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Over the last three years (2021-24), £51 million has been provided through the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults. The following amounts have been provided in each year:

• 2021-22 (Year 1) – £21 million.
• 2022-23 (Year 2) – £15 million.
• 2023-24 (Year 3) – £15 million.

This is in addition to the £45 million allocated to local authorities since 2021 to provide community-based mental health and wellbeing support for children, young people and their families.

Future funding will be subject to the annual budget process and approval by the Scottish Parliament.

The “Provision of Education Workforce Modelling and Analysis” is an external exercise I am commissioning to help inform decisions on education workforce planning for future years. This work will bring together a range of factors including current teacher numbers, pupil teacher ratios and the projected decline in the number of school-aged children.

We need to consider all of these issues holistically and ensure we will have an education workforce in place that enables us to progress our commitments to reducing teachers’ class contact time, raising attainment overall, closing the poverty related attainment gap and improving additional support for learning, while delivering maximum value for money.

The Invitation to Tender was published on 15 September and I anticipate the successful bidder being appointed later this month, with a view to reporting by the end of December 2023.

An update will be provided once this work has concluded and been fully considered.

The Scottish Government recently convened a Multi-Agency Co-ordination Group in July 2023, in response to a cybersecurity incident at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS). The group was comprised of officials from the Scottish Government, UWS, NCC Group, the National Cyber Security Centre, the Scottish Local Government Digital Office and the Scottish Cyber Co-ordination Centre.

The Group was subsequently stood down once the initial attack and response work had come to an end, with communication lines remaining open in case any further assistance is required.

The Review of Purpose Built Student Accommodation has now concluded. The recommendations formulated by the Review Steering Group have been submitted to Ministers for consideration. A Ministerial response to the recommendations will follow in due course.

The NatureScot licensing team will prioritise applications for practitioners to use more than two dogs as a means of controlling predators for preventing serious damage, and where there is a high risk of imminent damage, applications can be turned around within 48 hours.

Data collection and reporting for devolved employability services delivered under the No One Left Behind approach occurs quarterly, with provision in all 32 Local Authority areas aligning with the Employability Shared Measurement Framework. To support this, we have worked with Local Authorities in their Lead Accountable Body role to develop a single reporting template, and accompanying guidance, which has been made publicly available. This reporting contributes to our quarterly statistical publication.

Data collection and reporting has been a key theme identified in our recent national stakeholder discussion events and the actions will be reviewed to identify how we can improve. This will be outlined in the Strategic Plan and National Improvement Plan which will be published later this financial year.

We will continue to work with partners to refine data collection and reporting practices, including identifying where additional support would be beneficial.

The Scottish Government continues to explore options regarding the funding for employability services on a multi-year basis. However, we are required to deliver a balanced budget each year, and employability funding, like all other funded programmes and services throughout government require to be assessed against policy prospectus outcomes which are reviewed on a year-by-year basis.

Questions of compensation in respect of a necessary wayleave will not be addressed by the Reporter when making a recommendation on whether a necessary wayleave should be granted. Although, issues which relate to the impact on the use or enjoyment of the land which may subsequently be the subject of a claim for compensation may be considered by the Reporter.

The Scottish Ministers have no power under Schedule 4 to the 1989 Electricity Act to prescribe financial conditions in any necessary wayleave case or to resolve disputes on the level of compensation. Compensation will fall to be settled by agreement between the parties or, failing agreement, by the Lands Tribunal for Scotland at the request of either party.

Professor Britton’s 2018 Investigative Review gave 46 recommendations regarding the process of establishing, managing and supporting Independent Reviews in Scotland.

We accepted and agreed with the vast majority of her conclusions and recommendations. The recommendations have already been reflected in a number of inquiries and reviews established in recent years. We are also developing guidance to support inquires and reviews that will build upon Professor Britton’s recommendations and hope to publish that soon. The Scottish Government is also working on a handbook that will clarify and enhance the support that government can offer to independent inquiries.

This work has been fully informed and benefited from Professor Britton’s work and recommendations. All reviews and inquiries in recent years have also benefitted from Professor Britton’s work.

Government officials will continue to engage with stakeholders to ascertain the current backlog in repairs and maintenance across the sector.

The Scottish Government has provided strategically targeted additional funding of £500k in capital funding to Museums Galleries Scotland for the sector in both 2021-22 and 2022-23. This is being distributed as capital resilience funding to help with essential repairs and maintenance across the sector.