Chamber and committees

The term ‘malnutrition’ can be used to mean a range of different conditions. The definition used here comprises a specific group of diagnoses which would be used to identify cases of protein/energy malnutrition (ICD-10 codes E40-E46 only).

The number of patients admitted to hospital as a result of malnutrition in each of the last 10 years, broken down by age, is as follows:

Scottish Ministers recognise that Atlantic salmon returning to Scottish rivers have been declining and that predation is a complex pressure impacting on the species. That is why the Scottish Government continues to support research into non-lethal solutions to address seal-salmon interactions in rivers. The accompanying Implementation Plan to our Wild Salmon Strategy was published in February 2023 which sets out the collective actions to be taken across government, business and charitable sectors for the protection of wild Atlantic salmon.

Licences to kill or take seals can be granted under Part 6 of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. Marine Directorate – Licensing Operations Team (MD-LOT) determine such licence applications on behalf of the Scottish Ministers. Licences may besought in some circumstances to conserve seals or other wild animals (including wild birds) or plants. One instance in which an application would be considered is the conservation of wild Atlantic salmon.

MD-LOT consider applications on a case-by-case basis, based on information submitted by the applicant and input from consultees. Where sufficient evidence is provided to justify the need to kill or take a seal, for the conservation of wild Atlantic salmon in a particular location, a licence may be granted.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. However, it is published annually by Public Health Services (PHS) in their ‘Scottish Health Service Costs’ report. The NHSScotland and Board level data from 19-20 to 21-22 can be viewed online at: Scottish health service costs - High-level costs summary 2021 to 2022 - Scottish health service costs - Publications - Public Health Scotland .

Data from 2012 – 18-19 can be viewed online at: Latest Publications | ISD Scotland (under the topic: ‘Finance’).

The Scottish Government will publish a dedicated self-harm strategy and action plan by the end of 2023, with the aim of ensuring people who self-harm, or who are at risk of self-harming, receive effective and compassionate support. This builds on our investment of £1.5m (since 2021) in the Self-harm Network Scotland , which is showing positive outcomes in supporting people who self-harm and those who care for them.

Research evidence, including insights from people with lived experience, confirms that often people who self-harm do not seek support from statutory services. We also know that for many people who attend hospital for self-harm treatment will not need to be admitted. Furthermore, there are differences in recording practices between clinicians and Health Boards. These factors mean the data on self-harm admission in hospitals is currently incomplete and unreliable, and for these reasons the data on self-harm received by Public Health Scotland from inpatient and emergency care settings is not routinely published.

Addressing these data issues will be a key priority in our self-harm strategy and a priority of the action plan will be to review, and improve data, including in hospital settings, to drive improvements in support and service responses for people who self-harm.

This information is not held centrally and relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court and Tribunals Service (SCTS) corporate body.

The SCTS have provided the following table detailing how many orders of destruction were issued by the courts. However, they don’t hold records of how many dogs were then subsequently “destroyed”. Following an order being issued by the court, appeals and other protocols can occur. Once the order is issued SCTS do not find out the outcome of whether the dog was destroyed or not, the specific information is not held by SCTS.

Destruction orders issued under both the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 at Scottish Courts

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. Public Health Scotland (PHS) monitors and publishes weekly prevalence and surveillance management information data on laboratory confirmed reports of norovirus. All published reports can be found here .

PHS also publish a dashboard by board detailing the number of hospitals and wards closed due to norovirus. The latest dashboard can be found here .

The number of Full-time Equivalent (FTE) Secondary Teachers with Music, Drama or Art as their main subject taught, broken down by local authority, is shown in Table A. FTE teacher numbers with Science as the main subject taught are shown in Table B. Science includes the following subjects: Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Science (general).

Teacher FTE numbers for individual subjects in Secondary schools are published in Table 8.9 in the annual Teacher Census Supplementary statistics available from https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/ .

Table A: Secondary school teachers (FTE) with Art & Design, Music or Drama as main subject taught by local authority [Note 1][Note 2]

The Scottish Government receives correspondence on a wide variety of topics. However, our Correspondent Management System does not offer a feature in which most-common subjects can be viewed.

The information requested relates to Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) data and is not held by the Scottish Government.

SQA has advised that it does not collect candidate type data. However it does collect centre type data, which includes “HM Prisons” and they have provided this as set out in the table which has been placed in The Scottish Parliament Information Centre Bib number 64623. Certifications contained within the table may relate to prisoners, prison officers or any other person entered by the prison service.

It remains an unwelcome reality that our communities experience health, quality of life and even life expectancy differently across our society. Increasing healthy life expectancy and reducing health inequalities across Scotland remains a clear ambition for the Scottish Government.

We know that deprivation is a significant driver of excess mortality and so reducing poverty and inequality sits at the heart of our investment across all portfolios, and remains the best way of improving life expectancy. In 2022-23, we invested £3bn across a range of programmes targeted at low income households, with £1.25bn directly benefitting children. We increased the Scottish Child Payment to £25 per eligible child per week – an increase of 150% in less than a year - and expanded the payment to all eligible children under the age of 16.

We have Community Link Workers and Welfare Rights Advisers embedded into 180 GP practices within our rural, island and deprived communities; who offer advice to patients regarding social security eligibility, debt resolution, housing and employability issues. We are also progressing a range of action to reduce population level health harming activities across tobacco control, preventing and treating alcohol related harm, improving the food environment to enable healthy weight, and improving physical activity.

We will continue to work with our partners to understand what is needed at a national and regional level to support local, preventative action to drive improvements in health, and embed health considerations within wider policy making.