increasing the student intake for Psychology Masters and Doctorate training programmes and creating new roles, and Enhanced Psychology Practitioners in primary care, community, early years, and schools. These professionals can support the delivery of the National Neurodevelopment Specification, including contributing to diagnosis, but also importantly in training and support for universal services and delivering family support interventions tailored for children and young people with neurodevelopmental support needs.

Alongside the important role played by psychologists, other registered health and social work professionals can be trained in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnostic tools such as Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), and provide ASD assessment, contributing to diagnosis. Diagnosis is recommended from at least 2 professionals using a number of information sources, including parental reports.

NHS Scotland expenditure on mental health, including children and adolescents, is reported in the Scottish Health Service Costs , published annually by ISD Scotland.

Expenditure in financial years 2016-17 to 2020-21 in NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Forth Valley and NHS Dumfries and Galloway, identified as relating to mental health services delivered in hospitals or in the community aimed specifically at children and adolescents, is shown in Table 1. The financial resource allocated to reduce waiting times for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) is not held by Public Health Scotland.

Table 1:

The Scottish education system is set up in such a way that decision making is devolved to the most appropriate level, enabling local education authorities to make choices that meet their local circumstances and needs. As a result schools, supported by their local authority, plan the reading curriculum to meet the needs of the learners within their own local context.

Access to literacy specific research is available through the National Literacy Professional Learning Community on Glow.

The Scottish Government national standard is that 90% of children and young people should start treatment within 18 weeks of referral. The publication for CAMHS waiting times for the quarter ending December 2021 can be found at Publications - Public Health Scotland .

Table 1 shows the total number of patients seen for first treatment following referral to CAMH Services in NHS Lanarkshire and the percentage seen within 18 weeks for the latest published data for quarter ending December 2021.

Table 1 : Total number of patients seen and waiting times from referral to treatment, quarter ending 31 December 2021, NHS Lanarkshire

In 2019, we introduced a uniform approach to recording and monitoring bullying incidents in schools, supported by guidance. All local authorities and schools are expected to be using the new approach.

It is the responsibility of school staff and local authorities to decide how to address bullying in their schools. We expect that all local authorities have an anti-bullying policy that covers all of their schools and each school should develop and implement an anti-bullying policy in line with this. The policy should indicate how incidents will be dealt with and recorded.

Therefore, this information would need to be requested from each local authority directly.

The Scottish Government is aware that changes to officer pensions have resulted in an increase in the numbers currently retiring.

The recruitment of police officers is a matter for the Chief Constable, who is actively managing workforce challenges and is committed to recruiting 300 new officers each quarter to help return officer numbers to appropriate levels. Implementation began in April when a larger than usual intake of approximately 300 probationers joined the service.

The Scottish Government does not hold statistics on incidents or crimes of animal theft. The data we receive from Police Scotland is a count of the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police, split by local authority, and the number cleared up by the police. The Scottish Government does not receive further details on the characteristics of these crimes. This means we are unable to identify how many reported thefts involved animals being stolen.

The Discussion Document (2018) was prepared by Crown Estate Scotland, who also administered the engagement process and review of responses. The Scottish Government was provided with a summary of responses but do not hold information on individual responses. As per S6W-08311 on 16 May 2022, the Crown Estate Sponsor Team did not provide any comment on the topic of option fee agreements in this early engagement document.

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

Crown Estate Scotland (CES) and the Scottish Government have different but related responsibilities with regard to ScotWind. As such, correspondence between organisations is considerable and recent requests were deemed manifestly unreasonable. Any new request for information under FOI/EIR would, of course, be considered on a case by case basis. A previous request for similar information was addressed at Gov.scot

Following the outcome of the Round 4 auction, CES informed the Scottish Government that it would undertake a rapid review of the ScotWind Option fees. That review concluded on 24 March 2021, with the changes outlined by Crown Estate Scotland .