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The Scottish Stroke Care Standards are designed to drive effective service delivery and improve patient outcomes. Monitoring of performance against stroke standards through the Scottish Stroke Care Audit allows us to identify where challenges are being faced in the delivery of high-quality stroke care and implement quality improvements.

We recognise the standards are challenging and continue to expect Health Boards to identify aspects of their stroke services which do not meet these standards and to work to improve their standards of care locally.

We continually assess the delivery of evidence-based stroke care, as recommended in the Progressive Stroke Pathway, via the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme Board review process. This allows for an evaluation of Board performance, identification of areas of challenge and the formulation of local action plans to improve the delivery of stroke care.

The next phase of the Women’s Health Plan is in the early stages of development.

The ambition of the Women’s Health Plan is that women and girls enjoy the best possible health, throughout their lives. This remains the ambition of the Scottish Government and will continue to be our guiding principle as we consider our next steps for the Women’s Health Plan following the end of this initial three year phase in August 2024.

This next phase will be developed in collaboration with women and girls, including our lived experience stakeholder group, clinical experts, other relevant stakeholders and our Women’s Health Champion, using the most up-to-date evidence base.

Any future priorities will be determined in partnership with our stakeholders, and informed by women and girls, so are yet to be decided.

Special Advisers are appointed in accordance with Part 1 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 by the First Minister as a Special Adviser for the purpose of providing assistance to the Scottish Ministers.

The total cost of Special Advisers employed during the financial year 2023-24 was £1,906,963. Total cost includes all salary costs, employer NI, and employer pension contributions. The level of employer NI, and civil service pension contribution is reserved and is not a matter for the Scottish Government.

The cost of Special Advisers during 2023-24 was based on the following Pay Bands and Pay Ranges:

The cost incurred to date in relation to the planned National Treatment Centre in NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Grampian, NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Lothian and NHS Tayside is as follows.

Transport Scotland has already allocated £46.7 million of funding to Sustrans for Places for Everyone for 2024-25 which will deliver a range of active travel infrastructure this year. More broadly in 2024-25 financial year more than £145 million has been allocated for Active Travel.

The utmost importance is placed on balancing the Scottish Government’s budget each financial year. The Scottish Government and the whole of the public sector face a financial position that is extremely challenging. It is always necessary to ensure resources are used economically, efficiently and effectively, and increased scrutiny and spending controls are in place across all expenditure. As with all programmes across Scottish Government, further funding for Places for Everyone will need to be considered in this context for 2024-25.

Increased Active Travel funding has led to major change programme for Active Travel delivery starting in 2024. This is aligned with the Verity House Agreement (June 2023) which confirmed the direction of travel towards more direct funding to Local Authorities and for local control over that budget, with a driving principle of ‘local by default, national by agreement’.

As part of this, from 2025-26, Transport Scotland will be providing funding for all active travel infrastructure projects of the type that have historically been delivered through Places for Everyone directly to Local Authorities, Regional Transport Partnerships and National Park Authorities rather than via Sustrans. A managed transition of existing projects from Sustrans to Transport Scotland is underway and for those which are likely to be completed by December 2025, it is the intention that these will continue to be managed by Sustrans.

As a result of £65m of public investment since 2011, and increasing private sector investment, Scotland has one of the most comprehensive public EV charging networks of any part of the UK, with over 5,800 public EV charge points, and is on target to have 6,000 public charge points by 2026. On a per head of population basis Scotland has more public charge points than any other part of the UK except London, and more rapid charge points than any other part of the UK.

The Scottish Government does not collect information about how many public EV charge points are suitable for any particular vehicle type. However, EV charge point parking spaces designed to accommodate passenger cars should also be able to accommodate the majority of light commercial vehicles which have broadly similar dimensions. Engagement with industry suggests that many larger fleets do not intend to make use of the public EV charging network in Scotland and are instead working with commercial charge point operators to develop fleet-specific solutions.

The information requested is not held centrally.

As independent corporate bodies with their own powers and responsibilities, any decisions around borrowing and the interest rate charged are a matter for individual local authorities.

Support with travel costs for music instructors in rural local authority areas is ultimately the responsibility of local authorities as their employer.

Music instructors working in remote schools or who are employed in a school on a distant island, receive a remote school or distant islands allowance as stipulated by the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers Handbook (SNCT) in addition to the normal salary. These payments are made directly by the relevant local authority. There are, however, conditions to these allowances which are outlined in the SNCT handbook (Appendix 2.5).

Despite the real terms budget cuts introduced by the previous UK Government, in 2024-25 alone we have committed £4.7 billion to support the delivery of our climate change goals.

We are committed to tackling climate change through the existing actions we have set out as part of government policy, and through the development of our next Climate Change Plan. Work has already started on planning and delivery of a number of measures in key areas of the Climate Policy Package.

We continually review staffing and resourcing, to support Programme for Government and forthcoming Budget commitments to ensure that the government’s ambition for climate change is delivered.

Our Net Zero Assessment aims to assist Ministers and public sector leaders to make better informed decisions on budgets and policies by providing information on impact on climate targets and signposting areas for enhanced emissions reduction effort. The intention is, on completion of the current pilot within Scottish Government, to roll the pilot out across all significant new Scottish Government expenditure decisions from the end of 2024.

The Assessment will support an enhanced formal advisory role for the Global Climate Emergency Programme Board and the Cabinet Sub-Committee for the Climate Emergency on the climate impact of future Scottish Government proposals.

The Scottish Government workforce size has had to grow over several years to deliver on newly devolved powers, the implications of EU Exit, responding to the Covid-19 pandemic and now supporting our recovery from that. More recently the Government has had to respond to the conflict in Ukraine, the cost of living crisis and the establishment of ScotWind within our wider Net Zero commitments, as well as the introduction of a National Care Service.

Devolved powers relating to certain aspects of social security to the Scottish Government in 2018 and Forestry in 2019 have also seen growth in the three related agencies to take on this additional work – Social Security Scotland has grown by 3,425 FTE since 2019, and Scottish Forestry and Forestry & Land Scotland have grown by 1,310 FTE since 2019.

In support of the wider Public Sector Reform agenda and budget constraints, Scottish Government is proactively addressing the need to reduce in size to remain fiscally sustainable, and we have seen further reductions in overall workforce in the 12 months since March 2023.

Recruitment controls have been in place since April 2022 and have been successful in controlling growth within the Scottish Government and ensuring any recruitment activity is aligned to Ministerial priorities.