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As stated in the Programme for Government commitment, 40 Community Link Workers were appointed in 2017 and were placed in practices in Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Inverclyde and North Ayrshire. In total we now have 53 Community Links Workers in post.

From April 2018 Health and Social Care Partnerships will have responsibility for allocating funding for the Community Link Workers.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

In December 2017, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, commissioned by the Scottish Government, published the first Healthcare and Forensic Medical Services Standards for people who have experienced rape, sexual assault or child sexual abuse. These standards will ensure consistency in approach and high-quality care across Scotland.

Standard 3 states that each NHS board ensures that the facilities and equipment for forensic examinations are appropriate, safe and effectively managed. This includes a criteria that forensic examinations take place in facilities that are located in health or designated multi-agency settings with health and social care facilities. Standard 5 requires that the details of the examination are recorded using consistent documentation and data collection. The standards can be accessed here:

The Scottish Government has established a Taskforce for the improvement of services for adults and children who have experienced rape and sexual assault, chaired by the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland. As set out in the Taskforce’s five year work plan, an early priority is to support health boards to have the equipment they need and to move any forensic medical examination facilities from police settings to health and social care settings. The Taskforce’s 5 year work plan can be accessed here:

The Scottish Government will provide £250k in 2017-18 and £2.0m in 2018-19 to support Health Boards to embed the new standards and support delivery of the work plan.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

In December 2017 Healthcare Improvement Scotland, commissioned by the Scottish Government, published the first Healthcare and Forensic Medical Services Standards for people who have experienced rape, sexual assault or child sexual abuse. These standards will ensure consistency in approach and high-quality care across Scotland.

Standard 2 is focused on NHS boards providing person centred and trauma informed care – this includes providing people with the opportunity to request the gender of the forensic examiner who will be involved in their care.

The standards can be accessed here: .

The Scottish Government has established a Taskforce for the improvement of services for adults and children who have experienced rape and sexual assault, chaired by the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland. As set out in the Taskforce’s five year work plan, key priorities include increasing the number of (particularly female) forensic physicians who are able to carry out this work, as well as on ensuring consistent, national data collection (Standard 5 of the national standards). The Taskforce’s 5 year work plan can be accessed here: ��

The Scottish Government will provide £250k in 2017-18 and £2.0m in 2018-19 to support Health Boards to embed the new standards and support delivery of the work plan.

The Scottish Government has led the rest of the UK by setting a minimum standard of hospital food, and we expect our NHS boards to meet those standards. We are committed to spending the right amount on meals for NHS patients, and any fluctuations in the cost of providing a meal to a patient does not mean one health board is providing lower quality food than another. Some boards may show a lower level of spending than others, which can be due to a number of factors including lower-cost ingredients of locally sourced products, economies of scale and other efficiency savings.

I am aware of the situation at Thornwood Primary school and the Director of Education has plans in place to address this, to ensure continuity of children's learning is maintained.

I know that recruitment of teachers is currently a challenge for some local authorities and the Scottish Government is taking a range of actions.

We have:

• committed £88m this year to make sure every school has access to the right number of teachers with the right skills;

• provided support to universities in developing new innovative routes into teaching;

• recently announced STEM bursaries of £20,000 for career changers to train to become teachers of priority STEM subjects, which includes maths, starting in August 2018;

• launched the second phase of our “Teaching Makes People” recruitment campaign on 30 August and

• created a new route into teaching specifically designed to attract high quality graduates in priority areas and subjects. The tender exercise for this closed on 16 November and the evaluation process will commence shortly.

We work very closely with education authorities in the future planning and improvement of Scotland’s school estate – and over the past seven years we has seen 449 schools built or substantially refurbished. This work is underpinned by our £1.8 billion Scotland's Schools for the Future Programme, which will see the construction of 117 new schools and benefit some 60,000 pupils by March 2020.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

SPS has worked in partnership with Respectme, Scotland’s anti-bullying service, to update the organisation’s approach to bullying in prisons throughout 2017. The resulting strategy, ‘Think Twice’, details how to address and support individuals who are displaying or are victims of such behaviour.

SPS is currently developing an associated training and awareness package to ensure Think Twice is successfully implemented across all prisons in Scotland, with plans in place to launch the policy in early 2018.

We welcomed this report from the Care Inspectorate, which builds on our existing evidence base and highlights a number of positive findings in relation to fostering in Scotland. For example, the report states that the number of fostering households in Scotland has in fact increased during 2016. Although this is a slight overall increase from 2015, I acknowledge that the report highlights a need for more foster carers.

Local Authorities are responsible for recruiting sufficient foster families within their areas to meet the needs of children and young people who come into their care. The Scottish Government provides support funding through the Local Government Settlement and through the Children Young People and Families Early Intervention Fund we support The Fostering Network who run the annual 'Foster Care Fortnight' campaign to raise awareness about foster caring and recruit new carers.

The independent Care Review - being led by children with experience of care - is looking at Scotland’s underpinning legislation, practice and culture to identify where policies need to be improved. I would emphasise that foster care of the highest standard is provided Scotland-wide by 59 local authority and independent providers who are collectively responsible for recruiting and training sufficient foster carers to meet the needs of the children who come into their care.