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An initial assessment of the Citizens’ Jury report demonstrates clear alignment with the Scottish Government’s cancer strategy and action plan published in June 2023. The four key priorities identified by the Specialist Cancer Charities Group regarding Diagnosis; Equal access to care; Mental health support; and Improving communication are directly referenced within the ambitions of our strategy.

A meeting is being arranged with the Specialist Cancer Charities Group to discuss their ambitions further.

This information is not held by Scottish Government as Universal Credit is a reserved benefit administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Please redirect your request to the DWP.

This information is not held by Scottish Government as a number of benefits are reserved to the UK Government. Employment status is not part of the eligibility criteria for any Scottish Government benefits and as such we do not hold information about the number of benefit recipients who are unemployed.

The Scottish Government and the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) meet regularly with all Health Boards, including NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, to discuss the performance and delivery of all planned care specialities including urology.

We have developed our winter plan with input from the whole Health and Social Care system which brings together best practice and improvement work which we know works from lessons learned in previous winters, to ensure that the most appropriate care is received in the right place and at the right time.

SEPA, as Scotland’s hydrometric and flood warning authority, and a civil contingency category one responder, provides a range of real time data including Floodline flood alerts and warnings; rainfall data at over 250 locations and water level data at over 400 locations in Scotland. Through an on-going technology improvement programme, SEPA has increased the timeliness of rainfall and water level real time data.

SEPA continues to develop its data and explore how its use may be expanded including sharing data through Application Programming Interfaces for organisations to ingest into their own websites or systems; prioritising data by internet searches during major flood incidents; and exploring how to better integrate flood warning and water levels information and to simplify real time access to the information.

COSLA and the Scottish Government published our Health and Social Care Data Strategy in February 2023. The strategy which outlines our approach to improving the interoperability of our health and social care data through the adoption and use of common standards.

The Scottish Public Finance Manual (SPFM) is issued by the Scottish Ministers to provide guidance on the proper handling and reporting of public funds.

Under the terms of SPFM, the Scottish Government and SEPA operate a joint Framework agreement. Sections 25-26 and Sections 32-34 of that agreement details SEPA’s duties to develop Corporate and annual business plans, which include reporting on key performance targets.

This is readily accessible on the SEPA website here: SEPA Framework | Beta | SEPA | Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

Any level of violence is a concern but it is not correct to say that serious violent crime has almost doubled in a decade. The number of serious assaults and attempted murders recorded by the police has increased by 9% since 2014-15. However, levels have fallen over the past six years, down 21% from 4,361 in 2018-19 to 3,457 by 2023-24. This is replicated in other sources, with the number of hospital admissions related to assault down by a third between 2014-15 and 2023/24. Despite this encouraging progress we are determined to do more.

That is why, through the Violence Prevention Framework; Supporting documents - Violence prevention framework - gov.scot we have provided over £4 million investment over the last two years, to fund a range of targeted prevention and intervention activity across communities. Key actions so far include:

• Extending the support of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, to reach more individuals and communities across Scotland, including North and South Lanarkshire, Fife, Highlands, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
• Extending the Medics Against Violence Hospital Navigator Programme in two Children’s Hospitals in Aberdeen and Glasgow.
• Supporting Medics Against Violence engagement with young people to highlight the consequences of knife carrying and knife injuries in primary schools, youth clubs and secondary schools.
• Supporting the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit to develop a community of practice for over 100 police School Liaison Officers across Scotland.
• Trained over 800 teachers in schools to provide young people with key messages on violence, reaching 19 local authorities across Scotland.
• Supporting YouthLink Scotland to deliver various online and face to face No Knives, Better Lives training sessions to hundreds of practitioners working with young people, in addition to working directly with young people across Scotland.
• Supporting Education Scotland to deliver the Mentors in Violence Prevention programme, in schools across all 32 local authorities.

It is not currently a legal requirement under the Aquatic Animal Health Regulations (Scotland) 2009 as amended for farmed fish transporters to report farmed fish escapes, however we are considering the issue of reporting and transparency further.

A joint COSLA/Scottish Government Flood Risk Management Funding Working Group, including representatives from Scottish Government, COSLA, SEPA, local authority Directors of Finance and flood officers has been established to discuss reform of funding and governance for flood resilience actions in Scotland and make recommendations on these issues to COSLA and Scottish Ministers.