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The Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Programme Board concluded as planned in March 2023, having overseen the development of a range of high quality statutory services and increase in third sector provision across Scotland.

Implementation continues with an interim Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Advisory Group supporting further development of services in a sustainable manner, working alongside the Perinatal Mental Health Network Scotland.

New oversight arrangements are under development and will be announced in due course. We will ensure that the voices and experiences of women, infants and their families remain at the heart of this work.

In March 2022, the Scottish Government agreed that the Delivering Equally Safe (DES) funding period should be extended by 18 months beyond September 2023, to allow suitable lead in time for a new funding model to be developed, following the conclusion of the Independent Strategic Funding Review.

The Scottish Government established the Independent Strategic Review of Funding and Commissioning of violence against women and girls services to develop a new funding model to ensure victims have access to high-quality, accessible specialist support.

A first release of Official Statistics on Winter Heating Payment will be published on 6 June 2023. This will provide information on Winter Heating Payment, including the number of eligible clients and number of payments issued, up to 30 April 2023.

The Official Statistics for Winter Heating Payment can be found at: https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/about/statistics/social-security-scotland-statistics-publications

Scottish Government Ministers and officials meet regularly with a wide range of stakeholders, including the Royal College of Anaesthetists, to discuss areas of mutual interest.

Final discussions and amendments of the new cancer strategy have been taking place with officials. We intend to publish the Strategy in mid to late June.

The Scottish Government fully recognise that the A77 plays a vital role in supporting the local economy through facilitating the movement of goods, connecting people to employment and education opportunities, as well as providing businesses with access to the labour market. The second Strategic Transport Projects Review recommended that improvements are made on the A77, which would increase connectivity through reduced journey times and increased resilience associated with improved safety. All of which is anticipated to have a positive impact in terms of promoting inclusive growth.

The Scottish Government recognises the strategic and economic importance of the A77 Trunk Road which was reflected in publication of second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) in December 2022. Under recommendation 40, safety, resilience and reliability improvements are to be made on the A77 strategic road corridor. This could include, but is not limited to, enhancing overtaking opportunities, widening or realigning carriageways and improving junctions.

In January 2022, resurfacing and lining works were completed at Dutchhouse roundabout. Whilst there are no current minor improvement schemes planned for the Whitletts or Dutch House Roundabouts at the moment, through our ongoing maintenance of the A77, a resurfacing scheme for the A77 Whitletts roundabout including new Intelligent road studs is currently planned for the 2024-25 financial year.

Transport Scotland is preparing to undertake an evaluation of the A77 Maybole Bypass Project which opened to traffic on 31 January 2022. The evaluation will be undertaken in line with Scottish Trunk Road Infrastructure Project Evaluation (STRIPE) Guidance, comparing conditions one year after (1YA) opening with forecasts of the impacts made during project design and development. The evaluation will consider scheme objectives; operation, including traffic flows and journey times, environment; safety; economy; integration; accessibility and social inclusion and cost to government. Transport Scotland is aiming to complete this work and publish the evaluation report on Transport Scotland’s website by March 2024.

We welcome the focus on perinatal support in the report from the Maternal Mental Health Alliance. Development of perinatal mental health services is a key priority for the Scottish Government to improve the wellbeing and experiences of women, infants and families.

Since 2019, our investment of over £26 million has delivered a substantial increase in statutory and third sector services across Scotland leading to:

o 11 new and 3 expanded Community Perinatal Mental Health Teams

o 10 new and 4 in development Infant Mental Health Services

o 9 new and 1 expanded Maternity and Neonatal Psychological Intervention Services

During this period of significant expansion, some NHS Boards have understandably experienced a number of challenges including around recruitment. The Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Service Development Adviser is regularly in contact with identified NHS leads to help identify and tackle such issues; and we continue to work closely with the Network to look at additional ways to put support in place.

The Scottish Government is committed to continuing to work with NHS boards to support them in managing their allocations and the successful implementation of perinatal and infant mental health services.

The next set of results for the SCJS will be published in Autumn 2023. These results will cover a full years' worth of interviews through to December 2022.

Along with the other large household surveys that rely on face-to-face interviews, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) was suspended in March 2020 to restrict social contact during the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, no SCJS interviews were conducted during 2020-21 and no report will be published for that year. In recognition of the evidence gap opened up by the suspension, the Scottish Government introduced the Scottish Victimisation Telephone Survey as a discrete and additional collection to the SCJS. This asked people about their experiences and perceptions of crime, safety and policing during the COVID-19 pandemic, with findings available at: Coronavirus (COVID-19): Scottish Victimisation Telephone Survey 2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . Fieldwork for the SCJS resumed in late 2021.