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The Sexual Offences Court will be of equivalent status to the High Court when sitting as a court of first instance. Its processes and procedures will be the same as the High Court unless specifically provided for otherwise by the Bill, or subsequent secondary legislation or court rules. Importantly, judges sitting in the Court will have the same sentencing powers.

The proposed jurisdiction of the Sexual Offences Court includes murder only where it is libeled alongside a sexual offence listed in Schedule 3 of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill . The Crown may prosecute cases involving serious sexual offending where the accused is alleged to have killed one of their victims. Given the experiences of the surviving complainers, the nature of their evidence, and the benefits the Sexual Offences Court will bring, the objective is to ensure there is the opportunity for those cases to be heard in the Sexual Offences Court.

It should also be noted, these cases can still be prosecuted in the High Court, the Bill gives prosecutors this additional option to indict these cases to the Sexual Offences Court should they consider it appropriate to do so.

The range of sexual offences that fall under the proposed jurisdiction of the Sexual Offences Court is set out at Schedule 3 of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. Schedule 3 includes the offence of rape of a child under common law and under the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009.

The Central Scotland Regional Equality Council (CSREC) is based in Falkirk and is focussed on promoting equality and diversity and fostering good relations amongst ethnic minorities and other communities in Central Scotland. The CSREC was awarded funding in 2020 under the Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) for their ‘One Planet Communities’ project (CCF-6544).

The objectives were as follows:

• Providing Carbon Conversations to 150 people in their community to increase their awareness and understanding of Climate Change and enable them to make informed choices in their buying habits and change to more sustainable consumer behaviour.
• 800 members of the community will develop more sustainable consumer behaviour and save 67.33 tCO2e by participating in 20 monthly pop-up swap shops over the duration of the Project.
• 420 people will save 5.65 tCO2e by diverting clothing and textiles from landfill by learning how to sew and upcycle them into new items.
• 80 people will upcycle 1680 kg of furniture into new pieces and save 3.4 tCO2e.
• 600 people will use the One Planet Communities online hub to learn about sustainable consumption, the effects of textiles and waste on the environment, upcycling skills and where to go for more information and workshops locally in the Forth Valley.
• 1440 people will divert 4.32 tonnes of waste from landfill, and save 15.81 tCO2e via a Community Fridge.

The Scottish Government has not provided funding for the Edinburgh Hospital Broadcasting Service.

The most recent bulletin on Criminal Proceedings in Scotland covers cases that concluded in court up to the end of March 2022. There are no convictions under Section 56 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 up to this point.

While we work with Boards through planning to make best use of existing NHS resources and capacity, we will continue to use the private sector in a structured and prioritised manner. As we deliver new, better and more sustainable ways of delivering services to improve access for patients, we expect the need for private sector capacity to lessen. It is for local NHS Health Boards to determine how they use the private sector and to agree any contractual arrangements.

In 2022/23, total spend on use of the private sector in NHS Scotland represented just 0.7% (£116m) of the total frontline health budget, while in England, it was 6.5% (£11.5bn) of the Department of Health Budget.

Public Health Scotland’s Annual Acute hospital activity and NHS beds information provides information on non-NHS providers; NHS patients treated in non-NHS locations such as private hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, care homes etc. PHS's latest publication, covering 2022-23 shows that there were 2,958 consultant-led outpatient appointments performed by non-NHS providers in 2022-23, or 0.08% of the total that year (3,928,597) Table 1 – Outpatient Activity. During this period figures for new outpatient appointments are 1,988 by non-NHS providers out of 1,273,588 in total (0.16%), involving 1,943 new patients out of a total of 964,316 new patients. There were also 4,962 Continuous Inpatient Stays in non-NHS hospitals out of a total of 1,092,413 (0.45%). This involved 4,779 patients out of a total of 631,731 patients (0.76%) Table 2 – Inpatient and day case activity .

Undertaking a health capital investment project is an iterative process and estimating the cost and completion date is a complex exercise and we did not identify individual budgets and completion dates when the programme of investment was originally announced.

Since then, additional projects have been added to the programme and we have experienced unprecedented levels of inflation in the construction sector which makes comparison of costs and completion dates difficult.

The latest position for all projects is noted in the following table:

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children in primary school receive at least two hours of physical education (PE) each school week.

To monitor progress on this commitment, local authorities have provided us with data about provision of PE in their schools since 2012. This data is reported through the annual Schools Healthy Living Survey Statistics Report, which is available through the following web link: Data and Methodology - School Healthy Living Survey: school meal uptake and PE provision statistics 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Information about schools meeting PE targets is contained on Table 18 of the supplementary statistics spreadsheet in the Schools Healthy Living Survey.

In addition to regular physical education classes there are other physical activity initiatives available for primary school age children, such as The Daily Mile. The Daily Mile is a simple and effective concept which allows all pupils to either run, jog or walk for one mile each day at any time which best suits the needs of the class. Scotland became the world’s first Daily Mile Nation in October 2022.

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring funding is distributed equitably across the country as set out in the 2021-22 Programme for Government. The existing National Resource Allocation Formula (NRAC) is updated on an ongoing basis for a range of factors including population demographics, relative health needs and remote and rural factors. We will continue to assess the need for a more detailed review of the formula, in line with developments in National Care Service funding and Integration reform.

The formula is inherently complex and the review will take time. However, work to determine how the review should be taken forward is underway, with initial meetings of the Technical Advisory Group on Resource Allocation (TAGRA) having taken place, considering the next steps to determine scope and timing of the review.

Further work is required prior to confirmation of a timeline for the publication of the updated formula.

All 32 local authorities in Scotland currently participate in the Daily Mile Initiative.