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The Scottish Government stands with the international community in deep concern over the spiralling violence in Sudan.

We welcome the initial £5 million in life-saving aid announced by the UK Government but more must be done.

The Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, Europe and External Affairs has written to the Foreign Secretary to raise a number of issues in relation to the situation in Sudan. This included a call for everything possible to be done to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to vulnerable people in need. The content of this letter is available here: Protecting those fleeing violence in Sudan - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The Scottish Government stands with the international community in deep concern over the spiralling violence in Sudan.

The Scottish Government maintains a £1 million per year Humanitarian Emergency Fund (HEF). Decisions on which crises to respond to are made by the Scottish Ministers based on recommendations from the HEF Panel. This expert Panel is made up of eight representatives from leading humanitarian aid organisations in Scotland.

We are in contact with the Panel regarding the situation in Sudan and expect to provide further information on this in due course.

There were 905 general practices in Scotland at 1 April 2023( General practice list size and demographics information - General practice data - General practice - Our areas of work - Public Health Scotland ).

Council tax is a local tax, set and collected by each local authority, with every council financially and administratively accountable to their electorate. It is important that local authorities retain the tools to enforce the payment of council tax by those who have the means to pay but choose not to do so, whilst the Council Tax Reduction Scheme ensures nobody has to meet a council tax liability they cannot be expected to afford.

Scottish Ministers greatly value the selfless work carried out by all of the Scottish volunteer mountain rescue teams, who stand ready to help those in need of assistance, often in dangerous conditions, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. In recognition of that, the Scottish Government continues to provide annual grant funding via Scottish Mountain Rescue (SMR), to help all of the civilian mountain rescue teams, in Scotland, to carry out their essential work.

The annual grant funding provided helps maintain the individual volunteer teams, as well as their dogs, bases, vehicles and equipment, so that they are more sustainable going forward and available to Police Scotland whenever they are called upon. In 2022-23, despite the challenging fiscal context, the Scottish Government increased the amount of grant provided to SMR, to distribute to the teams, from £312,000 to £330,000 – an increase of around 5.8%. Grant funding for 2023/24 is scheduled to be paid before the end of June.

The Scottish Government is also responsive to important emerging needs and helps out SMR, financially and otherwise, whenever possible; in the 2021/22 financial year, for example, SG provided £70,000 towards replacement specialist stretchers and casualty bags. And from 2016-2019, collectively with other partners, raised over £1 million towards new VHF radio communication equipment, and assisted with advice on its procurement, towards a successful contract award.

In addition, the Scottish Government contributes funding to NHS Lothian’s Rivers Centre for Traumatic Stress, to deliver the Lifelines Scotland programme, which supports the mental health and wellbeing of volunteer emergency responders in Scotland, including mountain rescue volunteers. Scottish Government officials also work collaboratively with Police Scotland, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, and Scottish Mountain Rescue to help resolve any issues around search and rescue which arise from time to time.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) has confirmed that they are not aware of any reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete within the SPS estate.

Scotland’s National Innovation Strategy will be published on Friday 9 June, setting out our 10 year vision to make Scotland one of the most innovative small nations in the world.

The Strategy has been developed by the Scottish Government in close collaboration with industry, academia and the wider innovation ecosystem.

The current Leadership group of the Scottish AI Alliance is made up as follows –

Chair:

Catriona Campbell, Client Technology & Innovation Officer, EY UK&I (appointed as Chair - March 2023, appointed as Leadership Group member May 2021)

Senior Responsible Officers for Alliance partners:

Tom Wilkinson, Chief Data Officer, Scottish Government

Brian Hills, CEO, The Data Lab

Leadership Group Members:

Leadership Group Recruitment Process Details

The Leadership Group was recruited by a public application process, initially in April/May 2021. Four Leadership Group members stepped down at the end of their initial 2 year term in March 2023 whereas the remaining 7 members extended their tenure for another term. Four new Leadership Group members were appointed in March 2023. The application window for the most recent recruitment process was open from 7 November 2022 to 19 January 2023. We advised that we sought representation from a range of sectors and backgrounds, and would welcome perspectives from within Scotland and beyond. Four positions on the group were advertised and we received thirty two applications.

The assessment panel consisted of –

• Gillian Docherty OBE, CCO University of Strathclyde and inaugural Chair of the Scottish AI Alliance
• Tom Wilkinson, Chief Data Officer, Scottish Government
• Jeremy Darot, Head of AI, Scottish Government
• Steph Wright, Head of Scottish AI Alliance, The Data Lab

Nine of the thirty two applications were regarded as of a suitable high level to move to the next stage and these were considered by the panel in a review meeting on 26 th January, where the final recommendations were made. Given the level of consensus on the appointments it was agreed that no further assessment was required and the successful candidates were offered the posts.

Chair Recruitment

Due to the inaugural Chair, Gillian Docherty OBE, indicating that she will step down from the role at the end of her two year term in March 2023, the Alliance began discussions around about potential chair candidates in October 2022. They identified a shortlist of people to approach.

In January 2023 there were a number of informal interviews with the shortlisted candidates, and the unanimous decision of the panel was that Catriona Campbell was the most suitable candidate. She accepted the role and was announced in post on 28 th March 2023 by then Minister Ivan McKee at the Scottish AI Summit 2023.

The action was carried out and completed as part of the first 100 Days of the AI Strategy.

As reported in the 2021-22 State of AI Report we shared the following –

Capability Directory

The Scottish AI Alliance connected with ScotlandIS regarding their existing Data Capabilities Directory back during the First 100 Days. The Directory was recently refreshed. Another update took place in Autumn and the Support Circle team worked with the ScotlandIS team to ensure that AI capabilities are incorporated sufficiently into the directory. The Directory was also actively promoted by the Scottish AI Alliance to the AI community across Scotland and has been added to the Scotland’s AI Strategy website as a resource. Investigations of future format of the directory have started and there is potential for it to be incorporated in a larger piece of work in collaboration with the Scottish Tech Ecosystem Review (STER) and Digital Strategy teams at Scottish Government.

We will continue to monitor and contribute to this work as required.

Scottish Enterprise are in the process of commissioning a landscape review of AI businesses in Scotland. The database gathered by the review will be incorporated into the Scottish AI Playbook in due course. The review is currently being finalised and will be released in the coming weeks.

Following a fair and open recruitment exercise three successful candidates were selected by the DML recruitment panel. Two candidates subsequently withdrew their interest and pre-appointment checks are being completed for the remaining candidate.

A new recruitment exercise will be announced shortly to fill the remaining non-executive Director position on the Board.