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I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10348 on 29 August 2022, which outlines that the restart of self-referrals must be conducted in a careful, phased manner in order to understand and mitigate impacts on those for whom screening is recommended, and for whom it has the most benefits.

In November 2022, self-referrals for breast screening appointments were reinstated for those between 71 and 74, and anyone over 75 with a history of breast cancer.

The Scottish Government understands the wish some people have for this to be widened to include all those over the age of 75 without a history of breast cancer, but it is imperative to understand the impact this initial re-instatement is having on both programme capacity and overall wait times, before any further decisions regarding eligibility are taken. The current advice from the UK National Screening Committee is that breast screening should be provided to those age 50-70 years.

These impacts are being regularly reviewed, and an update will be provided to parliament once any decisions have been reached.

The number of planning appeals received, in each of the last five years, on the grounds of *non-determination and where a local authority has been unable to reach a decision within six months, is held in the following table :

The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 contains provisions to establish the Scottish Food Commission. Establishing a new public body is complex and it takes time to work through the processes associated with setting up a new body. The Scottish Food Commission’s functions are directly linked to the good food nation plans required by the Good Food Nation Act. We therefore intend to establish it in a similar timeframe to the publication of the final version of the Scottish Government’s first national good food nation plan, which is expected in late 2024. This will allow the Food Commission to take up one of its key tasks, which is to scrutinise and make recommendations in relation to the first national good food nation plan.

The Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 provided powers for local authorities to respond to incidents of dog owners allowing their dogs to be out of control in public places by imposing Dog Control Notices (DCNs).

The Scottish Government updated operational guidance for the 2010 Act in December 2020. This reflected the first decade of use of the 2010 Act and built on best practice to assist local authorities in discharging their responsibilities. This guidance is available at: Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010: guidance - updated - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

A further review of this aspect of the 2010 Act is not planned at this time.

The Scottish Government has also introduced a national DCN database which is helping independent enforcement agencies (local authorities and Police Scotland) access information on dog owners who allow their dogs to be out of control.

The Scottish Government carried out a marketing campaign on dog control with the Scottish SPCA in 2021. This campaign has since been re-run on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram on a number of occasions and directs the public to information about ‘The law on controlling your dog’ on the mygov.scot website at: Controlling your dog in public - mygov.scot

This website makes clear that dog owners are responsible for the actions of their dog, and the sets out potential penalties for failing to control dogs.

Local authorities can also consider byelaw making powers to address a specific problem.

A final response to S6W-15344 was issued by the Parliament deadline on Friday 10 March 2023.

It is crucial that the voices of children and young people are at the heart of developing our next steps on alcohol policy.

Our recent consultation on restricting alcohol advertising and promotion directly references the recommendations of the Children’s Parliament and contains a section, and questions, on potential restrictions on alcohol sponsorship of events.

The consultation closed on 9 March. An independent contractor will comprehensively analyse the responses and publish a report. We will then further consider possible restrictions.

I met with Councillor Maureen Chalmers, the COSLA Spokesperson for Community Wellbeing on 22 March. We had a productive meeting and discussed how good practice in providing rapid help for people living with MND can be shared across local authorities. I will also follow up directly with MND Scotland with a meeting currently being arranged. Additionally, I can confirm that MND Scotland is a member of our recently formed Accessible Housing and Independent Living Stakeholder group. The group had their first meeting at the end of 2022, giving constructive feedback to our Housing for Varying Needs review. My officials are arranging further meetings of this group to seek views and opinions on housing and independent living issues including the adaptations review and the new Scottish Accessible Homes Standard.

Information on the initial destinations of school leavers three months after the end of the school year (i.e. in October) is published in the Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations publication released in February each year. Information on the destinations of the same cohort of school leavers nine months after the end of the school year (i.e. the following April) is then published in Summary Statistics for Follow-up Leaver Destination each June.

Chart 4 of the follow-up leaver destination publication provides information on the percentage of school leavers whose follow-up destination was the same as their initial destination whilst table L1.8 of the associated supplementary tables provide more details of the percentages of school leavers who had sustained their initial destination or moved into another destination by the time of the follow-up data cut - i.e. 9 months after leaving school.

The information used to produce these destination statistics is sourced from the 'Opportunities for All' shared dataset. This dataset contains information on the activities undertaken by young people in Scotland and is managed and hosted by Skills Development Scotland (SDS). SDS supply the Scottish Government with two snapshots from this dataset throughout the year - in April and October.

The eDevelopment service currently has 52,000 registered users.

In the last 5 years the eDevelopment homepage has been accessed 3,294,533 times. The figures in the following table set out the number of times that users have accessed the homepage. The information is broken down into each of the 5 years.

As of January 2023, over 1.41m planning and building standards applications have been submitted online via eDevelopment since the service went live in 2016.

The service regularly receives over 5,500 submissions each week.

We estimate that in 2021-2022, up to 95% of all planning submissions and 90% of building warrant applications are submitted online through the service.

The Digital Planning Transformation programme is a £35 million programme to transform the planning service and realise £200 million economic benefits to the sector. Work is progressing to deliver outputs from five missions as set out in the

Digital Strategy for Planning that underpins the programme.