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The UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment is a document being drafted by the Westminster governed Office for Health Inequalities and Disparities (OHID). The document is being drafted on a 4-nations basis in which Scottish Government is fully involved, however the decision on when to publish sits solely with OHID.

SG officials have spoken to their colleagues within OHID and have been advised that OHID intends to publish this document in Summer 2025.

The information requested on how many vacancies currently exist in (a) radiology and (b) oncology posts can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence (Vacancy tab).

The Scottish Government is grateful to all Dispensing Appliance Contractors and community pharmacies for the service offered to stoma patients across Scotland and is committed to putting in place arrangements to best support them. Data shows that the volume of items provided by stoma suppliers has steadily increased by over two thirds (72.5%) since 2011 and suppliers are reimbursed for all items dispensed, resulting in a £2.539m increase (48%). Suppliers also benefit from a Global Sum of £3.8 million. Nevertheless, the Scottish Government recognises the requirement to keep arrangements under review and will explore whether changes are required to the fee structure and are within the affordability of the wider public sector finances.

1.New commercial arrangements were introduced in 2011 for the supply of stoma appliances to patients in the community and have been in place since. These arrangements are set up through contractual arrangements put in place by NHS Scotland National Procurement acting on behalf of Health Boards. They provide a framework which controls the cost of dispensing these items which is carried out by both Dispensing Appliance Contractors (DACs) and community pharmacy contractors who sign up to offer the service.

2.The arrangements are made up of a Global Sum for stoma appliance supply remuneration and fees for customisation and delivery. Suppliers are able to make profit on the sales and customisation aspects of the service. The Scottish Government’s Pharmacy Policy team holds meetings with the British Healthcare Trades Association (BHTA) who represent DACs in the UK. They have called for improvements to the current arrangements and discussions are currently being arranged to hear details of these proposals.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Public Health Scotland publishes a yearly report named the ‘Prescription Cost Analysis’ which outlines annual total expenditure on all prescriptions from community pharmacy in Scotland. British National Formulary chapter 4 includes methadone and buprenorphine (also known by its brand name Buvidal) and the cost of prescribing these drugs can be found on tab 4 of the PCA at Dispenser payments and prescription cost analysis - Financial year 2023 to 2024 - Dispenser payments and prescription cost analysis - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

While the Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care policy in Scotland, the statutory responsibility for delivering, commissioning and providing appropriate social care services at a local level lies with local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships. This includes the responsibility to reduce the number of people being delayed in hospital unnecessarily.

Since 2015-16, the Scottish Government has provided additional funding for social care and integration. This annual investment has risen to almost £2.2 billion in the 2025-26 Scottish Budget.

However, decisions on how best to deliver services to local communities are ultimately for Health and Social Care Partnerships and locally elected representatives to make.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

To prevent any misuse of artificial intelligence by public bodies we encourage best practice and advice through the Scottish Government’s Public Sector AI Task Force which meets on a monthly basis to support the safe adoption of AI, finding synergies and reducing the risk of duplication. The Task Force currently has over 200 individual members from all areas of the Scottish public sector. The meetings’ agendas and minutes are openly available online.

Scottish Ministers also mandated the use of the Scottish AI Register for Scottish Government and core agencies in April 2024. The Register enables safe and transparent development and use of AI in the public sector, and offer the public a simple and effective platform to have a say in how AI is used to make decisions and deliver public services. Consisting of a public facing website, and underlying resources and governance tools for public sector developers, the Register helps ensure we manage AI risk effectively and consistently, whilst also sharing best practice and reducing duplication.

To protect creativity, we have responded to the UK Government’s “Copyright and AI” consultation and asked them to reconsider their proposed plans which would significantly impact creative talent. Officials are closely monitoring the current back-and-forth in the UK Parliament over the UK Data Bill, stemming from the amendments introduced by Baroness Kidron to protect creative talent, and the UK Government’s refusal to accept them. We understand that the UK Government now plan to delay addressing the AI copyright issue until the passing of a specific AI Bill, which they had announced last year for 2025, but is now not expected until 2026. We will continue to engage with UK Government on the future UK AI regulations to ensure Scottish creative talent is protected.

The Scottish AI Alliance, the delivery body of our AI Strategy are also working to understand and support creatives with the potential and the impact of AI in the creative sector, with an event on this topic taking place in Glasgow on the 13th of June.

The Scottish Government will seek to review and revise the current guidance in the coming months. However, this review will need to be cognisant of the likely requirements of the alignment position with the recast Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, which proposes further measures in relation to the operation of wastewater networks.

The Scottish Government monitors trends across the whole childcare sector, drawing on data published by the Care Inspectorate. In recent years the Scottish Government has published financial sustainability health checks and the Sustainable Rates Review, which considered issues relating to financial sustainability.

As part of the evidence gathering phase of the joint Scottish Government and COSLA Sustainable Rates Review, local authorities reported that “they had seen very little evidence of funded services in the private, third or childminding sectors reporting to them that they had been under financial duress or of services closing due to financial sustainability pressures”.

Under the Business Sustainability criteria in the National Standard for funded ELC, providers are required to demonstrate to the local authority that they are financially viable. If a service delivering funded ELC was at risk of closure due to financial difficulties, they would therefore be obliged to make their local authority aware.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with the sector representative organisations and as part of this engagement we regularly receive updates from these organisations regarding pressures faced by their members. The representative organisations will often highlight any concerns in reports which draw on the responses from members to surveys (and these reports are usually available on the organisations’ website). For example, Early Years Scotland recently published a report highlighting the potential impact on providers as a result of the UK Government’s changes to Employer National Insurance Contributions.

The application window for the Scottish Upland Sheep Support Scheme (SUSSS) scheme year 2025 does not open until 1 September 2025.

In the following table, details are provided of the number of businesses that had a successful or unsuccessful application under the SUSSS in 2024, broken down by local authority area. Applications included as unsuccessful are those applications which were rejected as they did not meet the scheme eligibility criteria.