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Scottish Government Ministers and officials meet regularly with a wide range of stakeholders, including the Royal College of Radiologists, to discuss areas of mutual interest.

Menopause care and support is a top priority in our Women’s Health Plan, which was published on 20 August 2021, and runs until 2024. There are no plans to review the Women’s Health Plan or the menopause ambitions within it before this time.

The 10 menopause actions set out in the Plan aim to ensure that women have timely access to menopause support and services; healthcare professionals are aware of the impact of medical or surgical treatments to induce menopause and all women have access to a healthcare professional with an interest in menopause through primary care.

An update on the progress made since the publication of Plan on the menopause actions is outlined in the Women’s Health Plan: A Report on Progress , published on 26 January 2023.

The Scottish Government launched a public consultation on 29 June 2022, seeking views on what a new Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy for Scotland should look like. The consultation included a section on the Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce.

As part of our stakeholder engagement programme, we held five virtual engagement events over August and September 2022. These events were open to anyone with an interest in helping to shape the new Strategy and Workforce Action Plan. Participants included those with lived experience as well as representatives from organisations including the NHS, local government, mental health charities and equality advocacy groups.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Advisory Group, which first met on 25 July 2022 and includes a wide range of key stakeholders, have been actively involved in the development of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan. This includes representatives from NHS boards, public bodies, local government, social work, third sector organisations, trade unions and professional bodies such as the Royal Colleges of Psychiatrists and Nursing.

Engagement with key stakeholders, including with the Advisory Group, is ongoing over the summer to support the finalising of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan.

We will use the September 2023 annual census levels, which will be published in the Official Statistics Summary School Statistics in December 2023 and March 2024, to confirm whether numbers have been maintained. It is important that all stakeholders have confidence in the statistics being used. Official Statistics on teacher numbers, delivered via the annual teacher census, have delivered robust data for many years and they will continue to be the definitive measure.

We have introduced an additional monitoring period in May 2023. At this point, local authorities will be asked to provide an aggregate count of their total teacher and pupil support staff numbers, together with any commentary and supporting evidence.

Funding for the teachers’ pay deal is made through the Teacher Training budget line within the Workforce and Infrastructure level 3. In 2022-23 £33 million additional funding was paid from this line. The remaining £83 million of funding for the deal was included within the final local government settlement. In 23-24 the Scottish Government is providing £205m towards the cost of the pay deal.

The Scottish Government has been engaging with stakeholders across the country from industry, academia and the public sector to develop a National Innovation Strategy for Scotland, which will set out a roadmap to transform Scotland's economy over the next decade by placing innovation at the heart of our economic growth and societal prosperity and wellbeing. The Scottish Government intends to publish its National Innovation Strategy this month.

The Scottish Government is awaiting formal responses to the recommendations from all partners in the Collective Bargaining process and will use these to inform the next steps regarding the implementation of the recommendations.

Critically, and as made clear by the Lessons Learned report, the Scottish Government will maintain its position of not intervening directly in the national collective bargaining process.

Counter-terrorism policy is Reserved. As such, the monitored recommendations within the Manchester Arena Inquiry fall to the UK Government for consideration.

In response to the recommendations outlined in Volume 1 of the Manchester Arena Inquiry the UK Government has published a draft Bill – The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) (previously referred to as Martyn’s law) for pre-legislative scrutiny on 2 nd May, ahead of a full Bill being introduced to UK Parliament in the next UK parliamentary session.

Scottish Government is working closely with the UK Government in the development and progression of this Bill, which aims to enhance public safety at Publicly Accessible Locations and Events across the UK including Scotland.

The UK Government in partnership with the National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) developed a website “Protect UK” which is available to members of the public and organisations. This website includes guidance on First Aid preparedness for organisations. This was in response to the recommendation to create a central library for guidance and advice that organisations and members of the public could access.

Scottish Government has promoted the use of the guidance and advice available through this platform to all relevant Scottish stakeholders.

The Scottish Government is working with all relevant partners to ensure that relevant recommendations from Volume 2 (Emergency Response) of the Manchester Arena Inquiry are appropriately implemented in Scotland.

The Scottish Government will also be taking account of the findings of Volume 3 and the Independent Review of Prevent in their ongoing work to refresh the Prevent Duty Guidance for Scotland, with the aim of ensuring delivery of Prevent in Scotland remains as effective as possible.

Circular Economy Business Support, provided by Zero Waste Scotland, continues to provide support for textile businesses wishing to develop circular models. Scottish Enterprise also recently published its Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Guide , https://unlockingambition.scot/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Scottish-Entrepreneurial-Ecosystem-Guide-April-2023.pdf

which provides an overview of the range of support available to new and growing companies in Scotland including incubators, accelerators, specialist industry programmes, co-working spaces and networking organisations. This support is available to any early-stage innovative business.

The independent review of the role of incineration published a study, alongside its second and final report, that explored the impact of diverting plastics away from incineration.

The report is available here: Supporting documents - Decarbonisation of residual waste infrastructure: report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)