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This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Practitioner Services is the body that pays independent contractor dentists on behalf of the Health Boards.

As set out in our current guidance “Included, Engaged and Involved Part 1: Promoting and Managing School Attendance,” Local Authorities are expected to have robust processes and guidance for children who do not attend school, from the first day they are absent until they are re-engaged with education. I have expressed concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on attendance and in order to inform our policy response, I have asked Education Scotland to undertake work to better understand the current barriers and challenges experienced by schools, children and young people and their families which influence school attendance. I expect to receive the findings of Education Scotland’s work later this year. This work will provide examples of effective strategies that are supporting improved attendance, and clarity on what further support or intervention is required in areas where attendance is not improving.

The findings from our forthcoming Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research, which will be published in November, will also provide important information on the extent to which pupils are disengaging from learning, which we will consider alongside the Education Scotland work.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted on all NHS services to an extent, including abortion services.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving access to abortion services and the Women’s Health Plan includes a range of measures which aim to achieve this. Several abortion-related actions within the Women’s Health Plan have been progressed, including:

• making telemedicine consultations a permanent option for patients,
• continuing to allow women under 12 weeks’ gestation to take mifepristone and misoprostol at home where that is clinically appropriate and also now allowing women to take mifepristone at home at later gestations in certain circumstances,
• ensuring patients are offered the progestogen-only pill with their abortion medications, and
• working with stakeholders and Gillian Mackay MSP to introduce the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill into the Scottish Parliament.

The Scottish Government commissioned NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) to develop a specification to deliver a national service for abortions between 20 to 24 weeks gestation within Scotland. NSS has been discussing its specification with NHS Boards and is also exploring other delivery options for the service. We anticipate that the long-term action within the Plan to review the provision of abortion services in Scotland will be considered as part of the forthcoming review of abortion law.

Payment reform will be implemented on 1 November 2023. Therefore, it is not possible at this stage to make an assessment on the impact of payment reform on the recruitment of dentists in Dumfries and Galloway and the level of deregistration of adult patients from NHS dental services.

The main purpose of payment reform is to improve access to NHS dental services and thereby reducing the number of deregistrations. This will be done by replacing the existing care and treatment fees with a new set priced at levels that we believe will incentivise dentists to provide a full range of NHS care and treatment.

The great majority of abortions in Scotland are early medical abortions, where one or both medications are taken at home. These patients do not require bed spaces. Only a small minority of abortion patients require inpatient treatment, mostly as a day patient.

Whilst factors, including access to a bed, may sometimes cause a delay, Health Boards do their best to ensure patients can access abortion treatment as quickly as possible.

During the first trimester, all mainland NHS Boards within Scotland are able to offer surgical abortions, although access to surgical abortion is limited in some Health Board areas.

Currently no Health Board in Scotland is able to provide second trimester surgical abortions; if a patient is unable to access a medical abortion locally in the second trimester (over 20 weeks’ gestation), their Health Board will refer them to a service in England for treatment.

The £46 million funding was intended to support strategic change in the college and university sectors and was not part of the core teaching funding allocations. Despite a very challenging financial climate, the Scottish Government committed nearly £2 billion to Scotland’s universities and colleges in 2023-24. Part of the reason for withdrawing the £46 million funding was to allow the Scottish Government to fund public sector pay deals. Strategic change remains necessary and we will be taking this forward with the Scottish Funding Council, colleges and universities in the context of reform, building on the purpose and principles for post-school education published in June 2023. This can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/post-school-education-research-skills-purpose-principles/

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

The following table shows the number of breaches where an authorised mobile telephone was used in the prison setting up to and including 31 July 2023, when the provision was withdrawn:

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

Prison issue mobile telephones for use by those in our care, were withdrawn from use on 31 July 2023.

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

The total cost for providing prisoners with mobile phones since the roll out in June 2020 and the end of the provision in July 2023 has been £5.972m. These figures include all costs associated with usage, running costs and mobile handsets purchased, as well as the capital implementation spend.

Introduced during the COVID-19 global pandemic, prison issue mobile phones provided those in our care with the ability to maintain contact with family and friends during an extremely difficult and challenging period.