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The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The teaching standards set by the General Teaching Council for Scotland require teachers to be able to identify and respond appropriately to pupils with difficulties in or barriers to learning. During initial teacher education, student teachers will gain sufficient knowledge of additional support needs for them to be able to support the child in question themselves or to seek specialised information and specialised support if necessary. Scottish Ministers have recently outlined in our Programme for Government 2023-24 our commitment to work with teachers to provide additional professional learning opportunities while seeking to build on the Additional Support for Learning Action Plan.

In 2022-23, the Scottish Government provided over £500,000 to voluntary sector organisations to support children and young people with additional support needs, including sensory loss. This includes funding to the Scottish Sensory Centre to support the training of school staff to provide effective support to Deaf children and young people.

In December 2021, we published the Autism in Schools Action plan and the majority of the actions are complete. Several of the actions, such as the funding of professional learning resources like the Autism Toolbox are intended to be ongoing, to reflect best practice and current research in this area.

This is not a reduction in the Scottish Government's funding awarded to Creative Scotland. Over the last five years, the Scottish Government has provided over £33m to Creative Scotland to compensate for a shortfall in National Lottery funding. As a result of rising costs and pressure on budgets across government, we are unable to make up the ongoing shortfall this year.

The Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture asked the Creative Scotland Board on 27 September to use £6.6m of their reserves to ensure all payments to regularly funded organisations are met in full. I am pleased that the Board approved this approach and will make up the £6.6m shortfall from their funding reserves, which total £17m. This will mean that the regularly funded organisations will not receive reduced funding this financial year.

Subject to the usual Parliamentary processes we will provide the National Lottery shortfall funding of £6.6m to Creative Scotland in 2024-2025.

Diagnosis, treatment and care for people with heart disease is being provided across a range of services delivered by our NHS, supported by record funding of more than £19 billion for the health portfolio.

While the Scottish Government provides core funding and is responsible for setting the strategic policy for the NHS in Scotland, responsibility for service delivery rests locally with Health Boards who configure services taking into account local circumstances and the reasonable needs of their patient populations.

This is a matter for NHS Scotland and individual Health Boards. The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government.

You may wish to refer to the Public Health Scotland Scottish Health Service Costs reports .

The Forestry Grant Scheme opened for applications in 2015 as part of the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) and initially had a 7 year budget of £36m per year. The Forestry Grants budget has since been reviewed on an annual basis, as part of the wider Scottish Government Budget process, to reflect the Climate Change Plan woodland creation target and on-going legal commitments.

Forestry Grant Scheme contracts are issued by Scottish Forestry, and underspends can occur where insufficient applications are received or approved schemes are delayed. Underspends occurred in 2015-16 and 2016-17 due to insufficient applications being received in the first two years of FGS. Since then underspends have occurred in 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23, due to combination insufficient applications and delays with approved projects being implemented.

One Parent Families Scotland is a national organisation which works with and on behalf of one parent families, with the aim and purpose to improve the lives of single parents and their families, enabling them to benefit from life’s opportunities and fulfil their potential.

In 2022-23 One Parent Families Scotland (OPFS) received £371,700 in core funding via the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention & Adult Learning & Empowering Communities (CYPFEI & ALEC) third sector fund. The agreed outcomes from this funding were:

• Build Single Parents’ Capacity & Resilience so they will be stronger and more confident in knowing their rights and controlling their lives and supporting their children.
• Single parent families will have improved their standard of living, so reducing child poverty
• OPFS will be a resilient and responsive organisation, ensuring government has an increased understanding of issues affecting single parents, resulting in the development of more effective policies and services for children, young people and their families.
• Single parent families will participate and take an active role in making positive change.

In addition, the Scottish Government allocated £393,096 in 2022-23 to OPFS for welfare and debt advice. This funding included £320,233 for OPFS’s National Advice and Information Service and £72,863 debt levy funding for debt advice. The funding objectives were;

• to provide holistic advice and information on welfare benefits and other issues that affect single parents and their families’ financial inclusion and wellbeing
• to enable single parents to maximise their income
• to increase OPFS capacity to provide debt advice to single parents.

The Scottish Funding Council’s “College Infrastructure Strategy: The Approach to Delivering Scotland’s College Infrastructure”, was published in November 2022. Following on from publication of the strategy, the Infrastructure Investment Plan for colleges, due to be published by autumn 2024, will identify future infrastructure investment needed for a sustainable college estate. The work on delivering the plan has begun and will include baselining the condition of the college estate.

As outlined in my letter to the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee dated 27 September 2023, Scottish universities and colleges can bid for one short term grant for a minimum of £1,000 and maximum of £25,000 to undertake international projects by 31 March 2024. They can also apply for an additional £10,000 for projects which contain cross sector educational partnerships e.g., with schools, youth work providers, adult learning, and sports organisations and will prioritise placements for disadvantaged groups.

As outlined in the Programme for Government, in 2024-25, we will build on this initial test and learn project to further develop the Scottish Education Exchange Programme.

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) advises ministers and the NHS in the 4 UK Nations, including Scotland, about all aspects of population screening. The UK NSC does not currently recommend screening for cardiac conditions associated with sudden cardiac death in the young (age 12 – 39).

We have laid before Parliament today an annual progress report against our Heat in Buildings Strategy, the second since its publication in 2021: https://www.gov.scot/publications/heat-in-buildings-progress-report-2023 .

We have made significant progress in key areas during the past year, including our broad package of delivery schemes, heat networks, building standards and new build regulations. The biggest challenge facing us now is in existing buildings, and therefore the report confirms our intention to consult later this year on proposals for a Heat in Buildings Bill.