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Our latest tackling child poverty progress report against our delivery plan ‘Best Start, Bright Futures’, highlighted £2.9 billion investment targeted at low income households. Actions include our unique Scottish Child Payment which we have increased to £26.70 per week and is now benefitting around 330,000 children, further investment through our No One Left Behind approach to strengthen our employability offer to parents and investment of Whole Family Wellbeing Funding which aims to deliver transformational change to improve holistic whole family support.

'Getting it right for every child' (GIRFEC) is the Scottish Government's commitment to provide all children, young people and their families with the right support at the right time. The GIRFEC approach recognises that children, young people and their families need to know who they can contact when they require support. The named person, or equivalent role, provides a clear point of contact within universal services for information, advice or help.

The Scottish Government is also investing £12 million this year in free income maximisation, welfare and debt advice services, helping to ensure people are aware of their rights and entitlements, tackle problem debt and reduce poverty.

We are also proud that we have the Scottish Welfare Fund providing emergency support and a lifeline to people in need, through Crisis Grants to help meet immediate short-term needs arising from exceptional circumstances and Community Care Grants to help eligible people establish or maintain a home. We have protected investment in the fund of £41 million this year. Statistics show that in 2023-24, 96% of Crisis Grant applications were processed within the target of the end of the next working day.

Scotland is also the first nation in the UK to publish a Plan that works towards ending the need for food banks. The plan includes a £1.8m Cash-First Programme to strengthen urgent access to cash in a crisis and reduce the need for food parcels, delivered collaboratively with advice and support to strengthen people’s incomes and help prevent future hardship.

The Scottish Government acknowledges the importance of transparent and comprehensive reporting on integration performance indicators as highlighted in the Accounts Commission’s report, Integration Joint Boards' Finance and performance 2024. The four national performance indicators that have not been finalised for reporting are:

• Indicator 10: Percentage of staff who say they would recommend their workplace as a good place to work.
• Indicator 21: Percentage of people admitted to hospital from home during the year, who are discharged to a care home.
• Indicator 22: Percentage of people who are discharged from hospital within 72 hours of being ready.
• Indicator 23: Expenditure on end of life care.

These indicators are not currently reported on because there is not yet a nationally agreed definition or the necessary national data is either unavailable or not sufficiently robust.

Robust data and digital infrastructure will be a key enabler of both our Data Strategy and the National Care Service. The Scottish Government continues to identify and invest in innovative digital and data solutions to support improvements in social care, and integrated care, such as the integrated social care and health record.

Work is ongoing to develop the integrated social care and health record, including extensive co-design as part of the wider NCS programme, with those who will use the record – such as individuals in receipt of care and frontline staff – at the centre of that design.

Maree Todd: The Scottish Government recognises the import role parents and carers play in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. Because of this, we continue to invest in a range of initiatives to give parents and carers the confidence and skills they may require to support their children while looking after their own wellbeing.

The Scottish Government’s Parent Club web resource, and associated marketing campaigns, provide parents and carers with tips, advice and links to further information on how to support their children’s mental health and wellbeing from birth to teenage years. The website also gives information on how parents and carers can support their own mental wellbeing and maintain resilience. https://www.parentclub.scot/topics/mental-health-wellbeing

Parents and cares in Scotland can also access, free, online courses, expertly designed for parents, carers and grandparents on supporting the emotional wellbeing of their children. These courses are provided by NHS Education for Scotland, in partnership with the Solihull Approach. https://inourplace.co.uk/scotland/

In addition, since 2020, we have provided local authorities with over £50 million to develop and deliver Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Supports and Services, for children, young people and their families, with a further £15 million committed for 2024/25. The services are focused on prevention and early intervention and, where appropriate, offer an alternative to CAMHS by providing support in a community setting.

Community supports and services are available in every local authority area, with more than 300 now in place across the country. Local authorities have advised that over 58,000 people used the supports and services in the first half of 2023. This includes parents and carers who have received advice and assistance on supporting their children’s mental health and wellbeing through; mentoring services, digital services, whole-family supports, counselling services and spaces for peer learning and advice.

As set out in the Scottish Government’s second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, Best Start, Bright Futures, we remain fully committed to ensuring that all relevant action across government is focused on meeting the needs of the six priority families identified – including lone parent families. This will ensure that support is tailored and ultimately more effective in meeting the needs of families at risk of poverty.

Despite facing the most challenging budget settlement of devolution, we are committing over £3 billion this year to policies which tackle poverty and protect people, including single parents, as far as possible during the ongoing costs crisis. This includes investment in our game-changing Scottish Child Payment, funded early learning and childcare, providing free bus travel for over two million people, and offering free school meals to over 277,000 children.

