The previous Scottish Veterans Commissioner highlighted the importance of improving the transition process for Early Service Leavers in his Positive Futures reports on transition in Scotland.

Much of the transition process is reserved; however, we have taken action to support this where we can. Our refreshed Veterans Strategy Action Plan refocussed the extensive services and support that the Scottish Government and our partners provide to all veterans, including Early Service Leavers.

We have also more than doubled the amount of funding provided through the Scottish Veterans Fund from £200,000 per annum to £500,000 and have included projects which offer support to Early Service Leavers as a priority category that the fund supports. Last year, nearly £100,000 was awarded to projects specifically offering support to these veterans.

This Scottish Government has consistently championed our Veterans being the first Devolved Administration in the UK to create a Veterans Ministerial portfolio and the first nation in the UK to establish a Veterans Commissioner.

In August, we published our refreshed Veterans Strategy Action Plan in which we reaffirmed our longstanding commitment to our veterans, taking stock of the extensive services and support that the Scottish Government and our partners provide. This was informed by a light-touch consultation with key stakeholders to review our original action plan, first published in 2020, to establish the extent to which our existing commitments remained valid and where there were opportunities to add more detail to these commitments or add new ones. We identified a number of new commitments and updated several existing ones which will help us to better deliver and expand our support to our veterans and their families.

Furthermore, on 8 November I provided the Scottish Government’s annual update to Parliament on its support for the veterans and Armed Forces community. This was accompanied by a published written report which details fully the achievements we have made this year in delivering the commitments we have made to veterans and their families.

The Scottish Veterans Commissioner (SVC) also published her annual assessment of the Scottish Government’s progress against the recommendations made by the Commissioners since 2015. The SVC published this year’s progress report on 16 November which demonstrated good progress against recommendations made since 2015.

The Scottish Government places great importance on leisure facilities and recognises the significant challenges that are facing operators such as leisure trusts, particularly with swimming pools, as increased operational costs continues to put pressure on their operations.

I recently met with members of Community Leisure UK to discuss the issues facing the leisure and culture trusts in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has increased the local government funding by over £1 billion in 2022-23, a real terms increase of 6.3 per cent, despite a 5.2 per cent real terms reduction in the overall Scottish Budget. It is the responsibility of the individual local authorities to provide leisure facilities, including swimming pools, and local authorities are independent corporate bodies with their own power and responsibilities and are entirely separate from the Scottish Government. Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial recourses available to them, including on swimming pools, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government will continue to make the case for the UK Government to do more to protect our public services.

The Scottish Government has no plans to develop a strategic housing land availability assessment (SHLAA) for Scotland. SHLAA is part of the English planning system for housing, as expected by the English National Planning Policy Framework.

Scotland has its own planning policy and processes relating to housing. The Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 and National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) set out new processes for Local Development Plans (LDPs) and policy for new homes in Scotland.

Our Revised Draft NPF4, if approved by the Scottish Parliament, will expect deliverable land to be allocated to meet the 10 year Local Housing Land Requirement in locations that create quality places for people to live. In addition, areas that may be suitable for new homes beyond 10 years are also to be identified. LDP delivery programmes will be expected to establish a housing land pipeline for the Local Housing Land Requirement. The annual housing land audit will sit alongside the delivery programme and will monitor the delivery of housing land.

Draft LDP Guidance has been consulted on, and is in the process of being finalised. This will include further information on how NPF4 housing policy is implemented in LDPs. We will provide updated guidance on housing land audits to support NPF4 housing policy.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11301 on 21 October 2022. 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/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government’s 2021-22 Programme for Government committed to securing improved opportunities for veterans, ensuring that those who have been willing to risk their lives in the service of the nation can access good jobs once their time in the military is over. These include more opportunities for veterans to work for the Scottish Government and a campaign working with the business community to help employers understand the benefits that veterans bring to the workforce, to help increase employment opportunities for veterans. This campaign will launch early next year.

In addition, this year the Scottish Government commissioned See Me to develop a public awareness campaign to tackle the stigma associated with veterans mental health and encourage veterans in Scotland to speak up about mental health and get help when they need it. The campaign, known as The Guard, launched in late November.

We have expanded our Single Building Assessment programme to more than 100 buildings which will be assessed as part of the expanded pilot programme. We are in contact with the representatives of those buildings to plan next steps. Twenty-one of those buildings currently have ongoing active assessments.

The Scottish Government has no direct role in placement of students in accommodation or in the provision of student accommodation, whether that is university halls of residence, private purpose built student accommodation (PBSA) or private rented tenancies .

As such we do not hold information in respect of student accommodation buildings. The statistical information held in respect of new build starts and completions does not capture anything specifically on student accommodation.

The requested information on what percentage of NHS staff have been (a) full- and (b) part-time in each year since 1999 is not centrally held. Information on how many NHS Scotland Staff currently in post, broken down by (a) full time and (b) part-time in each year since 2012 can be found in the following link:

NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

As at 1 st October 2021, there were 922 GP Practices. This data was published on 14 th December 2021 – ( GP Workforce and practice list sizes 2011 - 2021 - Publications - Public Health Scotland ).

The Scottish Government does not hold figures for how many GP Practices have closed. However, the slight decrease in practice numbers shown in the report is largely driven by practice mergers and a trend towards larger practices with more GPs serving a larger number of patients.