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We have followed the recommendation of the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent scientific body that advises all four UK nations on screening, that women between the ages of 50 and 70 should be invited for three yearly routine breast screening. That is because there is clear evidence of benefit from screening women of that age group. The UK NSC does not recommend that women over 71 are invited for breast screening because the same evidence of benefit does not yet exist.

Prior to COVID-19, women aged 71 and over had the option to self-refer because there was enough capacity to allow them to do so. While programme capacity remains challenging due to the impacts of COVID-19, there remains a pause on self-referrals for those over the age of 71 to allow appointments to be prioritised for the recommended screening population.

However, in recognition of the anxiety that the pause on self-referrals is causing, work is underway with the National Screening Oversight and the Scottish Breast Screening Programme Board to explore ways to restart the self-referral route by Autumn 2022, in a way that does not unduly impact screening of the eligible cohort.

We continue to emphasise that, regardless of their age, women should remain symptom aware and report any concerns to their GP immediately for these to be investigated and followed up as appropriate.

The National Lottery is reserved to the UK Government and this information is not held by the Scottish Government.

Ministers were alerted to a decline in National Lottery ticket sales and to a consequent reduction in National Lottery good cause income in December 2016.

A mitigation strategy has been in place since October 2016 for a collaborative approach bringing together DCMS, the Gambling Commission, distributors and Camelot to address falling sales.

This includes Camelot undertaking a strategic review to return the lottery to growth; distributors promoting the link between National Lottery and Good cause projects; DCMS and the Gambling Commission are working with lottery distributors on potential levels of income if current trends continue.

Good cause returns for 2019-20 and for 2020-21 were better than expected and a total of £1,887 million was raised in 2020-21.

As per the FOI (FOI/202200277291) referred to in the question, CES have already been asked about disclosure of the document and at that time did not consent to it due to the ScotWind clearing process still being underway. Publications of those documents at this time may, unduly, influence the application process. Once the process of granting option agreements is over, CES’s assessment of what can and cannot be released may change .

The National Lottery is reserved to the UK Government.

To date there have been no discussions between the Scottish Government and the distributors or funding recipients in Scotland regarding the possibility of Good Causes funding being raised from sale of lottery tickets by a company with reported links to Russia.

The Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels publication provides information on the number of publicly funded school children in Primary 1, Primary 4, Primary 7 and Secondary 3 who have achieved the expected Curriculum for Excellence level in the literacy organisers (reading, writing and listening and talking) and numeracy.

Schools were closed in Scotland between March 2020 and the end of the academic year as a result of the pandemic meaning that they were closed on the date of 8 June 2020. It was concluded that it would not be possible to collect consistent data that was fit for purpose and that any attempt to do so would add considerably to other pressures on school and education authority staff. The decision was therefore taken to suspend the data collection in 2019-20.

The latest publication collected data for 2020-21 for Primary school (P1, P4 and P7) pupils only. Secondary school and special school data was not collected due to other pressures on these schools including implementation of the SQA National Qualifications Alternative Certification Model which was used to award National 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers in 2021.

The current intention is to collect all data– for Primary, Secondary and Special school pupils – in 2021-22, although this will be kept under review.

The latest information on Reading can be found at the following table and the link provided:

Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2020-21 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The recently published report on the Review of the Role of Incineration in the Waste Hierarchy recommends that Scottish Government and local authorities should work with industry to develop a strategic approach to planning and deploying waste collection, reprocessing and management facilities. We are carefully considering all recommendations made in the report and will set out our initial response in June.

In the meantime, we have launched our consultation on Delivering Scotland's circular economy– a Route Map to 2025 and beyond. The Route Map takes a whole systems approach to set out interventions to reduce waste and meet our recycling and waste targets in a way that maximises carbon saving potential. The consultation paper is available here: Delivering Scotland’s circular economy: A Route Map to 2025 and beyond - Scottish Government - Citizen Space (consult.gov.scot)

Scotland has budgeted £429.4 million in total for Discretionary Housing Payments since DHPs were devolved in 2017 to the 2022-23 financial year. This is broken down into £349 million for mitigation of the bedroom tax and £80.4 million for mitigating the impact of other welfare reforms. From that national figure, £16,369,752 has been allocated to Dundee City in total for DHPs which includes (a) £13,407,801 for bedroom tax and (b) £2,961,950 for “Other DHP”, used to mitigate welfare reforms.

SG funding for DHPs for Dundee City 2017-18 to 2022-23

There are a range of factors which must be considered as part of our developing model for Scotland to effectively tackle and challenge men’s demand for prostitution, including online aspects, such as “online pimping”.

The regulation of internet and online service providers is a reserved matter and we are continuing to liaise closely with the UK Government and Ofcom on the UK Online Safety Bill.

Procuring for the purposes of prostitution is still an offence if committed online and Police Scotland will actively investigate all reports of sexual exploitation, including online sexual exploitation.

The final formal meeting of the short life working group was held on 19 April 2022. The insights from the group and it’s reference group are being taken into account in the drafting of the fundamental principles, with further targeted stakeholder engagement planned prior to their finalisation, including further discussion with the short life working group planned for later this month. The principles will be published later this year.