This investment also includes making £7.8 million available to Local Authorities to mitigate the previous UK Government’s benefit cap as fully as possible through Discretionary Housing Payments. This supports around 2,300 families, of which it is estimated 74% are lone parent families.

Further to this wide ranging support for families, we continue to take action which is specifically targeted to lone parents. Since 2016 the Scottish Government has been providing core funding to One Parent Families Scotland (OPFS) through the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund. OPFS will receive £371,700 for core funding in 2024-25, supporting their work with and for single parent families, providing support services that enable them to achieve their potential and help create lasting solutions to the poverty and barriers facing many single parents and their children.

We have also allocated £523,966 to One Parent Families Scotland in 2024-25 to support its specialist National Advice and Information Service and debt advice service, which aims to reduce child poverty, provide debt support to single parent households and increase their financial and family wellbeing.

In addition, we have continuously called upon the UK Government to abolish the two-child limit policy, which is estimated to impact almost 1 in 10 children in Scotland. Scottish Government analysis from February 2024 found that removing the two-child limit and reinstating the family element in Universal Credit would lift around 10,000 children in Scotland out of relative poverty in 2024-25.

The Scottish Government will continue to do all we can within our powers and will leave no stone unturned across government as we seek to eradicate child poverty. We remain committed to working with the UK Government to build on the action we have taken to date and to end child poverty once and for all.

The Scottish Government recognises the positive contribution older people make to their communities and recognises the value in bringing generations together. We aim to enable better access to a range of services for older people as and when they need them. We want to ensure people are financially secure and supported as they age.

Through our Equalities and Human Rights Fund, we are investing over £2.2 million in support of older people’s organisations and age equality projects that deliver positive outcomes for older people. Generations Working Together (GWT) were offered £615,250 over three years through the Equality and Human Rights Fund. GWT is the nationally recognised centre of excellence supporting the development and integration of intergenerational work across Scotland. This funding aimed to tackle ageism through intergenerational activity across Scotland and to increase understanding and learning around the field of intergenerational practice.

Generations Working Together are key stakeholders in our Older people’s Strategic Action Forum (OPSAF) and the Social Isolation and Loneliness Advisory Group (SIALAG).

In addition, our Social Isolation and Loneliness Fund of £3.8m which was launched in 2023 over 3 years, supports intergenerational projects. Over the past year 2929 older people and 400 young people have benefitted from the services provided by the funded projects.

Donor gametes (eggs and sperm) are required to treat NHS patients throughout Scotland who require them for their NHS IVF treatment. To ensure that donor gametes are available to patients for their treatment, the Scottish Government/NHS Scotland are currently reviewing data from previous campaigns and considering options in relation to running a future donor campaign.

As with the campaigns in 2021, 2022 and 2023, all prospective NHS gamete donors in Scotland are assessed by a qualified healthcare professional trained to screen out persons whose donations could present a health risk to themselves, to those receiving donated gametes and/or to any child born as a result of the donation. Donors are also advised of the medical process involved in donation and provided with free mandatory counselling to enable them to consider all the implications before going ahead, providing their consent, and donating.

The implications of the use of counterfeit and unlicensed beauty products is one of a number of issues under consideration as we consider further regulation of non-surgical cosmetic procedures.

Scottish Government officials met with Police Scotland and Environmental Health Officers on 12 January 2023 regarding concerns related to the suspected involvement of organised crime groups in the beauty/cosmetics sector.

The Scottish Government and its partners on the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce are committed to working together to disrupt any serious organised crime and the harm it causes to individuals and communities.

As at the end of July 2024, 98 applications to the reopened Independent Living Fund have been received. Of these, eight have completed all steps of the application process and are now in payment. The total annual value of these awards in payment is £162,446, and £7,443 has been paid out to new recipients so far.

The Scottish Government, in partnership with NHS Scotland, spent the following on national donor gamete campaigns:

(a) Launched in June 2021 the first donor gamete campaign cost £100,000

(b) Launched in October 2022 the second donor gamete campaign cost £35,999.24

(c) Launched in October 2023 the third donor gamete campaign cost £50,519.60

Scottish Government welcomes the comments of the British Dental Association Scotland that the new system represents an improvement on the previous Statement of Dental Renumeration.

Official statistics published by Public Health Scotland on 28 May 2024 show that in the quarter ending 31 March 2024, over 1 million patient contacts were delivered by NHS dentists and there were three quarters of a million free at the point of use enhanced examinations.

This is indicative that Scottish Government intervention is supporting patient access to care.Ongoing assessment of the sector will provide information to support any future interventions, in particular around equality.