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Social Security Scotland does not hold information on how many veterans are in receipt of the benefits it delivers. This information is not captured as part of the application process and therefore not reported as part of the information Social Security Scotland routinely publishes on benefits.

As of August, all councils are offering 1140 hours of funded ELC to all eligible children, making high quality early learning and childcare available to families and saving parents up to £4,900 per year for each eligible child. Up to 130,000 children are expected to benefit this year as new children are enrolled.

This is a fantastic achievement that has been achieved in the face of the pandemic by Scottish Government, Local Government and our local delivery partners.

Data returned by local authorities in September 2021 indicates that 90,890 children were accessing funded ELC as of the end of August 2021. Of these, 88,122 children (97%) were accessing more than 600 hours, and 79,262 children (87%) were accessing 1140 hours funded ELC. Providers in the private and voluntary sectors and childminders provide 32% of all funded provision.

Scotland is the only part of the UK to offer the equivalent of 1140 hours to all eligible children regardless of their parents’ working status, putting children first. That includes all 3 and 4 year olds and around a quarter of 2 year olds.

The Scottish Government has been working with local authorities to promote the expanded entitlement, with the aim of helping parents to make informed choices about what works best for them and their children, and that provision reflects local needs.

Our Transition and Recovery Plan recognised that there can be challenges relating to rural isolation, which may be increasingly felt by those in remote communities as a result of the pandemic. We have committed to working in partnership with the National Rural Mental Health Forum to develop an approach to ensure that these communities have equal and timely access to mental health support and services, including consideration of whether dedicated pathways are needed. We’re keen to support efforts by NHS Boards to promote the use of digital services, in particular to maximise the benefits for rural communities; whilst recognising that this isn’t the solution for everyone.

Our Transition and Recovery Plan is supported by a £120m Recovery and Renewal fund. This year, a total of £9m has been allocated from this fund to address Psychological Therapies waiting times. Phase one funding of £5 million was allocated to Health Boards to address long waits within psychological therapies. Phase two funding of £4 million was recently approved to allow Boards to recruit more staff now, see the longest waits, meet the anticipated winter surge of those being referred for psychological interventions, and support the creation of a more effective digital infrastructure so those in remote and rural communities can be seen whenever and wherever they require care. Phase two funding included a minimum allocation for Island Boards to ensure that they can use the money in the transformational way it is intended.

We are committed to addressing the underlying causes of health inequalities; ending poverty, increasing fair access to employment, education and training, and improving our physical and social environments.

Community Link Workers continue to be at the forefront of our efforts to tackle poverty-related health inequalities. We are building on the funding we provide to community-led organisations and supporting the success of Community Link Workers by creating a network of 1,000 additional staff. We are embedding welfare rights and money advice services across 150 primary care settings throughout Scotland.

We provide £9 million to fund smoking-cessation services, which especially benefits people from deprived communities, and we are making Active Schools programmes free for young people. Our Alcohol Framework contains 20 actions to prevent and reduce alcohol-related harms and reduce the inequality gap. We fund the Healthy Living Programme in over 2,300 convenience stores, mainly in more deprived areas, which increases fruit and vegetable sales.

Progress in these areas, alongside our public health priorities, will help tackle the unfair and unjust health inequalities that exist across Scotland.

Information on the numbers of women over the screening age who have self-referred into the breast screening programme can be found in the tables below.

Please note that in 2003, the age range for routine invitation to the breast screening programme was amended. Women aged 50 to 64 years old were invited for routine breast screening up to 2003, and from 2003, women aged 50 to 70 years old were routinely invited.

It is important to note that the data below is management information and has not been subject to the necessary quality checks carried out for an official publication. The breast screening year runs from 1st April to 31st March.

Table 1: Breast screening attendance by women aged 65 and over self-referring to the screening programme in Scotland, 1st April 1999 to 31st March 2003.

The information requested is not available. As with any other setting, it is not possible to infer whether a specific setting or an event indicates where the Covid19 transmission took place. This is because cases may have attended multiple settings or events within a short space of time.

Local NHS Boards are responsible for putting the appropriate public health measures in place at vaccination centres to help minimise the transmission of Covid19 including physical distancing and the use of face coverings.

Universal Credit, alongside other reserved benefits including Employment and Support Allowance, are fully reserved to the UK Government and as such the Scottish Government does not hold the data relevant to this question.

The Department for Work and Pensions provides the data confirming the number of people in receipt of both of these benefits, however it does not record information relating to an individual’s past employment or if they are a veteran.

As set out in the Heat in Buildings Strategy, published in October 2021, the Scottish Government considers “low and zero emissions heating systems” to be systems that have zero direct greenhouse gas emissions. This includes individual electric heat pumps and connection to heat networks, or electric systems such as storage heaters, and systems that have very low emissions, such as those that use hydrogen.

In line with the recommendation of the Committee on Climate Change, we agree that bioenergy - such as biomass, bio-heating oil and bio-propane - should only be used in those applications where its carbon reduction impact is maximised, where alternative options are not available, and where it comes from sustainable sources.

We recognise that, for a small number of homes, bioenergy might offer the only feasible way to reduce emissions from heating to displacing fossil fuels in off-gas-grid areas, especially where electric heating or heat pumps are unsuitable.

We will therefore consider how such homes may be dealt with under any future regulatory system, including through the potential use of limited exemptions, as part of the consultation on our approach to regulating heat in buildings during 2022.

It is a matter for the Chief Constable of Police Scotland to agree and deliver any overseas training programme, with oversight by the Scottish Police Authority.

The Chief Constable of Police Scotland announced, at the Scottish Police Authority Board meeting on 24 November 2021, that Police Scotland has made the decision not to undertake any further work in Sri Lanka before their current contract expires in March 2022. Police Scotland has also advised the UK Government that they will not seek to renew their contract in support of the Sri Lanka Police Service.

The vast majority of the school estate is the responsibility of, and managed by, local authorities. The Scottish Government’s Learning Estate Strategy and its guiding principles provide a platform for investment in the learning estate across Scotland and set out our strategic approach for managing the learning estate. One of these guiding principles is that learning environments should serve the wider community and where appropriate be integrated with the delivery of other public services.

The Programme for Government aims to address the inequalities in our society, and create a fair, equal society for all. The commitment to doubling investment in sport and active living is aligned to this wider aim and will be used to ensure we support participation across all groups and address inequalities in access to physical activity and sport.

As part of its ongoing commitment to develop the sporting system, sport scotland continues to work with local authorities to encourage and support them in widening access to school sport facilities. This has involved working in partnership with local authorities to support various aspects of their planning, including facilitating the development of local sport and sport facilities strategies, and supporting operational planning at individual school level, including developing Community Sport Hubs within schools.

Community Sport Hubs are delivered in partnership with the local authority, ensuring that there is full commitment to delivering community access to the school estate from the outset. Community Sport Hubs provide a home for sport. They bring together sport clubs and community organisations who want to develop and grow the sporting offering in the community. They focus on sustainable, community-led approaches that get clubs working together to develop a welcoming, safe, and fun environments for sport.