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Scottish Government is working in partnership with the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) and Modernising Patient Pathways Programme to explore the feasibility of further national action to improve early detection and treatment of liver diseases.

Health Boards across Scotland currently have different pathways in place to promote the early detection and management of patients with liver disease.

A consistent approach to technology used across laboratories in Scotland is needed to support national roll out. A National Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) which will be able to deliver iLFTs is currently being rolled out across Scotland.

Since 2019/20, the Scottish Government have invested more than £11.5 million to support our Programme for Government commitment to introduce more than 80 additional mental health counsellors in colleges and universities. We have now achieved that target, as the latest figures from the Scottish Funding Council show that an additional 89 FTE mental health counsellors have been appointed by colleges and universities through the programme.

We will shortly inform institutions, through the Scottish Funding Council, of their funding allocations for Academic Year 2022-23.

These are matters for Police Scotland rather than Scottish Government or the Scottish Prison Service, which has no has no legal authority to question individuals in relation to crimes committed in the community.

I have asked the Chief Constable to write directly to the member with further detail on Police Scotland’s activity in this regard.

While I understand there are no current lines of enquiry following the death of Peter Tobin, any information that is received by Police Scotland will continue to be reviewed as has been the established procedure since his conviction and imprisonment.

The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people is an absolute priority for the Scottish Government. We are committed to improving support for children and young people’s mental health in order to ensure early intervention and prevention of suicide.

Health and wellbeing is a core part of Curriculum for Excellence, and schools play a vital role in supporting pupils’ mental health. The Mental Health in Schools Working Group, on behalf of Ministers, produced a framework to support local authorities and schools embed support for children and young people's mental health and wellbeing across all aspects of the school environment. The group has also developed professional learning for school staff, which includes suicide awareness.

We continue to support local authorities with £16 million in funding to ensure that every secondary school has access to counselling services.

The Scottish Government and COSLA published a new Suicide Prevention Strategy and Action Plan in September 2022. These include plans to further develop existing and new resources for schools which build understanding on mental health, self-harm and suicide prevention.

Screen Scotland, the dedicated public sector agency for the film and television industry in Scotland which is funded by the Scottish Government and the National Lottery, has supported a total of 1,964 trainees between March 2021 and September 2022.

In this time, Screen Scotland has awarded a total of £3.3m through a Targeted Skills Fund and Professional Development Fund. This commitment to developing a skilled and diverse workforce has seen 1,889 people supported, with an average of £1,750 invested in each person looking to enter or step up within the screen sector.

In addition, Screen Scotland’s Production Growth Fund also incentivises the creative of traineeships. 75 trainees were offered training through productions such as Good Omens S2, The Rig and The Lost King.

As part of the second year of the National Transition Training Fund, which ran from April 2021 to August 2022, and as part of support for creative industries recovering from the impact of the pandemic, the RESET Screen Scotland was co-designed, co-funded, and delivered in partnership with Creative Scotland, through which two programmes were delivered by Screen Scotland.

Overall 28 interns were supported through the Animation, VFX, and Games Internship programme which aimed to give those made unemployed during the Covid-19 pandemic an opportunity to retrain for these industries, through a 10-month programme of training and paid industry work placements.

A total of 21 individuals benefitted from an Introduction to Production Accounting, which offered those made unemployed during the Covid-19 pandemic an opportunity to gain practical training in production accounting across the film and TV sector, allowing individuals to develop skills through a 2-day course.

There were a total of 72 Modern Apprenticeship starts in the year 2021-22, related to the Scottish screen industries.

As part of a suite of measures introduced on 1 February 2022, dentists now receive an enhanced examination fee for seeing patients, including a new additional child examination fee. These changes also included the extension of Childsmile fees for children and young people up to 17 years of age (before up to 5 years of age), and fluoride varnish application between 2 and 12 years of age (before between 2 and 5 years of age). Childsmile fees are weighted so that NHS dental teams receive three times the payment for children from SIMD areas 1 and 2.

The Childsmile Programme has an emphasis on prevention, rather than treatment, and has resulted in significant improvements in children's oral health through being delivered via nursery schools, primary schools, and dental practices, and includes free, daily, supervised toothbrushing, the application of fluoride varnish, and dietary and oral hygiene advice.

There are 3652 waterbodies in total in Scotland, as defined by SEPA in the third River Basin Management Plan. A waterbody can relate to whole or parts of rivers, canals, lochs, estuaries, ground or coastal waters of a particular size as defined by the Water Framework Directive (WFD).

The Scottish monitoring network was designed within the framework of the WFD with EU monitoring guidance and principles laid down by the UK Technical Advisory Group (UKTAG). In order to monitor and report classification efficiently SEPA utilises modelling and risk assessment to group some surface waters and groundwaters, taking account of factors such as size, altitude and the challenges they face. One waterbody from that group is then monitored, and the classification produced is used for the other waterbodies in the group. This means over 1/3 of the total number of waterbodies have been regularly monitored for water quality.

Approximately 1/10 of all waterbodies are included in SEPA’s long term surveillance monitoring programme, which provides a representative overview of the overall state of the water environment. This is supplemented by additional targeted monitoring at higher risk sites, covering approximately 1/5 of all water bodies.

The frequency of water quality monitoring varies depending on the level of environmental risk, to ensure that resources are targeted at areas where evidence is most needed. Annual assessments at most of the monitored water bodies involves monitoring between 1 and 12 times in the year. The remainder of the water bodies are assessed on every two to six years.

SEPA has also adopted a risk-based approach to the monitoring of Water Framework Directive priority substances. This means that the extent and type of monitoring is targeted to the relevant substance in question. This monitoring is targeted at relevant sectors, where emissions of these substances to the environment occur and is focused on small numbers of waterbodies linked with the locations of these sectors. River Basin Management Planning classification is published annually and includes an assessment of priority substances, which are in general monitored on a quarterly to monthly frequency over the year.