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The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) has continued to support the Women’s Health Plan through their dedicated lived experience programme. This has included the development of the conversation café toolkit, available for anyone to use, to encourage information sharing and peer support on areas of women’s health including menstrual health and endometriosis.

More information can be found in the ALLIANCE Final Report on Women’s Health Plan.

Menstrual health and wellbeing education is a key part of relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education. RSHP education is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the Scottish curriculum, Curriculum for Excellence.

An online RSHP teaching resource, (www.rshp.scot) was published in 2019 and provides age and stage appropriate learning activities on RSHP education for use in all education settings and is aligned to Curriculum for Excellence. This resource includes learning activities on menstruation from second level (P5 to P7), with endometriosis introduced at third/fourth level (S1 to S3).

Social Security Scotland has an established process for requesting information from GPs. The initial request will always be sent through the Scottish Care Information Gateway system, unless we are informed otherwise. If no response is received Social Security Scotland will contact the GP by telephone and send the request via letter if required.

Social Security Scotland recognise the complexity of using that system, and the challenges GPs and the wider health and social care sector face in responding to information requests. They are actively working on engagement to increase awareness of Social Security Scotland and to identify potential improvements in how they can gather supporting information to ensure applications are processed as quickly and effectively as possible.

This engagement activity has started, utilising in-house Health and Social Care Practitioners to offer discussions at the GP practice when they are in contact about one of their patients.

Social Security Scotland will continue to work with senior leaders in Health & Social Care Partnerships and Health Boards in 2025 to offer similar meetings to raise awareness and understand how we can improve communication.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-32271 on 6 January 2025. As I said during the Parliamentary debate on Changing Places Toilets, I am keen to work in partnership with members from all parties.

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

Work to develop the Changing Places Toilets Fund criteria, plans and processes is underway. Details of the Fund launch date will be confirmed once arrangements have been finalised and will be dependent on Parliamentary approval of the Scottish Government’s Budget Bill.

The judgements and issues in the Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan are informed and influenced by recent developments in UK Government energy policy and by court decisions.

This is a rapidly changing landscape and we are taking time to reflect on those developments before drawing any conclusions and publishing a final strategy.

The Scottish Government is working closely with public sector delivery partners to identify priority investment opportunities designed to mobilise private investment in ports, manufacturing and fabrication, to maximise the economic opportunities from offshore wind. As set out in our Offshore Wind Focus paper, the approach to prioritisation is underpinned by a strategic assessment of current market opportunities, considering the combined impact of a programme of public sector investments. We are working with delivery partners to target funding at projects that will have a catalytic effect on wider economic growth, and identifying and prioritising those with potentially high Benefit Cost Ratios.

I have not recently met any of the local authorities listed to discuss the impact of major electricity infrastructure or energy infrastructure consenting reforms.

The Scottish Government has not conducted specific analysis on the effectiveness of previous efforts to raise public awareness of proper battery disposal. However, feedback from stakeholders, including local authorities and industry partners, has highlighted several ongoing challenges:

• Public Awareness Gaps: A significant proportion of the public remains unaware of the environmental risks posed by improper battery disposal and the recycling options available to them.
• Accessibility Issues: Recycling points for batteries are not always easily accessible or visible, particularly in rural areas.
• Messaging Limitations: Previous public awareness efforts have lacked the reach and consistency needed to drive long-term behavioural change.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-31866 on 11 December 2024. 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.

Discussions continue between my officials at Transport Scotland and local authorities to re-affirm their expected expenditure for the 2025-26 financial year. Funding from the road safety allocation that is contained in the wider Roads budget will be made available to support the delivery of 20mph speed limits on appropriate roads by end of 2025.