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Prescription charges were abolished in Scotland on 1 April 2011. The prescription charge in England is £9.35 per item from 1 April 2021. Prescription charges were abolished in Wales on 1 April 2007.

Unlike England and Wales, Scotland provides free NHS-funded eye examinations to all UK residents under General Ophthalmic Services arrangements.

Social Security Scotland conducts an eligibility check with the submission of part 1 of the application, which checks if the child is already in receipt of a Disability Living Allowance for children award. At present, this information is not stored in a way that can be quantified.

There is not a single offence of modern slavery in Scotland. Several offences fall within the ambit of modern slavery. These offences are listed below.

On 31 May 2016, the Human Trafficking & Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 came into effect.

The 2015 Act introduced new offences and aggravations, which apply to conduct occurring on or after 31 May 2016.

Offences that were in effect prior to the implementation of the 2015 Act continue to apply to conduct occurring before 17 December 2016.

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service are able to provide statistical data from 2002/03 onwards. Table 1 details the number of accused persons reported to the Procurator Fiscal, for one or more of the offences listed below, in each financial year since 2002-03.

Table 1

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) annually publish the Higher Education Initial Participation Rate (HEIPR) which is an estimate of the probability that a 16 year old will participate in Higher Education by the age of 30.

In 2019-20, the HEIPR for 16-30 years olds in Scotland was 57.4%.

https://www.sfc.ac.uk/publications-statistics/statistical-publications/2021/SFCST032021.aspx

The closest comparison for England is the Higher Education Initial Participation (HEIP) measure published by the Department for Education (DfE) measuring participation rates for those aged 17-30. This publication shows in 2019-20 the HEIP in England was 53.4%.

Unlike the Scottish data, this measure contains higher education delivered at Alternative Providers in England. If these institutions are excluded, then the rate for England is 52.4%.

England does not include 16 year olds in their HEIP measure as very few 16 year olds in England participate in higher education.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/participation-measures-in-higher-education-2006-to-2020

No HEIPR is published for Wales for those aged 16-30.

2022-23 Pupil Equity Funding Allocations, at both Local Authority and School level, were published on 29 March 2022 and are available to access here:- Pupil attainment: closing the gap - Schools - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The publication of Pupil Equity Funding Allocations totalling over half a billion pounds (£520 million) over a record 4 years, underlines our ambition to continue to empower our headteachers and teachers, who know their children and young people best. We have also provided an uplift of PEF per pupil to £1,225.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (Framework) Order 2022 will be laid in Parliament on 31 March 2022. This Order will bring the Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland 2022, which was published on the Scottish Government’s website today, into effect from 26 May 2022.

Following a public consultation, the Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland 2022 sets out the strategic priorities and objectives for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) going forward. The Framework is structured around protecting communities in terms of prevention and response; innovation and modernisation; the impact of climate change; partnership working and the governance and performance arrangements for the Service.

It is now for the SFRS to set out in its next Strategic Plan how it will deliver the priorities identified in the Framework.

Table 1: Percentage of repeat alcohol-related hospital admissions by NHS board and financial year.

Table 1: Number and percentage of heart-related repeat hospital admissions: Years ending 31 March 2017-2021

The Scottish Fiscal Commission published updated forecasts alongside the 2022-23 Scottish Budget on 9 December 2021.

In line with their forecasts, the Scottish Government is committing £3,949 million to social security assistance in 2022-23, and is investing an additional £2.7 million to uprate eight Scottish benefits by 6% from 1 April, subject to parliamentary approval.

The UK Government Spring Statement was made on 23 March and provided an updated set of Social Security Block Grant Adjustments for 2022-23 which total £3,601 million.

Therefore, the Scottish Government is making an additional investment of over £346 million in the social security benefits in 2022-23.

Social security spending is demand-led which means it is variable and harder to control than other areas of spending. We will manage any variance between actual and forecast expenditure or Block Grant Adjustment, in a competent, responsible and balanced way.

Part 1 of the Child Disability Payment application form gathers key personal details of the client and Part 2 of the application form asks for more details on the impact of the client’s disability. For applications that do not progress to complete Part 2, an application outcome is recorded, which can include denied or withdrawn. Where applicable, a high level reason for an application being denied is also recorded.