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The Scottish Government has a long history of providing support for town centre regeneration and continues to provide a strong policy framework, with clear priorities and actions to help facilitate and deliver change. This includes our world leading Town Centre First Principle, which was first developed in Scotland.

Our regeneration strategy published in 2011 reflects our support for town centres as a central part of community life and as the backbone of Scotland’s economy. We further strengthened our ambitions for town centres through the Town Centre Action Plan in 2013 and re-affirmed our commitment in collaboration with COSLA for the Town Centre Action Plan 2 published in April 2022. TCAP 2 is a call to action and sets out some of the ways in which we can all seek to do our part, locally and nationally.

The Scottish Government supports Scotland’s Towns Partnership (STP) as the ‘go to’ body for town centre advice and support. STP works collaboratively with the Scottish Government, local authorities, and other stakeholder groups on engagement, implementation, and delivery of short and long-term town centre strategies.

Town centre regeneration in Scotland has also been backed by multiple investment programmes. Our Place Based Investment Programme (PBIP) established in 2021/22, backed with over £300m over 5 years makes an important contribution to supporting ambitions for place, community regeneration, town centres and 20-minute neighbourhoods. PBIP is also complemented by the low carbon Vacant and Derelict Land Investment Programme (VDLIP) and Regeneration and Capital Grant Fund (RGCF), now in its tenth year. Information on the RCGF funding awarded is publicly available.

Though by no means exhaustive, previous programmes that have supported town centre regeneration since 1999 also include:

The Scottish Government has received the report from NHS National Services Scotland on the options appraisal process on Mother and Baby Unit provision in Scotland. It is intended to publish the report once those options have been fully considered and next steps determined.

Full details of the digital prescribing and dispensing programme are publicly available on NHS National Services Scotland website. See https://www.nss.nhs.scot/national-programmes/digital-prescribing-and-dispensing-pathways/about-the-digital-prescribing-and-dispensing-pathways-programme/ .

Through this website, information on stakeholder engagement is detailed within quarterly newsletters which also confirm progress against key milestones. The programme as a whole remains on track, as set out in our Digital Health and Care Delivery Plan.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water, I have asked its Chief Executive to respond. His response is as follows:

Scottish Water regularly reviews its generator strategy across the country for all water and wastewater treatment works to minimise disruption in the event of wide scale power outages. Significant work has also been undertaken to understand the medium to long term investment needs. This has identified additional sites that will receive a standby generator, or a hook up, to allow quicker deployment of temporary generators at pumping stations when needed.

The Scottish Government published Quality Standards for Paediatric Audiology Services (2009) and Quality Standards for Adult Hearing Rehabilitation Services (2009) which both state that patients (and their families in the case of children) should be given a copy of their ‘Individual Management Plan’ following visits to services.

It is for Health Boards to ensure that this takes place in line with the quality standards set out.

Health Boards are responsible for planning services to best meet the needs of their patients.

Service planning and design should take place at a local level and be informed by an assessment of the type, and level, of support required by patients who need to access those services.

The rise in the prison population is driven by a complex set of factors, including the court backlog caused by reduced court capacity over the pandemic. Progress has been made in reducing this backlog through the justice recovery fund. This has allowed an increase in court business resulting in the fall of the number of outstanding scheduled trials by a third since last January. Other factors include the increase in average sentences imposed for certain offences and growth in the number of serious sexual offence and domestic abuse cases prosecuted in the courts. While both arrivals and departures increased over the first 8 months of the year, arrivals outpaced departures, resulting in a rising population. As the outlook for the population remains highly uncertain the Scottish Government continues to monitor it.

The Scottish Government continues to deliver on its commitment to build the case for an independent Scotland within the EU, through the development of a prospectus to give people the information they need to make an informed choice about their future, and I’m pleased to confirm that today we are publishing Migration to Scotland after independence.

This is the sixth paper in the Building a New Scotland series. It sets out proposals for how an independent Scotland with control of its migration policy could devise a humane, dignified and principled migration system to help grow our population. Through population growth, we can strengthen and grow our economy, address skills shortages within key sectors, deliver positive outcomes for our communities and public services, and enrich Scotland culturally.

I can also confirm that we intend to bring the matters raised in this publication forward for a debate in the Chamber in the coming weeks.

The Scottish Government is continuing to prepare further papers in the Building a New Scotland series and these will be published shortly.

Building a New Scotland: Migration to Scotland after independence is available to view on the Scottish Government website from today at www.gov.scot/newscotland

The Scottish Government did not provide any funding directly to Relationships Scotland Dumfries & Galloway in 2022.

Relationships Scotland operate a network of 21 member services across Scotland, including Relationships Scotland Dumfries & Galloway.

In 2022, the Scottish Government provided Relationships Scotland with core funding via the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning & Empowering Communities third sector fund.