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Following careful consideration of the single tender received in 2022, the price of which was significantly higher than expected, Ministers concluded that award of the contract at that time would not represent best value for the taxpayer. Further background on this decision is set out in my response to S6W-28531 on 7 August 2024.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

Scottish Government funding of over £2.5m has been committed to support the mental health and wellbeing of health and care staff in 2024-25. These resources include a 24/7 compassionate listening service, confidential mental health treatment through the Workforce Specialist Service and access to psychological therapies and interventions.

Prioritising these treatment and therapeutic programmes reflects our commitment to offer care and support to those staff suffering from stress, anxiety and other conditions. In addition, the National Wellbeing Hub offers a range of self-care wellbeing resources and signposting to relevant mental health and support services.

Information on how many (a) paediatric and (b) neonatal nurses have been employed by each NHS board, in each of the last five years, can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at:

NHS Scotland workforce (phase one) | Turas Data Intelligence (Employment over time tab)

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that we are able to manage more of our own waste within Scotland both for environmental and economic aims. As part of this, Scottish Government officials and Defra continue to engage regularly on matters regarding international waste exports, a reserved policy area. We are currently seeking confirmation from the new UK Government on its priorities for waste exports policy and continue to encourage Defra to build on work already undertaken to ban the export of plastic waste to non-OECD-countries, and will work closely with them on the development of this.

Through our Circular Economy and Waste Route Map consultation, we are actively progressing actions that we can take under devolved powers to boost Scotland's ability domestically to manage its waste and provide greater incentives for domestic reprocessing. This includes new co-designed recycling standards and consulting on a statutory duty on local authorities and others to report on the final destinations of collected material to increase transparency and strengthen public confidence in recycling services. We have also committed to publish a report on Scotland’s existing and planned domestic reprocessing infrastructure. This builds upon existing measures like extended producer responsibility schemes, and the £63 million-worth of investments made via the Recycling Improvement Fund to improve the quality and quantity of recycling collected.

All Scottish Ministers routinely use electronic boxes (‘e-boxes’) for ministerial business. Cabinet Folders are issued to Cabinet Secretaries on appointment.

Offshore oil and gas licensing is reserved to the UK Government.

The Scottish Government would be a willing partner in collaborative efforts, at UK and international levels, to further develop the detail of how robust and transparent Climate Compatibility Checkpoints could help support licensing decisions, despite the Scottish Government having no formal decision making powers in this area.

As part of this approach, our finalised Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan will set out the Scottish Government’s views on key elements which could form the basis of an enhanced Climate Compatibility Checkpoint that could be used by the UK Government, and form the basis of international discussions on this issue.

The requested information on how many graduate nurses have been employed by NHS Scotland in 2024, broken down by (a) NHS board and (b) speciality is not centrally held.

Information on the number of nursing staff joining the NHS broken down by band, NHS board and specialty can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce (phase one) | Turas Data Intelligence (turnover tab)

Funding allocated to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) is for both alcohol and drug treatment services. In 2024-25, £112.9 million is being made available to ADPs. This funding is used to ensure that local services meet the needs of people who experience alcohol and drugs harms.

On 7 September 2023, the previous Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy supported a Member’s Debate Motion calling for investment in alcohol services, outlining the Government’s plan to reduce harm from alcohol misuse.

We have asked Public Health Scotland to investigate the apparent decline in alcohol treatment numbers. This is underway and is expected to be completed in 2024. In 2023-2024, the number of statutory-funded residential rehabilitation placements increased to 938, the majority of which included alcohol use or co-dependency.

We are working with partners and stakeholders to develop a national specification for alcohol and drug treatment in Scotland. The national specification will build on the forthcoming UK Alcohol Treatment Guidelines which will support the improvement of alcohol treatment in Scotland, mirroring the use of the Orange Book Guidelines for drug treatment.

Special Advisers are appointed in accordance with Part 1 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 by the First Minister as a Special Adviser for the purpose of providing assistance to the Scottish Ministers. There are currently 12 Special Advisers.

The Scottish Government has published a list of the Special Advisers and their specific portfolio responsibilities at: Special advisers - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The investigation of reports relating to dangerous beauty products, such as counterfeit prescription only medicines (POMs) e.g. unlicensed botulinum toxins, is reserved to the UK Government.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for compliance with the regulatory requirements which govern the manufacture, distribution, retail sale/supply and advertisement of medicinal products, and the Scottish Government continues to work with and raise concerns to MHRA on these issues.

Other forms of potentially dangerous beauty products, that are not classified as medicinal products (e.g. non UKCA or CE marked dermal fillers), are not subject to the same laws. These should be reported to Local Authority Trading Standards (LATS), as they are responsible for investigating allegations of all forms of dangerous products.