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The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 places the statutory responsibility for local roads with the local road authorities, including parking on local roads. In addition, Local authorities have a duty under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 to manage and maintain local roads in their area and duties under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to secure expeditious, convenient and safe movement of traffic. As such this is not an issue where the Scottish Government would become involved.

However, Glasgow City Council will enforce car-exclusion zones around schools by way of Traffic Regulation Order which will prohibit any motor vehicle without a permit of valid exemption from using the School Streets zone whilst the scheme is in operation.

Further information on this can be found at the following link;

Spaces for People: Expansion of School Car Free Zones - Glasgow City Council

I have recently written to the profession about our plans for the recovery of NHS dental services.

Our commitment as a Government is to build back NHS dentistry, and ensure that NHS dental teams are focused on the need to tackle the backlog in routine dental care. Our NHS dental teams have been working hard throughout this pandemic in difficult circumstances, and it’s important that they feel supported by Government and representative bodies.

Which is why we have recently detailed a package of new improvements to support NHS dental teams, including new enhanced examination fees for all patients, both children and adults, with a particular emphasis on children and tackling oral health inequalities. This builds on recent announcements of £7.5m for new dental drills and £5m for ventilation improvements.

We want to build on what has been a hugely successful policy of protecting NHS dentistry during this pandemic period. We have provided £50m of financial support payments, in addition to between £30 and £35m of free PPE since the beginning of the pandemic, to ensure NHS dental services emerge well placed to care for the oral health of the population.

We continue to monitor closely and assess this next phase of the pandemic. The current package of statutory measures is considered an appropriate public health response to the incidence or spread of infection in Scotland in line with our strategic intent to suppress the virus to a level consistent with alleviating its harms while we recover and rebuild for a better future. We have acted to give as much clarity and consistency as possible to individuals, businesses, and sectors within society, and we will continue to do so. The fact that COVID-19 continues to be a threat – to individual health and to the capacity of our health system – is the reason why our existing mitigations remain in place.

However, we are keeping these measures under review, with regular reviews scheduled every three weeks. As part of this process, we will consider whether any existing mitigations need to be strengthened in light of what the data is telling us.

Cabinet Secretaries and officials have renewed efforts to engage with sectoral stakeholders to re-invigorate stronger messaging on the need to comply with existing baseline measures. This means taking all possible proactive steps to promote and reinforce baseline measures, the promotion of advisory precautionary measures and sector specific good practice in all sectors.

As set out in the Programme for Government 2021 - 22, published on 7 September 2021, the Scottish Government is committed to establishing a dignified and compassionate miscarriage service by the end of 2023.

Work is underway to progress this commitment, which aims to support the development of individualised care plans after a woman’s first miscarriage, take forward specific recommendations made in the Lancet series on miscarriage published on 26 April 2021 and ensure women’s services in Health Boards have dedicated facilities for women who are experiencing unexpected pregnancy complications.

When the Care Experienced Bursary (CEB) was introduced, the policy intention was not only to provide enhanced living cost support, adding value to the existing support provided by Local Authorities, but also to act as an incentive for people with experience of care to enter Further and Higher Education.

The Scottish Government carried out an Equalities Impact Assessment (EQIA) on the CEB, in its original form (with previous age 26 limit), and in removing the age limit from AY 2020/21. The EQIA identified a potential negative impact with regards to the protected characteristic of 'Age'. Students aged 16-19 may be adversely affected due to the CEB causing a potential reduction in the funding received from their local authority. The impact on this group of students was assessed as part of the Equality Impact Analysis and any outstanding risks were mitigated. The full EQIA can be viewed at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/care-experienced-bursary-introduction-eqia/

A Policy Note on the interaction of the Care Experienced Bursary and funding support provided by Local Authorities was sent to Local Authority Chief Executives, explaining the policy intention and our responsibility to care experienced young people as corporate parents. In addition to this, a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) document, was drafted by Scottish Government officials for local authority practitioners. The document highlights that the CEB was not intended to replace existing support provided by local authorities, such as Housing Benefit but to act as an incentive for people with the experience of care to enter Further and Higher Education.

We remain engaged with the Department for Work and Pensions to try to alleviate any negative financial impact on students. Officials also engage regularly with key stakeholders such as NUS Scotland, Centre for Excellence for Children's Care and Protection (CELCIS), Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), and Who Cares? Scotland to ensure that the CEB is administered in the in spirit it was intended, and that care-experienced students do not lose out as a result of receiving the CEB.

The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 regulates the use of animals in scientific procedures in the UK. This is a reserved area of legislation.

The Scottish Government asks the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) to liaise with research institutes and outline their responsibilities.

The SFC have advised that they require institutions to comply with the Concordat to Support Research Integrity. The Concordat sets out principles and commitments to ensure that research produced by or in collaboration with UK universities is underpinned by the highest standards of rigour and integrity and that the public, government, business, and international partners can continue to have confidence in that research.

The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people is an absolute priority for the Scottish Government.

Access to counselling support services through secondary schools are in place across Scotland. As highlighted in the answer to S5W-35805, there is variation in how the counselling service is being delivered across authorities. Twenty four authorities are providing a specific resource in schools and eight authorities are providing an authority wide service according to need across their region.

A summary of information provided by local authorities on the school counselling service in their area is available at: Access to counsellors in secondary schools: summary report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

NHS Scotland already utilises an electronic prescription message between GP practices and community pharmacies which runs in parallel with paper prescriptions. However, the use of paper prescriptions is still a necessity at this stage as a legal requirement.

The Scottish Government has commissioned NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) to take forward a number of digital priorities in response to COVID. This national programme includes investing in development of a new ePrescribing and eDispensing pathway by enabling the use of advanced electronic signatures in primary care and addressing the need for an end-to-end digital solution that will support replacement of the paper prescription from all community settings with a digital solution. The programme recognises that electronic prescribing will help some vulnerable sections of society, but we must also ensure others are not disadvantaged and the solution adopted should address patient needs including digital exclusion. It is difficult to be precise on timescales at present but significant progress on the technical and process models continues at pace and the Scottish Government is committed to deliver a solution through this programme.

Our refreshed Digital Health and Care Strategy includes a clear approach on how we will empower the public to manage their health and wellbeing through digital means. This work will look to give greater access to things like health records and being able to manage prescriptions online.

In addition, patients who have a long-term condition can access the ‘Medicines: Care and Review Service’ at their local community pharmacy. It promotes a partnership approach between the pharmacist, the patient and their GP practice. Patients with stable long-term conditions can receive serial prescriptions for a duration of 24, 48 or 56 weeks which are dispensed in regular intervals by the pharmacy and remove the need to request regular repeat prescriptions.

The Scottish Government has committed to bringing Free Personal and Nursing Care rates for those self-funding residential care into line with the National Care Home Contract. We are currently consulting on this as part of the National Care Service consultation, which runs until 2 November 2021.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the total number of on-street bike hangers across Scotland, or on the demand for bike hangers. Individual local authorities may hold this information for their respective areas.