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sportscotland’s Institute of Sport delivers tailored support services for athletes. Their Female Athlete Performance Working Group have developed a range of resources specifically for female athletes, designed to support anyone working with girls and women in sport. The Group have also launched a learning platform which provides access to e-learning resources such as the menstrual cycle in sport.

These resources are available for free to all, with the ambition that all within the sporting system are comfortable having conversations about female athlete health and understand the impacts on training and performance.

Menstrual health and wellbeing education is a key part of relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education. RSHP education is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the Scottish curriculum, Curriculum for Excellence.

The RSHP teaching resource, refreshed in 2023, equips young people with information on a wide range of issues, including menstrual health and wellbeing, depending on their age and stage of learning, enabling children and young people to build positive relationships as they grow older.

Through programmes such as sportscotland’s Fit For Girls and Young People’s Sport Panel, tutors are holding workshops with girls where menstrual education and impact on physical education is a key topic of discussion.

Supported businesses have produced approximately 33% of uniforms supplied to NHS Scotland over the last three years.

Below is a list of the community radio stations that the Scottish Government has run public information advertisements on over the last five years, alongside the total annual spend for each year. Spend per individual community station is classed as commercially sensitive and as such we are unable to provide this level of detail.

April 2020 - March 2021 - Total spend: £214,731

• Argyll Radio
• Awaz FM
• Caithness FM
• Cuillin FM/Skye
• Heartland FM
• Isles FM
• K107FM
• Lochbroom/ Two Lochs
• Nevis Radio
• Oban FM
• Panjab Radio
• Pulse 98.4
• Radio Ramadan
• Shetland Islands Broadcasting Company
• Waves Radio 101.2FM

April 2021 - March 2022 – Total spend: £405,912

• Alive FM
• Argyll Radio
• Awaz FM
• Caithness FM
• Cuillin FM/Skye
• Heartland FM
• Isles FM
• K107FM
• Lochbroom/ Two Lochs
• Mearns FM
• Nevis Radio
• Oban FM
• Panjab Radio
• Pulse 98.4
• Radio Ramadan
• Shetland Islands Broadcasting Company
• Waves Radio 101.2FM

April 2022- March 2023 – Total spend: £74,008

• Argyll Radio
• Awaz FM
• Caithness FM
• Cuillin FM/Skye
• Heartland FM
• Isles FM
• Jambo Radio
• Lochbroom/ Two Lochs
• Nevis Radio
• Oban FM
• Panjab Radio
• Shetland Islands Broadcasting Company
• Waves Radio 101.2FM

April 2023 - March 2024 – Total spend: £69,029

• Argyll Radio
• Awaz FM
• Caithness FM
• Cuillin FM/Skye
• Heartland FM
• Isles FM
• Jambo Radio
• K107FM
• Lochbroom/ Two Lochs
• Nevis Radio
• Oban FM
• Panjab Radio
• Shetland Islands Broadcasting Company

April 2024 – October 2024 spend to date Total spend: £14,438

• Argyll Radio
• Awaz FM
• Caithness FM
• Cuillin FM/Skye
• Heartland FM
• Isles FM
• Jambo Radio
• Lochbroom/ Two Lochs
• Nevis Radio
• Oban FM
• Panjab Radio
• Shetland Islands Broadcasting Company

It is the responsibility of individual public bodies to ensure they have procedures in place for the recording of violent incidents and policies for staff welfare. The Scottish Government would strongly encourage staff to report all instances of violent and aggressive behaviour through their local reporting systems. If it is a serious incident, we expect employers to fully support staff in escalating issues to Police Scotland as quickly as possible.

It is important for public bodies to capture data on protected characteristics when staff report instances of violence. This kind of data will help inform targeted interventions on a national and local level.

Information on university student qualifiers is collected and published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

It should be noted that prior to 2018-19 academic year, data was collected using a different subject classification. As such, figures prior to 2018-19 are not directly comparable.

The number of qualifiers (covering all levels of study) and the number of full-time first degree qualifiers (all domiciles) from either Computing or Computer Science courses at Scottish universities, over the last 10 Academic Years, can be found in the following tables. These are taken from published data.

Student qualifiers on ‘Computer Science’ courses at Scottish Universities

Subject classification based on JACS code = computer science

The most recent workforce publication shows that in June 2014 the workforce comprised of 5,101 FTE directly employed staff, and 1,249 contingent workers.

For June 2024 showed the core Scottish Government workforce comprised of 8,911 FTE directly employed staff and 1,214 contingent workers.

This represents an increase of 75% in the directly employed workforce and a reduction of -3% in the contingent workforce.

The growth in the directly employed workforce in the last ten years has supported the devolution of new powers to the Scottish Government, for example Social Security and Exchequer functions. The growth in the core Scottish Government has also supported the response to exiting the European Union and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since March 2022 the Scottish Government has increased its permanent workforce while prioritising the reduction of the more expensive contingent workforce such as contractors and consultants. The number of contingent workers is now 40% lower than in March 2022.

The number of core Scottish Government staff is available at Scottish Government workforce information - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The Graduate Apprenticeship Enhancement Group was established in spring 2024 to make recommendations on the development of future policy and a delivery model for GAs in line with Scotland’s economic growth opportunities, skills need, and the wider reform of the post-16 education landscape. The Group's membership includes the Scottish Funding Council, Skills Development Scotland, Colleges Scotland, Universities Scotland, and representation from businesses.

The Group’s work is evidence and data informed and is taken forward through workstreams. It will include engagement with employers and their industry representatives, public sector partners and apprentices. The Group anticipates completing its work over the winter.

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

HMP Glasgow will have a design capacity of 1,344 prisoner places which includes 120 cells designed to accommodate two people.

Table 1 presents the estimated gross cost of setting the Higher Property Rate equal to the Standard Multiplier in England, updated to include 2024-2025.

In England, in 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, the Standard Multiplier was 51.2p, or 1.3p above the Small Business Multiplier of 49.9p.

In 2024-2025, the Standard Multiplier is 54.6p, or 4.7p above the Small Business Multiplier of 49.9p.

In Scotland, the Higher Property Rate in 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 was 2.6p above the poundage, which was 49p in 2021-2022 (having been temporarily reduced from 49.8p in 2020-2021 in response to the ongoing impact of COVID-19), and 49.8p in 2022-2023, 2023-2024.

The costs therefore represent the impact of setting the Higher Property Rate at 51.2p instead of 51.6p in 2021-2022, and 51.2p instead of 52.4p in 2022-2023 and 2023-2024.

The Higher Property Rate in 2024-2025 is 6.1p above the poundage, which remains at 49.8p from 2023-2024. The costs therefore represent the impact of setting the Higher Property Rate at 54.6p instead of 55.9p.

The figures for 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 are presented after General Revaluation Transitional Relief is applied.

The figures are gross estimates and are not adjusted for any other relief. Figures are broken down by property class, a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, which may not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a given property.

This table is based on the valuation roll as at 1 October 2021, 1 October 2022, 1 October 2023 and 1 October 2024.

Figures from 30 March 2023 and 1 April 2023 were used to calculate General Revaluation Transitional Relief.

Figures in this table are rounded to the nearest £1,000, and may not sum due to rounding.

Table 1: Estimated gross cost of reducing the Higher Property Rate to the level of the English Standard Multiplier (£), broken down by property class.

Across government, particularly in the Digital Directorate, a number of teams meet regularly with OfCom and mobile phone providers to discuss a wide range of issues. As social tariffs remain a reserved matter for the UK Government, the majority of these discussions do not focus on social tariffs however the exceptions to this are listed below: