Seòmar agus comataidhean

The spend on peatland restoration in recent years is shown in the following table:

Statistics on the employment status of post-induction scheme teachers, including counts and percentages of those in full-time and part-time permanent and temporary employment are published in Table 1.6 of the teacher census supplementary statistics, available here:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/

We outlined our plans to reform and modernise mental health legislation in Scotland in our “Mental Health Capacity Reform: Delivery Plan” published in June 2024 (Mental Health and Capacity Reform: delivery plan October 2023 to April 2025 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)).

The plan lists several actions under the priority of Mental Health Law reform. One of these is that we will consider whether the Mental Health Tribunal should have a role in appointing a named person and in what circumstances that provision might apply. Scoping work for this is well underway but further work is needed to inform that position.

In line with the recommendation made in the Scrutiny and Assurance Review, we have been working with the Care Inspectorate, Mental Welfare Commission and Healthcare Improvement Scotland to develop a framework for scrutiny and assurance in mental health. We are in the process of agreeing this with scrutiny bodies and aim to publish shortly.

The initial Delivery Plan for the Mental Health and Capacity Reform Programme published in June 2024 set out a range of actions being taken forward under Adults with Incapacity (AWI) and mental health law reform.

In terms of reforming capacity legislation, the AWI Amendment Act consultation was published in July and will run to October 2024 (Adults with Incapacity Amendment Act: consultation - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space). This builds on previous consultation work undertaken in this area and takes account of the targeted discussions that have taken place over the past year with stakeholders around specific policy proposals.

The Programme for Government 2024-25 which was published in September confirms that the Adults with Incapacity Bill will form part of the Year 4 Legislative Programme and officials have been working to progress this.

As part of work to progress mental health legislative reform, we have undertaken extensive engagement with partners to consider various aspects of the scope of compulsory care and treatment within the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003, with a view to developing potential options for change. We have also begun scoping work to consider recommendations around named persons and advanced statements.

Community Councils are not subject to statutory climate change duties.

Public bodies have had statutory climate change duties since 2011. Section 44 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 requires a public body, in exercising its functions, to: contribute to delivery of Scotland’s national net zero target; help deliver Scotland’s climate change adaptation programme; and act sustainably. Community councils are not subject to these duties, although local authorities are and they have statutory oversight of community councils.

Scottish Government continues to work closely with all local authorities to help deliver our ambitious climate targets. We have worked with COSLA to develop a Climate Delivery Framework that will enable better alignment of our respective targets and collective decision making, supporting delivery. A Scottish Climate Intelligence Service has been established to help build the capacity of local authorities to reduce area wide emissions.

In November 2023 Scottish Government statisticians identified technical issues with the automatic data processing and updating of some of the data sources on the Energy Statistics Hub. This affected the formatted display of some of the figures and charts on the hub. Work is continuing to resolve the issue and updates are being processed as quickly as possible.

Updates to the underlying data sources and publication of Scotland's quarterly energy statistics are unaffected and there has been no delay in the quarterly publication of any of the Scottish Government’s energy statistics. The next Energy Statistics Quarterly publication is on Thursday 26 September 2024.

Key energy statistics are published on the Scottish Government website.

The primary aim of the Strategic Approach is to improve support for those with experience of prostitution, from crisis support through to support to exit from prostitution. We remain focussed on progressing this and the strategy’s wider components.

Since publishing the Strategy in February 2024 we have worked across Scottish Government, the wider public and third sectors, to identify opportunities to move forward with its implementation. This includes hosting a workshop earlier this month involving key stakeholders to discuss some of the challenges around capacity and resource in the current fiscal environment.

Over the coming weeks I will be announcing the key next steps we will be taking to progress this work.

The Scottish Government is committed to improved data collection and analysis to accurately assess the impact of policies to ensure greatest impact can be achieved.

Data collection methodologies and approaches are kept under constant review to ensure not only the relevance of the data being collected but also to ensure efficiencies in how this is done.

The Scottish Government is committed to the use of evidence in developing and evaluating policies to understand what works. The Scottish Government regularly undertakes evaluation activity across a wide range of policy areas. Final reports are routinely published on the Scottish Government website.

The Scottish Government published its Evaluation Action Plan in August 2024. One of the key pillars of the Plan is to make better use of evaluation evidence, at the right times when developing policy and to enhance value for money. To deliver the Action Plan the Scottish Government is setting up an internal Centre of Expertise in Appraisal and Evaluation. This will make better use of in-house expertise to further improve the standards of appraisal and evaluation planning.

We remain determined to deliver improved A&E performance and are working with Health Boards to reduce delays by enhancing patient flow at our acute sites. Through our Urgent and Unscheduled Care Collaborative Programme, work is underway to strengthen arrangements to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions by utilising services such as Same Day Emergency Care and Hospital at Home.

To release capacity within the system, NHS Boards are enhancing the discharge process – ensuring that every patient has an effective discharge date, agreed through multidisciplinary working, to avoid being delayed in hospital once clinically fit for discharge.

Boards are also supporting the public to access the right care in the right place by optimising Flow Navigation Centres and have been increasing capacity at NHS 24 which now has the highest level of call handlers on record.

Having the right, basic principles in place in the acute hospital will improve flow, reduce long waits due to exit block and ultimately benefit A&E performance.