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The COVID-19 Education Surveillance dashboard is updated and published every week by Public Health Scotland and includes weekly data on the rate of COVID-19 PCR testing among children and young people of educational age (2-19 years), the number and rate of positive cases and the percentage of tests taken that are positive.

These figures are not broken down to the level of individual school, and there is an overlap between the age groups and the type of school where nearly all 5-11 and 12-15 are primary and secondary school pupils respectively, and 16-17 year olds a more mixed group.

However, the number of individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 by PCR test at the end of August, compared to w/e 10 October were as follows:

Age range (yrs)   W/E 30 August     W/E 10 October

5-11       12     3151

12-15       20     1905

16-17       12     382

Through the £463 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme we delivered fibre broadband to over 951,500 premises across Scotland with over 841,600 of those now capable of accessing superfast speeds of 30 Megabits per second (Mbps). Of these, over 27,000 fibre connections have been delivered in North Ayrshire.

Through the Reaching 100% (R100) programme we will build upon this by delivering universal access to superfast broadband, regardless of remoteness or rurality – including rural communities in North Ayrshire.

Through a combination of the £600 million R100 contracts, the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (R100 SBVS) and continued commercial coverage we will ensure that anyone who wants a superfast connection of 30Mbps and above by the end of 2021 can have one.

The Scottish Government does not hold data regarding the average speed of broadband in homes in rural North Ayrshire.

However, independent analysis site Thinkbroadband shows that, as at 19 October 2021, the average download speed for properties in North Ayrshire was 56.7Mbps.

Further information can be found at www.thinkbroadband.com.

The Scottish Government operates 144 public facing websites.

Since this Scheme to help low income families and unpaid carers take a break in Scotland, opened for sign-ups in mid-August we have already seen 35 families (including 73 children) on a break for the current October school holidays.

VisitScotland, working with charity partners (Family Holiday Association, Shared Care Scotland and Carer Centre Network), is managing the promotion and distribution of the scheme to families and carers through their existing channels, including social media.

The scheme has only recent launched to families and carers and recipients will have until December 2022 to redeem the vouchers.

In December 2017, the Scottish Government introduced a cyber incident reporting procedure to notify the Scottish Government, Police Scotland and the National Cyber Security Centre of cyber incidents with the purpose of providing support to affected Scottish public sector bodies.

The Scottish Government cannot confirm the number of incidents prior to 2018 as there was no equivalent process in place encouraging Scottish public sector organisations to report cyber incidents to the Scottish Government.

Table 1. Number of incidents reported to the Scottish Government by the Scottish public sector bodies under the Notifiable Scottish Public Sector Cyber Incidents procedure since 2018

No visits have been made to night club premises on this topic. Discussions on vaccine certification have been, and continue to be, conducted with sector representatives remotely, the latest of which took place with Ministers on 12 October 2021.

I intend to write to the Education, Children and Young People’s Committee later in October with a fuller update on local authority progress with regard to CO2 monitoring and ventilation in school buildings. At this point in time, I can confirm the following:

A) The Scottish Government confirmed a total of £10m funding allocations to local authorities in its grant letter on 14 October 2021. The funding allocations for all local authorities have been agreed and grant payments will be made in line with standard processes and timelines. Local authorities have confirmed that they have been progressing purchases of CO2 monitors on the basis of confirmed funding allocations. We plan to request formal confirmation that all funding provided has been, or will be, used for the specified purposes at a later date.

B) The following table shows the breakdown of how the £10m funding was allocated to each local authority. We do not hold a detailed breakdown of how each local authority will spend their allocation. However the grant letter to local authorities states that the funding should only be used for specified purposes, including the purchase of CO2 monitors, associated additional staffing costs, and to contribute to any remedial action identified as being necessary following CO2 monitoring.

We currently have no plans to amend the existing waiting times standards although recovering our NHS and improving waiting times for patients is a top priority for this Government.

In response to the pressures on NHS services caused by the pandemic the NHS Recovery Plan was launched on 25 August 2021. The Plan which is backed by more than £1 billion of investment, sets out the Scottish Government’s key headline ambitions and actions to be developed and delivered now and over the next 5 years. While recovery is the immediate task, the Plan is fundamentally about ensuring that the process of recovery focusses on alternative pathways of care that allow people to be treated sooner and closer to home .

There have been 88 public facing Scottish Government websites launched since 2016, 15 were launched in 2016, 16 were launched in 2017, 13 were launched in 2018, 9 were launched in 2019, 29 were launched in 2020 and 6 were launched in 2021.