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The Scottish Government recognises that long waits are unacceptable, and remains committed to meeting the standard that 90% of patients begin treatment within 18 weeks of referral.

We have asked all Boards, including NHS Grampian, to set out their plans and trajectories for meeting the waiting times standards and clearing backlogs by the end of March 2023. To support this, we have already allocated £5m from the Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund, for the first year of clearing waiting list backlogs in Psychological Therapies. NHS Grampian has received £490,666 from this fund.

Nationally, we are starting to see this investment reflected in improved Psychological Therapies waiting times performance, and a decrease in the number of people waiting longest. We will continue to work closely with individual Health Boards to monitor and drive performance in mental health waiting times across Scotland.

The Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 sets out six outcomes to which a future National Planning Framework (NPF) should work towards, including securing positive effects for biodiversity, and we are developing new proposals which deliver positive outcomes for biodiversity from development without the need for overly complex metrics.

We will lay a draft NPF4 in the Scottish Parliament this autumn and will carry out extensive public consultation at the same time. We anticipate producing a final version of NPF4 for approval and adoption around spring 2022.

Our proposed licensing scheme will assist in ensuring that short-term lets are safe and used for lawful purposes. Police Scotland is represented on the Short Term Lets Stakeholder Working Group and has expressed concern about some short-term lets being used for criminal purposes. Residents and community groups have also raised concerns with the Scottish Government.

On 13 September, we announced £300,000 of support for the 16th conference of youth—COY16—the UN’s official youth event for COP26. For the first time, five young people from Scotland will join participants from around the world and will help to shape the conference’s statement. We also support the Young Scot-led Scottish youth climate programme, which enables Scottish children and young people to host a climate youth summit ahead of COP26 to design the legacy that they want from the conference and to act as local champions across the country.

The recruitment and retention of teachers is a matter for local authorities.

However, I am determined that teachers have strong job opportunities. We have provided significant additional funds for the recruitment of additional teachers and I have committed to increasing teachers numbers by 3,500 during the course of this parliamentary term.

We have provided £240 million of additional investment to local authorities to support the recruitment of additional education staff to support education recovery. We have also allocated £145.5 million annually to the local government settlement which will support councils to employ additional staff on permanent contracts.

Currently, there has been no discussion with the UK and Danish Governments on the newly announced Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance. However, Scottish Ministers expect to meet with the Danish Government ahead of COP26 to discuss climate change and other areas of mutual interest.

In line with the Scottish Government’s evidence based approach to policy development, we have committed to undertaking a programme of work and analysis to better understand Scotland’s energy requirements as we transition to net zero and how this aligns with our climate change targets.

The information requested is not collected and held centrally

Transport Scotland is aware of the ongoing research and development into the potential uses of graphene in various sectors, including within road surfacing materials. Transport Scotland is also aware of the proposed trial in England and is engaged with National Highways’ road engineers to monitor how the material performs before considering a trial on the Scottish trunk road network.

It will be a matter for professional judgement for practitioners as to whether the behaviour carried out by the child has caused or is likely to cause “significant harm or abuse” requiring the intervention of a Bairns’ Hoose. It is recognised that children exhibiting or carrying out harmful behaviour are often themselves victims of significant harm and abuse. It is with this in mind that a Bairns’ Hoose is considered the most holistic form of intervention and support for the child to ascertain the circumstances of the harm, whilst at the same time offering therapeutic support to a child who may themselves have been harmed.

There is no legal definition of significant harm or distinction between harm and significant harm. The extent to which harm is significant will relate to the severity or anticipated severity of impact upon a child’s health and development. ‘Harm’ in this context refers to the ill treatment or the impairment of the health or development of the child, including, for example, impairment suffered as a result of seeing or hearing the ill treatment of another. ‘Development’ can mean physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development. ‘Health’ can mean physical or mental health.

Forming a view on the significance of harm and whether or not a child is suitable for a Bairns’ Hoose will be undertaken by an Inter-agency Referral Discussion (IRD). An IRD is a formal process of information sharing, assessment, analysis and decision making following a reported concern about abuse. Placing this decision making forum ahead of any child attending a Bairns’ Hoose is necessary to ensure multi agency professional judgement and decision making informs all decisions relating to investigating harm and subsequent interventions, including whether accessing a Bairns’ Hoose is in the best interests of the child.

In 2021 to 2022, over £215 million of targeted funding was allocated to the Attainment Scotland Fund, which will be invested to help close the poverty related attainment gap. This is at least 5.1% of total allocated funding for Education and Skills of £4,207.7m within 2021 to 2022.