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The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all school-aged children and young people in Scotland have access to a digital device by the end of this parliament. This is a highly complex and ambitious commitment that requires careful partnership planning. Since May 2021, we have been working with local authorities to prepare the system and the people in it for a wider rollout of devices.

Local authorities across Scotland also have a range of approaches to provision of technology in schools, including some councils who have undertaken to provide cohorts of their school population with devices using their own budgets. We do not hold information centrally on those local approaches. COSLA have reported that 122,000 devices (including the 72,000 funded by the Scottish Government) have now been distributed. However, it is our view that this is an underestimation.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-05700 on 26 January 2022. 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 .

Scottish Government officials have worked closely with Public Health Scotland (PHS) to develop an alternative solution to the collection of data on sight loss registration and certification to replace the previously underutilised web platform. As part of the new process, certification and registration data, as well as clinical diagnostic data, will be collected by Health Board eye clinics and Local Authorities (or their agents) via a spreadsheet for annual return to PHS. This data will provide evidence which can be used to inform planning of local and national services. We will write to clinicians to update them on the new process and timeline for moving to the new process.

Our aim is to replace the current paper-based CVI form with an electronic CVI form within the new Ophthalmology Electronic Patient Record (EPR), which is being developed. Once the EPR is in place, the electronic CVI form will be incorporated and this will support consistent annual reporting of sight loss registration statistics.

When minimum unit pricing for alcohol was introduced on 1 May 2018, we said we would review the level two years after its introduction, so from May 2020. With the arrival of COVID-19, this work was paused as responding to the pandemic became the Scottish Government’s top priority.

The review work is now back underway. The impacts of the pandemic, and to some extent Brexit, however, make both the review and the evaluation more challenging. The pandemic, in particular, caused people’s drinking habits to change and, early signs are that this is having an impact on alcohol harms.

As regards the timescale for reviewing the level of MUP, it is currently too early in the process to set out when this might happen.

We remain convinced that MUP is one of the main drivers in reducing alcohol harm.

Resilience of the Energy Sector is reserved and therefore the responsibility of the UK Government.

Power Companies are required to meet statutory obligations under the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002 with respect to minimum clearances from overhead lines, wires and cables including minimum ground clearance requirements.

The Scottish Government are contributing to both the Storm Arwen Ofgem review and the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) review and will carefully consider the findings to understand where improvements could be made in future.

The Scottish Government’s emergency Covid19 support to the performing arts sector during the pandemic, included an award of £749,000 to Horsecross Arts by Creative Scotland from the Performing Arts Venues Relief Fund (PAVR) which was announced on 5 August 2020. Creative Scotland assessed Horsecross Arts against the criteria for the fund which were:

• Attain Financial sustainability
• Allow staff to return from Furlough or avoid redundancy
• where possible , Provide opportunities for Creative Freelancers.

As a non-departmental public body Creative Scotland operate at arm’s length from government for all their funding decision. This means that Scottish Ministers have no role in individual funding decisions.

Decisions regarding the use of technology to operate Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) are for industry to take in line with the principle of producer responsibility.

We would anticipate that industry will make extensive use of digital technology in delivering the scheme, for example by developing an IT system to track payments made and received, adopting state-of-the-art reverse vending technology to prevent fraud, and using digital media to communicate with the public regarding DRS.

We are aware of the so-called ‘digital DRS’ as a proposed approach to delivering deposit return whereby consumers redeem deposits on scheme articles by scanning them with a smartphone before placing them in their kerbside recycling. We considered this approach during the policy-development process for DRS and the strong feedback from both industry and environmental NGOs was that the technology is not sufficiently mature for implementation on the timetable for our DRS.

We, and Circularity Scotland Ltd as scheme administrator, are monitoring developments including trials of ‘digital DRS’ in Wales. However, we are focussed on delivering a return-to-retail DRS, in line with international best practice, that will make it as easy to return a bottle or can as it was to buy it.

The Scottish Government intends to set out its proposals in the near future, taking into account the independent analysis of responses to the consultation on the regulation of non-surgical cosmetic procedures.

The Maternity and Children’s Quality Improvement Collaborative (MCQIC) is taking a quality improvement (QI) approach in its work to improve our understanding of the variation in caesarean section rates in Scotland. This work is in its early stages, with initial scoping work underway. The next phase of the QI work is due to commence early in the next quarter and will involve further engagement with NHS Boards.

MCQIC publishes resources relevant to its work on its website. Relevant outputs from this QI programme will also be shared in this way as the work progresses.

Maternity and Children Quality Improvement Collaborative (MCQIC) | Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) | ihub - Maternity and Children Quality Improvement Collaborative (MCQIC).

As part of the review into the implementation date for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) we carried out intensive scrutiny of Circularity Scotland Ltd’s (CSL) implementation programme, including through the Gateway Review and Assurance of Action Plan, as well as engagement from Scottish Ministers and officials. I am therefore confident that CSL will be prepared to deliver its obligations by 16 August 2023.

The Gateway Review interviewed a range of other stakeholders and, although it gave a preparedness estimate of 12-24 months for individual stakeholders, did not give a breakdown of preparedness estimates for individual businesses. While businesses interviewed separately by SG tended to endorse this finding, we do not hold exact preparedness times for these individual businesses.