³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Ministers regularly meet with local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships where a spectrum of issues are discussed. However, there have been no specific meetings at this stage to discuss the expansion of the Armed Forces Covenant into social care.

The Care Inspectorate takes account of any national policy change, where it is appropriate to do so, when carrying out its regulatory and inspection function. The forthcoming expansion of the Armed Forces Covenant would therefore be considered if it required an expansion of early learning and childcare.

Scottish Ministers are highly supportive of the aims of the Armed Forces Covenant and the commitment of organisations across Scotland to build enhanced support for the Armed Forces community and foster better integration between the community and the Armed Forces.

Officials have been in contact with MOD on the extension of the Covenant Duty and look forward to receiving more detail from UK Ministers and considering further in due course.

As part of the expansion of funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) to 1140 hours, local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure that there is a funded place available for all eligible children in their area.

Under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004, education authorities are responsible for identifying and meeting the additional support needs of children in ELC settings, which includes children from Armed Forces families.

In line with the we expect local authorities and settings to work together to support to support all children, including those with additional support needs, to access their funded ELC entitlement.

The Scottish Government remains committed to delivering the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant - that serving personnel and their families should face no disadvantage in accessing support and services in comparison to the civilian population as a result of their service.

Government officials have engaged with representatives of service families to understand their experience of living and working in Scotland, including access to childcare. At a local authority level, there has been particular engagement with Moray Council, to understand availability of childcare in the rural area around RAF Lossiemouth, and the impact this has on the ability to attract and retain service personnel.

This year, SG and MOD have participated in a short life working group convened by the local authority, which focuses on the school age childcare needs of all communities across Moray, identifying priorities for growth and development, test of change projects and community engagement. This has provided opportunity for the specific needs of service families to be heard and addressed.

More broadly, local authorities have statutory duties to consult and plan childcare provision locally in order to help them ensure the provision within their area reflects local needs, which would include the particular needs of service families. Scottish Government will be contacting local authorities in due course to set out planned changes to the Armed Forces Covenant and policies which will be impacted, including childcare.

The Scottish Government has not undertaken a risk assessment or evaluation of the liabilities of pharmacist independent prescribers who do not have read/write access to patient records. However, other organisations make clear the clinical and professional expectations required to support all prescribers, including pharmacist independent prescribers, to work safely and effectively.

All qualified pharmacist independent prescribers must adhere to robust policies, competency frameworks and requirements, as set out by Health Boards, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), the pharmacy regulator, and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), the professional leadership body. For every prescribing consultation, pharmacist independent prescribers must use their professional judgement and take into account the person’s best interests to decide whether they have the information they need to prescribe safely.

Disclosure Scotland’s fees are set by secondary legislation and do not provide for offering an expedited service at additional cost. This ensures that all customers receive the same level of service.

Disclosure Scotland’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) is to process 90% of applications within 14 days. For week commencing 6 October, the average processing time for all applications was 7.4 days with 97.46% of applications completed within 14 days.

Disclosure Scotland has historically exceeded its SLA of 90% of applications processed within 14 days. In 2023-2024, 95.3% of applications were completed within 14 days and in 2024-2025, 97.7% within 14 days.

A paid expedited service would not improve response times where applications are delayed due to further information being required from third parties.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

Disclosure Scotland is currently performing back within its service level agreement to process 90% of applications within 14 days.

Improvements have been made to the employer dashboard so that accredited bodies can check the processing status of an application without the need to contact Disclosure Scotland directly.

Disclosure Scotland regularly engages with customers to support them in understanding their rights and responsibilities in relation to disclosure and the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme. To stay up to date on changes at Disclosure Scotland, we encourage customers to sign up to our quarterly newsletter or read it on our website. We also provide workshops to assist organisations in understanding regulated roles, their duty to refer and the practical and legal processes involved in countersigning disclosure applications. Our dedicated Customer Engagement team is also available to provide one to one advice and support to organisations who need it.

In response to user feedback, Disclosure Scotland has improved its regulated roles guidance and developed specific guidance for parent-run groups, sports organisations and health services.

Volunteer Scotland Disclosure Services (VSDS) are funded by the Scottish Government to help voluntary sector organisations process applications and provide advice, guidance and training.

The Scottish Government will set out its approach to winter preparedness for 2025/26 in due course. This will include the publication of the planning document National Planning Priorities and Principles for Surge and Winter Preparedness in Health and Social Care.

Improving uptake in this group is a key focus for Ministers and for the Scottish Vaccination & Immunisation Programme (SVIP). By improving vaccination in this group, staff are protected, onward transmission to colleagues and patients is reduced, all of which contributes to the resilience of Scotland’s health care services.

A range of steps are being taken this winter to encourage Health and Social Care staff to take up the offer of the flu vaccine. Public Health Scotland’s campaign “For some, flu hits harder” is being highly targeted at lower uptake groups including health and social care workers. Health Boards are running specific staff engagement sessions and actively promoting vaccination eligibility and information on how to receive the vaccine via staff intranet sites and social media channels. Boards are also championing vaccination uptake through senior leadership forums and staff briefings across the health care sector. Most Boards are also using dedicated flu champions to promote vaccination locally and case study videos, using health care workers, are in development, aimed at sharing their personal and/or professional experience on the importance of the flu vaccination programme. Digital prompts have been sent to health and social care workers via SMS and email to encourage them to book appointments, and most Health Boards plan to hold drop-in clinics for health and social care workers at convenient, flexible and easy to access locations. An expansion of peer-to-peer vaccination programmes is taking place across different health and social care sites within Health Boards.

Health Boards will ensure that all eligible adults are given the opportunity to receive their COVID-19 and flu vaccinations by Sunday 7 December 2025. This is to ensure that as many eligible individuals as possible are vaccinated at least 2 weeks prior to the beginning of the festive travel period (weekend of 20 & 21 December) and in advance of the peak of the flu season.

We recognise that not everyone will be able to be vaccinated by that point, and the COVID-19 vaccination programme will run until 31 January 2026 and the flu vaccination programme will run until 29 March 2026.