International students have a positive economic impact. We want to attract and retain international students in Scotland. While immigration is a reserved matter, the Scottish Government is committed to working closely with the UK Government to make a positive difference. Student sponsor licences are arranged between colleges and the Home Office directly. We have had multiple engagements with the UK Government regarding the Immigration System following the change of UK Government last July.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water has already published this data at https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/Your-Home/Your-Waste-Water/Overflows/Live-Overflow-Map.

Currently, data from around 1,100 overflow monitor locations is included on the overflow map. As additional monitors are installed and data from these is checked, more monitor locations are added to the overflow map.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water has already taken action and made commitments to improve the sewer network under its improving urban waters routemap, published in December 2021 at https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/About-Us/What-We-Do/Urban-Waters-Routemap. The routemap set out how Scottish Water will invest to:

• improve water quality (to support Scotland’s River Basin Management Plan objectives)
• increase monitoring and reporting to cover all overflows that discharge into the highest priority waters
• significantly reduce sewer-related debris in the environment
• reduce spills from the sewer network

The Scottish Government regularly engages with the National Energy System Operator (NESO) and the UK Government in relation to the actions set out in the Clean Power Action Plan, as well as the development of the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP), which will set out a long-term view of what energy sources are needed to reach net zero, and their most optimal locations across Great Britain (GB) on a zonal basis.

NESO modelling was a contributing factor to the development of the technology capacity scenarios set out in the Action Plan which includes an outline of GB-wide measures to support the development of energy storage.

Rather than deploying permanent monitoring, which is the common approach for water companies in England, Scottish Water has taken an outcomes focussed approach by carrying out comprehensive Scotland-wide environmental modelling (in partnership with SEPA) to assess the impacts of its assets on water quality during the 2015 to 2021 investment period.

The models which Scottish Water developed allowed it to understand when CSOs will spill, under what rainfall conditions these spills occur and the impact these will have on the environment. This work has allowed Scottish Water and SEPA to prioritise environmental focus and Scottish Water to target its investments accordingly. Adopting this approach has seen consistent improvement in Scotland’s water quality with 87% of all waterbodies meeting Good Status or beyond and 97% of bathing waters meeting or exceeding minimum standards as assessed by SEPA.

In addition to the progress made in improving water quality, Scottish Water recognised the need for more transparency in overflow operation and set out the commitment to install more monitors and to publish the data from these in its Improving Urban Waters routemap.

We recognise that staff are NHS Scotland’s greatest asset. We cannot provide the services that people need and deserve, and put in place improvements in performance without highly qualified, skilled and motivated healthcare staff. This pay offer represents an investment that recognises the value we continue to place on our NHS staff.

The £191 million quoted in the press is the estimated cost to NHS Scotland of the increase in national insurance contributions announced by the UK Government in October 2024. The estimated costs of the two year pay offer the Scottish Government recently made to Agenda for Change staff working in NHS Scotland is a £701 million investment.

It is recognised that workforce and pay costs driven by a period of prolonged high inflation are now contributing to significant budget pressures across health and social care, the wider Scottish Government budget and the whole of the public sector. This Government has been clear that the extent of challenges will not be addressed in a single year and we will continue to make the tough choices necessary to support sustainable public finances, whilst also seeking to minimise the impact on frontline services as far as possible.

Work by the Fraser of Allander Institute in 2023 estimated that in 2021 Scotland’s renewable energy industry and supply chain supported over 42,000 full time equivalent (FTE) jobs across the Scottish economy.

Of these, around 16,800 FTE jobs were associated with the supply chains of renewable energy companies.

The Scottish Government provided a response to the Commission regarding their recommendations and our proposed actions in October 2023. An update on those actions undertaken since then and still ongoing is provided for each recommendation.

Recommendation 1 The purpose of the SHORE standards should be to ensure that everyone has suitable accommodation to go to on the day that they are released from custody. The gap in these standards should be addressed by the Scottish Government in its review of these standards.

