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The Scottish Government has received no complaints from local authorities in relation to the Health and Wellbeing Census.

Local authorities administer the Census in their schools to help identify the issues children and young people are concerned about and to tailor their learning, particularly in Personal and Social Education, and their advice and support. These issues may relate to food and nutrition, sleep, relationships, bullying, sexual health, substance use, physical activity as well as social media use and mental and emotional health and wellbeing.

The Census is entirely voluntary, both for local authorities to undertake and to parents/carers and pupils to take part in. This has been made clear to local authorities throughout.

We are committed to ensuring that all children and young people get the support that they need to reach their full potential.

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) Act 2004 (as amended) places duties on education authorities to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils. Education authorities can ask other agencies (including social work services, NHS Health Boards and Skills Development Scotland) for help in carrying out their duties under the Act.

Children and young people who are unable to attend school due to ill health should continue, wherever they can, to access education. This includes children and young people who are absent from school due to the effects from long Covid.

Where illness leads to prolonged absence from school, Section 40 of the Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc. Act 2000 places duties on education authorities to educate children and young people to their fullest potential and to make special arrangements for the pupil to receive education elsewhere than at school. Alternative educational arrangements could be provided, for example, at home or within a hospital setting.

Guidance to education authorities and other agencies on their duties under the 2004 Act is provided through the statutory Supporting Learners' Code of Practice. Education authorities and other agencies are further supported through guidance on Supporting Children and Young People with Healthcare Needs in Schools and guidance on the Education of Children Unable to Attend School Due to Ill Health.

Scotland’s resilience response structures involve very well established mechanisms for coordinating clear public communications during emergencies, and organisations involved in the response will work together to ensure swift and accurate advice is provided across a range of media.

The specific emergency alert system in place in other countries, used for example to warn of earthquakes, utilises a technology known as Cell Broadcasting. Activating this capability on the UK telecoms network is a matter reserved to the UK Government, and we note that the introduction of this technology, initially anticipated for summer 2021, is now scheduled for early 2022. Scottish Government officials are working with their counterparts in the UK Government to ensure that the deployment of any such capability reflects the devolved responsibilities of our responder organisations.

The COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children’s Issues published a summary report of the evidence on children, schools, early learning and childcare settings and transmission from COVID-19 on 12 August 2021. This included a brief summary of available evidence on Long-COVID in children and young people , along with a list of references to relevant evidence which may also be of interest. Public Health Scotland also provide a regular review of evidence for the sub-group in relation to COVID-19 and children and young people.

The Sub-Group continues to review the evidence on acute and prolonged health effects of COVID-19, and will update their advice if required in light of new findings.

In addition, the UK wide clinical guideline on managing the long-term effects of COVID-19 produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) is continuously reviewed and updated in response to emerging evidence.

For the November 2021 update, the evidence for children and young people was reviewed. A full overview of this evidence reviewed can be found on page 37 of the clinical guideline, accessible at Guideline COVID-19 rapid guideline: managing the long-term effects of COVID-19 (nice.org.uk)

This information is publically available on the Scottish Adoption Register’s Website in the Annual Report for 2021-21

Safety is at the heart of everything we do and the Scottish Government wants everyone in Scotland to receive the best possible care and treatment from our health and care services. Along with NHS Scotland, the Scottish Government has a shared vision for an open and learning culture and we want to learn when there has been dissatisfaction or harm and encourage organisations to identify improvements.

Our commitment to this is strongly demonstrated in the development of our approach to openness and learning in the introduction of the statutory Organisational duty of Candour legislation, and in our commission to Healthcare Improvement Scotland and NHS Education for Scotland to work together on a Joint Commission to make this a reality.

A number of reviews and processes are in scope for the Joint Commission, which will seek to take a human factors/ safety science approach to minimising duplication and reducing variation in review processes as well as supporting and upskilling staff in leading and taking part in these.

NHS Health Boards are responsible for delivering safe, effective, person-centred care at a local level, which includes leading on learning and improvement in areas of challenge and to drive quality; creating an environment that values staff and supports them when concerns are raised; and monitoring and improving the quality of health care which is provides to individuals. The Scottish Government and NHS Health Boards work closely together to ensure local policies and processes are implemented and improved in line with national policy and frameworks.

The Staff Governance Standard, which has legislative underpinning, requires all health Boards to demonstrate that they are ensuring that staff are appropriately trained and developed and that resources, including time and funding, are appropriately allocated to meet local training and development needs taking into account the current priorities of both the service and service users.

Boards are expected to have systems in place to identify areas that require improvement and to develop action plans that will describe how improvements will be made. The Scottish Government also seek assurance from all Boards that they are meeting the Standard through the annual Staff Governance Monitoring exercise.

Our Rail Decarbonisation Action Plan requires a rolling programme of electrification to meet its target date of 2035. We continue to make good progress, including the current electrification work on the Barrhead and East Kilbride routes. Early development work for further routes is currently underway as part of our project pipeline approach and we will make further announcements on these at an appropriate stage of development.

The Annual Report on the COPFS Victims' Right to Review Scheme for 2020-21 has been published today on the COPFS website. It is available to view at the following link:

Victims Right to Review Annual Report 2020-21.pdf (copfs.gov.uk)

The terms of reference for the Scottish COVID-19 Public Inquiry are designed in such a way that they do not constrain the chair in seeking views and evidence from any group or individual affected by the matters the inquiry is asked to investigate.

Scottish inquiries set up under the Inquiries Act 2005 cannot investigate reserved matters. However we recognise that learning lessons from the pandemic will involve analysis of devolved and reserved issues across a spectrum of topics. To that end, we are engaged with the UK Government to understand the approach to the UK-wide COVID-19 inquiry. We will use our position as a statutory consultee on the terms of reference for the UK inquiry to make clear the importance of examining the impact of policies during the pandemic on those seeking asylum and living under immigration control in Scotland.