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Following closure of the Lowit Unit at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital in 2014, a programme of CAMHS redesign started in 2015. This included all services for children and young people with mental health issues being redesigned to support children aged 0-18 years.

During this redesign, the majority of staff were co-located in a new purpose redesigned CAMHS building funded by the Scottish Government. The remainder of staff are now based in Moray as part of a Hub and Spoke model of care. This includes Unscheduled Care and Tier 4 staff to support children, young people and their families. All Tier 4 patients are cared for by a Multi-Disciplinary Team, using a Care Programme Approach. The CAMHS service in NHS Grampian is now also part of a North of Scotland regional Tier 4 network with Tayside and Highland and in-patient beds can be accessed within the Young People's Unit, if required.

It is for individual Health Boards to ensure that they provide mental health services in line with the needs of their local population.

NHS Grampian is currently meeting the CAMHS Waiting Times target of patients starting treatment within 18 weeks, with compliance at 90.8% in the last quarter. Waiting times performance since the whole service redesign in NHS Grampian was completed shows the positive impact this has had on access and care.

The Scottish Government’s assessment is that there is no requirement for a Legislative Consent Memorandum (LCM) in respect of the Nationality and Borders Bill as introduced to the UK Parliament. The Scottish Government is monitoring the Bill as it progresses through the UK Parliament and will consider whether any amendments to the Bill trigger the need for an LCM.

The current allocation of full-time employees per Scottish Government Minister is:

The Scottish Government will publish its response to the consultation on the draft Licensing Order and Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) for short-term lets ahead of laying the draft Licensing Order in November.

We committed in our 2018-19 Programme for Government to invest up to £5 million over a three year period to support 2,000 women who have had a career break to return to the workplace. This commitment and the scale of ambition built on the learning from our 2017 pilot Women Returners Programme.

An initial Programme commenced in late 2020 which offered immediate support to women during the pandemic. Within the three month period of delivery it attracted twelve projects offering support to over 450 women. This included projects such as HRC Recruitment which provided employability workshops combined with menopause support and mental health fitness coaching to women over 50 years old.

The programme for government published in September 2021 committed to continuing the programme. SDS are delivering the programme this year on behalf of Scottish Government backed with up to £2 million. Bids from prospective providers are currently being assessed. Women will be given support to enable them to apply for jobs or take part in activity such as further training that suits their own personal needs, timescales and circumstances for returning to work.

The Scottish Government is already working with key partners to address existing data and evidence deficits which will allow us to fully understand the complex picture that exists in health inequalities for people from ethnic minority groups. The Scottish Government welcomes this report and will provide an official response once we have carefully considered its recommendations.

The Scottish Government continues to be committed to improving the lives of autistic people in Scotland. We published our Learning/Intellectual Disabilities and Autism: Towards Transformation Plan in March 2021, which builds on existing autism and learning disabilities strategies. The plan looks at the actions needed to shape supports, services and attitudes to ensure that the human rights of autistic people and people with learning/intellectual disabilities are respected and protected and that they are empowered to live their lives, the same as everyone else.

We do not directly fund assistance dogs for autistic people. You may find it useful to know that the Scottish Government was approached and does fund a project run by Alzheimer’s Scotland that pioneers the use of assistance dogs for people with dementia.

Whilst the Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care policy in Scotland, it is for the regional health & social care partnerships to determine the level of services that are required to meet local needs and to arrange an appropriate and suitable range of services to meet these local needs, as mandated under statute in the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act. Local Authorities may be able to say whether they consider assistance dogs as part of their package of support options.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Whilst this is primarily an operational matter for the SPS, the SPS and Scottish Government have been in communication regarding the reported tampering of mobile phones used by individuals in custody and security measures in place. A solution was identified with the provider in relation to the concern of illicit SIM cards being used in prison issued mobile phones and it is currently being implemented across the prison estate. This solution enables the SPS to blacklist handsets on various network providers rendering the handsets unusable with a non-prison issued SIM. The security measures in place will continue to be monitored by the SPS.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The following table provides the number of SPS issued mobile phone handsets that have been confiscated at HMP & YOI Grampian, each month, since implementation in July 2020:

The Scottish Government's policy in relation to locally determined Council Tax increases will be set out as part of future Scottish Budget outcomes.