The SHORE standards were refreshed in November 2024 and now include an action plan which sets out areas of future strategic developments. A more thorough review of the SHORE standards, which may include the potential to develop further guidance relating to individuals who are released from remand or direct from court, as well as from police custody, is planned to be completed by the end of 2025.

Further to this, the Housing (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament in March 2024 and proposes new homelessness prevention duties, including new ‘ask and act’ duties for named relevant bodies. Relevant bodies which are listed in the Bill, include Scottish Ministers in as far as their functions extend to the Scottish Prison Service, and Police Scotland.

The prevention of homelessness duties are based on principles that prevention should be a shared public responsibility and that there should be earlier intervention across systems. By intervening at an earlier stage, and encouraging services to work together to respond to people’s needs, we can ensure fewer people and families are faced with having to rebuild lives affected by homelessness.

Recommendation 2 The Scottish Government and Community Justice Scotland should address the recognised gap for ‘Throughcare’ services for prisoners on remand.

A new national voluntary throughcare service, Upside, launched on 1 April 2025, replacing the throughcare services provided by Shine and New Routes Public Social Partnerships (PSPs). The PSP services provided support to women leaving short sentences and period of remand, and men leaving short sentences. Men on remand were not eligible for throughcare support under the PSP service. The new Upside service addresses this gap with support for women available now and support for men commencing in the summer.

In addition to this, Sections 25 to 27 of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 already sets out a duty on local authorities (with the co-operation and assistance of Health Boards) to provide services for people who are not in hospital and who have or have had a mental disorder. These duties cover people who are in prison or recently released from prison although we acknowledge that there may be practical barriers to the use of these provisions for these people. The services include care and support as well as services which are designed to promote the well-being and social development of the people they are provided for.

The Scottish Mental Health Law Review has recommended that the existing duties on NHS Boards, Local Authorities, and integration authorities to secure care and support, including accommodation, for people with past or present experience of mental illness or intellectual disability be strengthened and broadened. We are addressing this through the Mental Health and Capacity Reform Programme.

Recommendation 3 The Scottish Government and Community Justice Scotland should consider innovative joint working/multiagency practices with NHS/social care/social work/Forensic Network to pilot a post-custody outreach service.

We recognise the importance of support for individuals on release from custody. While we are not currently pursuing a pilot on post-custody outreach, we are improving support for these individuals by introducing a new national voluntary throughcare service, Upside, which offers one-to-one support for men and women leaving short sentences and periods of remand. This service, which launched on 1 April 2025, will assist people with the immediate challenges they face post-custody, including accessing housing, healthcare and social security, while also linking them to the wider support services they may require, such as mental health or substance use services.

In addition to this, through the Getting It Right For Everyone (GIRFE) model, we are supporting Health Boards to provide a package of care and support in a joined-up, holistic manner across various services and agencies. This will also support people with their needs on release from prison.

Recommendation 4The Scottish Government’s national mental health workforce strategy should take full account of the individual impact of lack of continuity of care as highlighted in Mr TU’s case relating to recruitment and retention of consultant psychiatrists/senior medical staff in health boards.

As committed to within the Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan we are working closely with leaders in the Psychiatry profession to address the challenges they are currently facing and the Psychiatry Recruitment and Retention Working Group are currently working towards producing a series of recommendations which will be presented to Ministers in Spring 2025.

Whilst the working group has been ongoing, the Scottish Government has worked in partnership with the profession on a range of measures to support recruitment and retention in psychiatry. This has included funding and supporting recruitment stands at the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) international congress events (2023 and 2024); working with NHS Education for Scotland (NES) colleagues on improvements to psychiatry webpages to increase engagement and on the promotion of vacancies; ensuring that the specific challenges facing psychiatry were considered by the Medical Locums Task and Finish Group and; supporting the Centre for Workforce Supply (CWS) in their direct work with NHS Health Boards to address challenges in filling vacancies and on the promotion of careers in Scotland.

