Chamber and committees

The Women’s Health Plan: A plan for 2021 – 2024 aims to reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes for women and girls. This iteration of the Plan focusses on a specific set of priorities where there is particular evidence of inequalities (heart health) and where women have told us improvements are needed (menopause and menstrual health including endometriosis).

The priorities for any future Women’s Health Plan are not yet determined. Future aims and priorities will be developed in collaboration with women and girls, including our lived experience stakeholder group, clinical experts and relevant stakeholders alongside the most up-to-date evidence base.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with the Scottish Perinatal Network and will write to NHS Boards again in June to assess how implementation of PlGF testing is progressing.

The Scottish Government expects all NHS Boards in Scotland to take note of the Scottish Health Technologies Group recommendations, published on 23 March 2023, and take steps to ensure that any woman who requires access to placental growth factor (PlGF) based tests as part of her maternity care can do so. We will continue to work with the Scottish Perinatal Network and will write to NHS Boards again in June to assess how implementation of PlGF testing is progressing.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-17748 on 18 May 2023. 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/questions-and-answers .

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to alter the Road Traffic Act 1988 to make it an offence not to stop and report an accident involving a cat.

Under Section 170 of the Act, a driver is required to stop and report an accident involving specified animals, including horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats or dogs, due to the their status as working animals rather than domestic pets. The Highway code however does advise drivers to report any accidents involving animals to the Police and that if possible they should make enquiries to ascertain the owner of domestic animals and advise them of the accident accordingly.

The Scottish Government's Code of Practice for the Welfare of Cats recommends that all cat owners should consider microchipping their pets as the best way of being reunited with their rightful owners should they be separated.

n line with the digital strategy for Scotland - A changing nation: how Scotland will thrive in a digital world , the Scottish Government is committed to the responsible use of data to transform the way that public authorities work together to reach some of the most vulnerable people in society and to improve services, increase efficiency and support delivery of the National Outcomes, set out in the National Performance Framework.

The Scottish Government is supporting data sharing across public services through implementation of Part 5 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 (the Act). The provisions enable data to be shared by specified public authorities for tightly defined purposes, to help them to deliver their responsibilities more effectively, while ensuring safeguards and protections are in place to prevent unlawful disclosure. As with any legislative framework, the Scottish Government is monitoring and reviewing implementation of the Act in Scotland.

The Scottish Government welcomes the findings of the Information Commissioner’s Office in The ICO’sreview into data sharing under the Digital Economy Act 2017 , published in March 2023. The report highlights that the Act provides a supporting framework for data sharing including robust safeguards that ensure organisations share data responsibly and in alignment with data protection principles, while also safeguarding people’s rights.

The UK Government is reviewing and consulting on the effectiveness of the debt and fraud data sharing powers in the Act. The Scottish Ministers have responded to the consultation in support of retaining the data sharing powers.

The information you have requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government as the management of debt is an issue for education authorities and their finance departments.

The Scottish Government is aware, however, that Glasgow City Council announced at the end of March that it would write off outstanding school meal debts at all schools under its management at a cost of around £300,000 to the council; City of Edinburgh Council cancelled £64,000 of outstanding school meal debts in August 2022 and, earlier this month, councillors at Midlothian Council announced they had cancelled all outstanding school meal debts in the area totalling around £32,000.

Local authorities also have the power to make discretionary offers of free school meals to families, where they are experiencing financial hardship due to exceptional circumstances, if they do not meet the regular eligibility criteria.

COSLA, working with partners from across Local Government, have developed a set of good practice principles for the management of school meal debt, which were published on 20 February 2023. The intended audience for these principles is local authority staff across a range of departments (including education, catering, finance and debt collection) as well as Head Teachers, class teachers and other school staff. The principles can be accessed through the following link: COSLA Publish Good Practice Principles for Managing School Meal Debt - 20th February 2023 | COSLA .

The Scottish Government does not hold this information and it is not collected by Public Health Scotland.

The Scottish Government welcomes the work of organisations like Coeliac UK who are already undertaking communications work to increase awareness and knowledge of coeliac disease. We supported their messaging on Coeliac awareness week by sharing their twitter campaign raising awareness of lesser-known symptoms of the disease.

NHSinform.scot provides clear and accessible information on Coeliac Disease including, symptoms, causes, diagnosis, and treatment.

Quasi-government agencies (quangos) are referred to as devolved national public bodies. There is no requirement to maintaining financial records of devolved national public bodies as far back as 1999, therefore, this information is not held centrally.

The national directory of all devolved national public bodies is in the public domain, and may be accessed in the following link. It provides information on Scottish Government funding for the current year, where applicable. It also provides links to the webpages containing published accounts for the various bodies.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-public-bodies-directory/pages/introduction/

The Scottish Government does not hold this information and it is not collected by Public Health Scotland.