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The Scottish Government is committed to providing accessible CAMHS services for children and young people who are deaf.

The CAMHS National Service Specification states that all children and families should receive support and services that are accessible and meet their needs. It is essential that the Scottish Government and CAMHS services engage with the deaf community and representative organisations to ensure we understand how services could better meet their needs.

As part of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Joint Delivery Board, the Scottish Government engaged with stakeholders including the National Deaf Children’s Society and representatives with lived experience to understand their needs which are being considered in future planning.

We are continuing to provide local authorities with £15 million per annum to fund community-based mental health supports for children and young people, including targeted provision for those in at-risk groups and a systematic focus on those with protected characteristics.

Kingdom Survivors Abuse Project (KASP) currently receives £40,152 per annum, over four years (2020-2024), through the Scottish Government’s Survivors of Childhood Abuse Support (SOCAS) Fund for their voluntary befriending service.

Objectives were set for KASP at the start of the Fund and have remained the same. They are expected to support 20 survivors a year with a view to improving wellbeing and resilience for survivors and ensuring survivors have access to quality, appropriate and timely services across Scotland.

The Scottish Government provides £29m support across a range of Gaelic and Scots organisations, whose activities include the provision of Scots and Gaelic language materials but is not all they do. For Scots, grant funding is provided to the following organisations: Association of Scottish Literary Studies, Scottish Book Trust, Scots Hoose, Scots Radio, Scots Language Centre, Dictionaries of the Scots Language, Yaldi Books and the Doric Board. For Gaelic, grant funding is provided to Storlann, Bòrd na Gidhlig, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Local Authorities, E-sgoil, Tobar an Dualchais, Keep Scotland Beautiful, University of Edinburgh, and MG Alba for Speak Gaelic and Film G.

We will continue to work with the UK Government, the other Devolved Administrations and the Gambling Commission over proposals included in the White Paper, which include further restrictions on advertising of gambling across the UK.

The latest information on the percentage of pupils who reached the expected standard in numeracy in P1 and P7 is available in Table 1 of the Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels (ACEL) publication which can be found on the Scottish Government website: www.gov.scot/publications/achievement-curriculum-excellence-cfe-levels-2021-22/

Note that these figures relate to numeracy as opposed to mathematics.

The Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 provides for rigorous safeguards in respect of individuals’ human rights. Sometimes compulsory treatment needs to be carried out on an emergency basis and consent from a Mental Health Officer (MHO), in addition to authorisation from a medical practitioner, plays an important safeguarding role in these cases.

However, the 2003 Act also recognises that there may be occasions where the urgency of the situation is so great that it would not be practicable for such consultation to take place. In such cases, the practitioner must inform hospital managers who must then inform the Mental Welfare Commission and notify the relevant authority of the reasons why it was impracticable to consult and seek the consent of an MHO.

Whilst we acknowledge that for some of the 60% of cases mentioned the urgency of the case will explain the lack of MHO consent, we also recognise that MHO capacity is a contributing factor. While it is the responsibility of Local Authorities to ensure they have the appropriate levels of MHOs in place, the Scottish Government felt it was necessary to intervene, and since 2019, we have provided additional funding, as well as working with COSLA and other partners to progress a range of actions to improve workforce capacity and MHO training.

In this financial year we have made available an additional £3.71 million to local authorities to build additional MHO capacity. This will help reduce the number of emergency detentions taking place without the additional safeguard of MHO consent.

The Mental Health and Capacity Reform Programme considers how we can update and modernise mental health and capacity legislation to better reflect international human rights standards regarding safeguards. We will continue to work closely with the Mental Welfare Commission on this.

As of 30 June 2023, (a) 2,345 parents or carers in the Stirling local authority area, and (b) 2,160 parents or carers in the Clackmannanshire local authority area had received at least one Scottish Child Payment since its introduction on 14 February 2021.

These figures are based on secondary analysis of the most recently published statistics on Scottish Child Payment published by Social Security Scotland. Whilst these include information on the number of children currently benefitting from Scottish Child Payment by local authority area, we do not currently produce a breakdown of the total number of parents or carers who have received payment.

The latest Scottish Child Payment Official statistics publication can be found at:

https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications .

The next release of Scottish Child Payment statistics which will cover the period to the end of September 2023, is due to be published on 28 November 2023.

The first release of Official Statistics on Winter Heating Payment was published on 6 June 2023. It provides information on Winter Heating Payment, including the number of payments issued by local authority, from launch up to 30 April 2023. The publication shows that there were 4,110 payments issued to clients in the Clackmannanshire local authority and 5,030 payments issued to clients in the Stirling local authority.

The Official Statistics for Winter Heating Payment can be found at: https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/reporting/publications/winter-heating-payment-statistics-winter-2022-2023 .

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: