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In Scotland, all adults who have been assessed as requiring personal care do not pay for this service, regardless of their condition or means. Nursing care is also free at the point of delivery.

For individuals self-funding their own care, the local authority will pay for these elements of residential care for all those assessed as needing them. The Scottish Government recently announced a 10% increase in the rates of these payments, taking rates to £212.85 for personal care and £95.80 for nursing care, from 1 April 2022. This will be the second consecutive year that these rates have increased above the rate of inflation in recognition of the increasing costs of providing these services.

The National Care Service consultation which ran between August and November 2021 contained questions relating to the future of charging for residential care, including for self-funders. We will consider the responses to these questions, alongside the impact of the recent above inflationary rises to payments for Free Personal and Nursing Care, prior to making decisions on future reforms.

Prescription charges were abolished in Scotland on 1 April 2011. The prescription charge in England is £9.35 per item from 1 April 2021. Prescription charges were abolished in Wales on 1 April 2007.

Unlike England and Wales, Scotland provides free NHS-funded eye examinations to all UK residents under General Ophthalmic Services arrangements.

We have allocated nearly £40m additional funding in 2021-22 to NHS Boards to improve CAMHS from our £120m Recovery and Renewal fund. £4.25m of that allocation is directly focussed on offering treatment to those already on CAMHS waiting lists, with a view to clearing all backlogs by March 2023.

The Scottish Government national standard is that 90% of children and young people should start treatment within 18 weeks of referral and the latest CAMHS publication reporting to quarter ending 31 December 2021 is available on the PHS website at: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/child-and-adolescent-mental-health-services-camhs-waiting-times/child-and-adolescent-mental-health-services-camhs-waiting-times-quarter-ending-31-december-2021/

Table 1 shows the total number of patients seen for first treatment following referral to CAMH Services broken down by NHS Board and the percentage seen within 18 weeks, 19-35 weeks, 36-52 weeks and 53+ for the latest published data for quarter ending 31 December 2021.

Table 1: Total number of patients seen from referral to treatment and percentage seen within 18 weeks, 19-35 weeks, 36-52 weeks, 53+ weeks by NHS Board

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02608 on 8 September 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found here: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

As Table 2 of the amended final Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) for our Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) makes clear, the economic modelling in the BRIA assumes that there will be 3,021 reverse vending machines (RVMs) in operation.

Annex F of the amended final BRIA shows that the economic case for DRS remains strong if higher numbers of containers and return points, suggested by industry, are adopted. As we have seen no evidence for higher numbers of RVMs than 3,021, this is also the figure modelled in Annex F.

The economic model underlying the analysis in the amended Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) for Scotland's Deposit Return Scheme was developed in line with best practice by Zero Waste Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Government. The key inputs to the model are set out at table 2 of the amended Final BRIA.

The construction of the A92/A96 Haudagain Improvement project is well advanced.

In December 2021 my predecessor announced a revised anticipated date for completion of works allowing roads to open to traffic by the end of March 2022. This revised completion date was based on the latest information reported by the Contractor at the time and was subject to no further disruption occurring due to events such as adverse weather and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Contractor has reported impacts to programme critical work since then due to adverse weather, including a number of high profile named Storms all having an impact on the works (Storm Malik, Storm Corrie, Storm Dudley and Storm Eunice) in addition to cold temperatures causing ground frosts that have prevented programme critical road surfacing works being progressed. This has been compounded by ongoing disruption to the workforce as a result of COVID-19, with over 40% of the on-site workforce having to isolate due to COVID-19 earlier this month, and continued supply chain issues.

In light of the above, I can advise that based on the latest information from the Contractor I now anticipate that the works will be complete to allow the new link road to open to traffic by mid-May 2022 at the latest, although the Contractor is hoping to achieve an earlier date if possible, subject to no further disruption occurring due to adverse weather or the COVID-19 pandemic.

Transport Scotland will continue to engage with the Contractor to ensure that any risks to programme are mitigated where possible and to explore all opportunities to better this anticipated completion date.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (Framework) Order 2022 will be laid in Parliament on 31 March 2022. This Order will bring the Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland 2022, which was published on the Scottish Government’s website today, into effect from 26 May 2022.

Following a public consultation, the Fire and Rescue Framework for Scotland 2022 sets out the strategic priorities and objectives for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) going forward. The Framework is structured around protecting communities in terms of prevention and response; innovation and modernisation; the impact of climate change; partnership working and the governance and performance arrangements for the Service.

It is now for the SFRS to set out in its next Strategic Plan how it will deliver the priorities identified in the Framework.

2022-23 Pupil Equity Funding Allocations, at both Local Authority and School level, were published on 29 March 2022 and are available to access here:- Pupil attainment: closing the gap - Schools - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The publication of Pupil Equity Funding Allocations totalling over half a billion pounds (£520 million) over a record 4 years, underlines our ambition to continue to empower our headteachers and teachers, who know their children and young people best. We have also provided an uplift of PEF per pupil to £1,225.

The breakdown of the additional funding provided to Health Boards for Breastfeeding Initiatives since 2018/19 is as follows: