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The Tobacco and Vapes Bill has now entered into committee stage in the House of Lords. Following the conclusion of the Bill’s passage through Westminster, we expect to consult on the extension of restrictions on smoke-free places.

We expect NHS Boards to follow the National Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) specification, which includes a clear expectation that children and young people whose referral is not accepted for CAMHS are sensitively and appropriately signposted to a more suitable service.

Some of these services are likely to be community based and we continue to invest £15 million per annum in funding to these supports, which will continue through the local government finance settlement from 2025-26. Local authorities report that nearly 83,000 children, young people and their family members accessed community-based mental health support between July 2023 and March 2024. Alongside this, we are ensuring access to counselling services in all secondary schools, and continue to support local authorities with £16million a year.

Appropriate redirection and alternative support will vary across NHS Boards depending on the services available locally, and the needs of the child or young person involved. While we have made significant progress in improving mental health and wellbeing services for children and young people since 2018, we continue to work closely with Boards to understand the reasons for non-accepted referrals and to ensure that the criteria in the CAMHS specification are being met.

Additionally, Public Health Scotland has started publishing data from the CAMHS and Psychological Therapies National Dataset (CAPTND), including referrals to CAMHS by sex, age and SIMD as well as reasons for referral not being accepted. Health Boards are also working with PHS and Directors of eHealth to enable the collection and publication of additional information this year.

CAPTND is still under development, and any inferences or conclusions drawn from this data should be treated with caution. Work is ongoing between NHS Boards, Public Health Scotland, and the Scottish Government to improve the consistency and completeness of the information.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally as this is the responsibility of NHS Boards. However, the Scottish Governments expects NHS Boards to follow the National Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) specification, which includes a clear expectation that children and young people whose referral is not accepted for CAMHS are sensitively and appropriately signposted to a more suitable service, such as our community-based supports.

We have provided local authorities with over £65 million since 2020 to fund community-based mental health and wellbeing supports and services for children, young people and their families. This £15 million per year funding will continue through the local government finance settlement from 2025-26. Examples include mentoring services, art-based therapies, digital services, whole-family supports, counselling services and supports involving sport or physical activity.

Individual local authorities decide which supports and services to put in place in their area based on the needs of their communities.

Standard 1.2 of the National Neurodevelopmental Specification relates to the offer of a first appointment. As set out in the Specification, Neurodevelopmental Services that are delivered locally are the responsibility of Children Services providers. A first appointment could be provided by a number of professionals within a range of agencies, including education, health and voluntary organisations.

The Scottish Government does not collect data on length of waits for neurodevelopmental services centrally. Our focus is on improving support. Our Neurodevelopmental Specification places an expectation on NHS and Children's Services to work together to implement standards, in line with GIRFEC. Crucially, local authorities have a statutory duty to identify and provide support for pupils with additional support needs, regardless of diagnosis.

The Scottish Government is committed to meaningful parental involvement in the national attendance campaign announced in our Programme for Government 2025-26.

As part of the development of the campaign, qualitative research was undertaken in 2024 with parents, pupils and stakeholders to build a clear picture of lived experience and needs. Insight from this research will be used to inform the development of the campaign, including the core creative idea, messages and channel selection. A second stage of qualitative research with parents and carers of pupils with lower levels of attendance will then be used to test different creative approaches for effectiveness. We will also engage with stakeholders, parent councils and other representative groups as part of this process to gather diverse perspectives.

I can confirm we will provide an update on the roll-out of the Health and Social Care app in Summer 2025 as set out in our Operational Improvement Plan, as well as in the answer to question S6W-35982 on 28 March 2025.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

There will always be referrals to CAMHS that are not accepted as CAMHS only provide the right support for a small proportion of children and young people. Children who require neurodevelopmental support are not reported in these statistics unless they have co-morbid mental health issues, but may be included within total referral figures, leading to lower accepted referral rates in some Boards.

Public Health Scotland has started publishing data from the CAMHS and Psychological Therapies National Dataset (CAPTND), including referrals to CAMHS by sex, age and SIMD as well as reasons for referral not being accepted.

However, CAPTND is still under development, and any inferences or conclusions drawn from this data should be treated with caution. Work is ongoing between NHS Boards, Public Health Scotland, and the Scottish Government to improve the consistency and completeness of the information.

Due to the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the privacy policy agreed by applicants to the LEZ Support Fund, we are unable to disclose personal details of the funds recipients.

However, I can advise that in the Aberdeen area 197 households received grants with a total value of £464,688, 65 microbusinesses in the area received a further £140,000 for the disposal of a non-compliant vehicle and 2 microbusinesses received grants totalling £14,066 to retrofit vehicles to meet LEZ standards.

In the Dundee area 247 households received grants with a total value of £562,471 and 49 microbusinesses in the area received a total of £107,500 for the disposal of a non-compliant vehicle. No retrofit grants have been issued in the Dundee area.

In the Edinburgh area 794 households received grants with a total value of £1,879,604, 412 microbusinesses in the area received a total of £948,631 for the disposal of a non-compliant vehicle and 142 microbusinesses received grants totalling £1,118,852 to retrofit vehicles to meet LEZ standards.

In the Glasgow area 2048 households received grants with a total value of £4,777,931, 708 microbusinesses in the area received a further £1,597,350 for the disposal of a non-compliant vehicle and 411 microbusinesses received grants totalling £3,345,089 to retrofit vehicles to meet LEZ standards.

This information is not held centrally. Under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, education is the responsibility of local authorities.

The Scottish Government does hold information on entries to courses and qualifications. This is not necessarily the same as the number of schools offering these courses as a school may offer a course, but no learners choose to take it.

The following table shows the number of (a) publicly funded and (b) grant-funded schools with entries to Economics courses at (i) National 4, (ii) National 5, (iii) Higher and (iv) Advanced Higher level in 2024.

The Scottish Government and NatureScot support farmers and crofters through the Sea Eagle Management Scheme (SEMS).

As set out in March 2025, we have increased the funding for SEMS from £436,000 to £970,000 this year. We are committed to continuing to support farmers and crofters, especially those who feel the negative impacts most acutely, through SEMS.

Alongside this we are working on the development of future rural support to explore how it could assist in delivering support to farmers and crofters, where protected species such as white-tailed eagles have an impact on agricultural interests, and to support enhanced biodiversity in years to come.

We have not been made aware of any concerns regarding the impact that sea eagles are having on small birds.

More details on the Sea Eagle Management Scheme are available on the NatureScot website at https://www.nature.scot/professional-advice/land-and-sea-management/managing-wildlife/sea-eagle-management-scheme