We also continue to work with NES and the RCPsych to encourage medical students to consider a long-term career as a psychiatrist. This work includes the ‘Choose Psychiatry’ campaign, undergraduate taster sessions and improved psychiatric placements at Foundation level. Recruitment into Core Psychiatry has improved drastically in recent years, with the exception of one unfilled post in 2020, 100% of entry level posts have now been filled for the fourth consecutive year (up from 63% in 2018).

Recommendation 5 There should be additional investment in resources for outreach for complex co-occurring mental health/substance misuse issues particularly where this is associated with the risk of violence.

In line with the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and the National Mission, work is underway to improve the integration between mental health and substance use recovery services, and to develop and deliver person-centred approaches. The National Mission is supported by an investment of £250 million over the life of this Parliament to improve accessibility and quality of treatment and support, including outreach support. This includes work with services to improve care for people with co-occurring mental health and substance use difficulties, working towards the full implementation of Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) 9, and delivery of commitments made in response to the Rapid Review into Mental Health and Substance Use Services.

MAT Standard 9 states that All people with co-occurring drug use and mental health difficulties can receive mental health care at the point of MAT delivery. In the latest Benchmarking Report published in July 2024 for MAT standards 6–10, 91% were assessed as RAGB provisional green (evidence that implementation was beginning).

The National Mental Health and Substance Use Protocol was published in September 2024. The protocol outlines how mental health and substance use services can work better together to deliver a whole systems approach. Implementation of the protocol will ensure every area has access to a high-quality document on which to base their own protocol. By implementing the exemplar protocol, local areas will also be implementing MAT 9 (mental health support when accessing MAT).

Recommendation 6 The Scottish Government should work with services to implement the three day follow up post discharge standard to bring it in line with National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health (NCISH) recommendations (72 hours).

Our work to embed NCISH recommendations across NHS boards focuses on translating evidence and experience into tangible learning and change. A staged, quality assured and data/experience driven approach to developing and testing improvement, will be key to supporting change and ensuring safety.

Over the last year, we have worked to raise awareness of NCISH recommendations and the NCISH safer services toolkit with mental health and mental health unscheduled care leads in NHS Boards. More specifically, we have supported focused improvement work to implement NCISH recommendations in a small number of NHS Board areas. This work included:

• Developing an implementation plan for agreed priority recommendations selected by participating NHS Boards (initially around risk management and carer involvement);
• Establishing connections with Healthcare Improvement Scotland and Scottish Patient Safety Programme;
• Establishing regular learning sessions with NHS Board areas to ensure momentum and provide peer support; and
• Sharing learning through NHS Mental Health Unscheduled Care and Mental Health Lead Network

Over the coming year we will be working to develop and implement a plan to produce a national improvement resource, focusing on risk management and family and carer involvement. We will also take every opportunity to raise awareness of the insights and learning from the NCISH resources, encouraging NHS boards to consider how they can use the recommendations to improve practice in a range of areas, including the 72 hour follow up.

This is an operational matter for Skills Development Scotland. I have asked the Chief Executive of SDS, Damien Yeates to write to you with details of how many full-time equivalent staff are currently employed to support the Green Jobs Workforce Academy.

The Scottish Government’s immediate priority is to identify and attract investors that will seek to progress the outputs of Project Willow and other such propositions across the industrial cluster to ensure a sustainable future for industry in Grangemouth. The public sector has a critical role to play in accelerating the buildout of new technologies at Grangemouth which is why we have established a £25 million Grangemouth Just Transition Fund to catalyse private sector investment.

We will continue to engage with business, the workforce and the community to ensure that the Scottish Government’s support meets their needs.

The scale of investment required to transform Grangemouth is vast and will require the UK Government to contribute its fair share. The UK Government has promised £200 million from within the National Wealth Fund to ensure that any gap between the cessation of refining and the phasing in of new projects is as brief as possible, and the process for identifying projects is continuing at pace.