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I refer the member to the Scottish Government’s second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan. Further to the commitment set out in the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social care, we committed to a new target of creating 500 apprenticeship opportunities across NHS Scotland in 2022-2023, to support those wishing to join the health and social care workforce. We closely monitor NHS Boards progress towards promoting the range of opportunities available and their progress towards this target, including through taking period management information, and in our planning, assurance and scrutiny engagements with health board representatives.

The Scottish Government continues to work with key partners within health and social care to promote NHS careers with a focus on widening access and providing progressive career development pathways including exploration of “earn as you learn” models such as apprenticeships for new and existing staff.

ScotRail Trains Ltd. is currently developing a training plan with associated costings to roll out menopause awareness across the organisation. It is anticipated that this will include, among other things, “Train the Trainer” sessions with Henpicked, which will enable the delivery of awareness sessions across the organisation. Henpicked works with organisations to help develop the right menopause in the workplace training, education, policies and practices to make an organisation menopause friendly.

Scottish Rail Holdings has advised that ScotRail Trains Ltd.’s expenditure on menopause-related initiatives to date are as follows:-

• 2022 and 2023 - Annual Membership fee to Henpicked to become a Menopause Friendly Accredited organisation - £1500 plus VAT each year
• 2022 and 2023 - speakers fees for events for World Menopause Day/World Menopause Month – Total £1000

The Deposit Return Scheme is an industry-led scheme, delivered by industry, led by the scheme administrator, Circularity Scotland Ltd. The Deposit Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations were laid in 2020 and businesses have now had three years to prepare for the launch of the scheme. It is not the role of Government to carry out such assessments.

There are many companies providing these services in Scotland, and an assessment is not considered to be necessary or appropriate for Government to carry out.

All Ministerial meetings with stakeholders are proactively published on the Scottish Government website at: -

https://www.gov.scot/collections/ministerial-engagements-travel-and-gifts/

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14291 on 7 February 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Advanced Practice Academies do not currently include Advanced Clinical Nurse Specialists. However NHS Education for Scotland has confirmed they will be included when work on the implementation of the paper’s recommendations has concluded.

The Scottish Government has committed to introduce a Register of Buildings by the end of this Parliament. The Register of Buildings will hold information on buildings that have been assessed though the Cladding Remediation Programme. Single Building Assessment reports and remediation activity will define the information that needs to be held in the Register. As this work progresses we are developing the information base for the Register.

The Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy (SSLN) was an annual sample survey which monitored national performance of school children at P4, P7 and S2 in literacy and numeracy in alternate years. Operating costs are set out in the following table and are broken down by element of spend. As Support Assessors were funded to facilitate group discussions between pupils as part of the Listening and Talking assessment, these costs are only associated with the years that the literacy survey took place.

Buildings within the scope of the Cladding Remediation Programme will be subject to a process of increasing assessment scrutiny.

A baseline assessment will identify those buildings which require a full assessment based on an evaluation of fire risk.

The proportion of buildings identified as requiring a full assessment is likely to be low when considering the total number of eligible buildings. This assessment is in line with a House of Commons analysis of the scale of the problems in England.

Single Building Assessments are demand-led and are free for all buildings with residential flatted properties regardless of tenure.

NatureScot has worked with partners on red squirrel conservation, including work to control grey squirrels, for many years. In particular, the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrel (SSRS) partnership project has been working in strategic areas to protect, maintain and promote existing red squirrel populations since 2007. With support from project staff, professional Grey Squirrel Officers (GSOs) have been working with volunteers and landowners to deliver strategic grey squirrel control.

NatureScot, Scottish Forestry and Forestry and Land Scotland are currently providing core funding for these roles. It remains a priority for the Scottish Government to ensure the important work undertaken by Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels continues.