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As set out in the answer to S6W-22369 on 1 November 2023, it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to be involved in a commercial arrangement between two private businesses.

The Scottish Government is in regular contact with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) about registration waiting times for teachers qualified outside of Scotland (QoS) and I have raised this directly with Pauline Stephen, Chief Executive and Registrar, at the GTCS. We are aware that they receive a high number of applications – approximately 1,300 a year – and that GTCS has been taking steps to improve waiting times for decisions.

In August, GTCS reported that it had recruited additional staff to deal with the QoS workload, which initially had a greater impact on processing times for ‘qualified within the UK’ applications. They are continuing to look for ways to manage the workload as efficiently as possible.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living with kidney disease in Scotland are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care.

We expect all NHS healthcare workers in Scotland to follow best practice when providing care for people with kidney disease and we continue to raise awareness of the symptoms, causes, diagnosis and prevention of kidney disease by providing and promoting information on chronic kidney disease for patients and their families on NHS Inform .

We also continue to support the work of the Scottish Renal Registry which promotes excellence in renal care in Scotland including audits on the delivery of renal replacement therapy. The most recent report from registry was published by Public Health Scotland in October 2023 and provides vital information for Health Boards, service managers and individual clinicians to help improve care and standards for people with chronic kidney disease.

The Al-Mahdi Foundation received £372k of Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) grant funding for 2 projects between 2014-2020 to support awareness raising of climate change issues amongst disadvantaged and ethnic minority communities and to make their community building more energy efficient.

The CCF was delivered by Keep Scotland Beautiful who were responsible for assessing all applications. Grant applications were subject to the relevant due diligence checks. Projects were monitored to ensure they delivered against their objectives and grants were paid out based on incurred expenditure.

National Security is a reserved matter. If there is any evidence of alleged criminality this should be reported to Police Scotland.

The Scottish Government is taking action to support families with the cost of school uniform and clothing so that every child in Scotland can attend school feeling comfortable, confident, and ready to learn.

In partnership with local authorities, we have delivered on our commitment to increase the level of school clothing grant in Scotland. This vital support for families has increased to at least £120 for eligible primary school pupils and £150 for eligible secondary school pupils. As part of action to further reduce the cost of the school day for families, we have committed through the 2023-24 Programme for Government to increase funding to local authorities for school clothing grant in the next financial year. This is in addition to the increased funding for school clothing grant that was provided in 2023-24 financial year which took the total funding provided to local authorities to £13m.

To further support families, we will also introduce national guidance on school uniform and clothing. This will support schools to work with families to develop and implement affordable and sustainable uniform and clothing policies that recognise the individual needs, circumstances and identities of all pupils and reduce costs of families. It is anticipated that the guidance will be published in spring 2024.

These measures are being taken forward as part of our wider action to tackle child poverty and protect people as much as possible during the ongoing cost of living crisis.

(a) The NHSScotland Staff Governance Standard includes the requirement for Health Boards to demonstrate that staff are appropriately trained and developed. There is an expectation that employers will ensure that resources are appropriately allocated to meet local training and development needs taking into account the current priorities of both the service and service users.

There are examples of Health Boards delivering on these expectations in relation to BSL. For example, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde offer a suite of BSL professional learning opportunities including courses for staff to learn basic BSL. Public Health Scotland also offer professional learning to support NHS staff to increase their awareness of BSL and to reflect on their own practice.

(b) Under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004, local authorities have duties to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils, including those who are deaf. Local authorities are supported in implementing their duties under the 2004 Act through the statutory code of practice on additional support for learning. Where a teacher wholly or mainly teaches a pupil who is deaf, local authorities have a duty to ensure they are appropriately qualified.

The Scottish Government funds the Scottish Sensory Centre to provide advice and training to school staff on support for children and young people with specific communication and sensory needs. Education Scotland has also developed a professional learning resource which seeks to support staff to engage more effectively with BSL users.

The numbers of teachers who have participated in the Teacher Induction Scheme since 2016 is provided in the following table:

The Scottish Government consider the impact of messaging on those who may have had a negative experience in relation to the relevant health topic when developing all health related campaigns. This is done in a number of ways including through creative testing and engaging with people with lived experience or stakeholders. In this instance this was carried out through patient representative stakeholders.

Scottish Government Ministers and officials have been in frequent contact with farmers and farming representatives regarding the impacts of the extreme weather and severe flooding in October, including Storm Babet. I held a roundtable with NFUS and other agricultural representatives following the flooding in early October to gain an overview of the impacts at that stage, and visited an affected farm in Perthshire to meet a range of agricultural representatives. Officials have also been in regular contact with farmers, including through our area officer networks, to understand the impacts of the severe flooding in early October and from Storm Babet across the country.

In the aftermath of Storm Babet, I spoke at the NFUS Autumn Conference on 26th October and confirmed there that we would work with the agricultural sector to bring forward support for the repair of the floodbanks damaged by the extreme rainfall during October that protect our vitally productive farmland. I then spoke with farmers at the AgriScot conference on 22nd November and confirmed that following that engagement with the sector the Scottish Government has now established and funded a scheme for agricultural flood bank repair, with a budget of £1.8 million set aside.

The Scottish Government has been working closely with the UK Government to implement the proposed amendments to the Renters (Reform) Bill that would make it illegal for landlords and letting agents to apply a blanket ban on renting to people who receive benefits or to families with children.

It is intended that a further amendment for Scotland will be tabled at the Bill’s Report Stage. This will ensure that an important legislative proposal to benefit renters can commence in Scotland at the same time as England and Wales.

I have notified the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, at the earliest possible opportunity, of my intention for a Legislative Consent Memorandum to be lodged in relation to that amendment, after it has been tabled at Report Stage.