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The Scottish Government is committed to improving planning and preparedness for any potential future pandemic.

We set out within our first one hundred days to establish a standing committee on pandemics, bringing together scientists and clinicians to advise us on the future risks and to ensure we are as prepared as it is possible to be. We have also committed to a comprehensive public inquiry and we will continue to work with local, regional and national partners to inform and improve pandemic planning and preparedness in Scotland.

Additionally, we continue to work closely with other UK nations to plan and prepare for a range of pandemic diseases.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01153 on 28 July 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) is the independent, regulatory body for the teaching profession and are responsible for the accreditation and approval of all Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes. They will only approve programmes which meet the requirements in their Guidelines for Accreditation of ITE Programmes. The Framework specifically asks how student teachers are supported to develop an understanding of a range of pedagogy approaches in a number of key areas. One of the key areas is health and wellbeing education.

ITE providers regularly meet to discuss the quality of their provision and, on 8 June, held a symposium covering health and wellbeing. The learning from this symposium will inform future revisions to programmes.

The Scottish Government only collects school pupil attendance and absence information every 2 years, so no data is available for 2017-18. In addition, the structure and format of data gathered in 2018-19, as well as some partial data gathered in 2019-20 (due to the Covid pandemic) does not enable the necessary analysis to be undertaken to answer this question.

For the 2020-21 school year, the Scottish Government does have daily attendance and absence data that would enable such analysis to be undertaken. However, this could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

However, information we do have in relation to school pupil attendance and absence can be found here

This information includes the attendance and absence rates over the course of the entire 2020-21 school year (when schools were open for all pupils to return from specific stages).

It shows that attendance generally started at around 95% when schools fully reopened after a lockdown (i.e. August 2020 and April 2021).

On any given day, more children and young people were not in school due to non-Covid reasons, and that most pupils not in school due to Covid-related reasons was due to pupils being required to self-isolate. The actual number of pupils who were absent due to having tested positive for Covid (or displaying Covid symptoms) was generally under 1,000 pupils (out of approximately 700,000 pupils) on any given day over the course of the entire 2020-21 school year.

No. Absence rates for pupils were never 50% or greater when schools were fully open for all pupils during the 2020/21 school year.

The Scottish Government have published information in relation to school pupil attendance and absence throughout the 2020/21 school year, which can be found here:

Since my appointment to the role of Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills I have had a number of introductory discussions with the Chief Examining Officer to develop my understanding of matters pertaining to the alternative certification model and to discuss issues being raised by stakeholders.

The meeting of 24 May informed my understanding of the ACM and the approach to 2021 appeals.

On the phone call of 3 June I discussed my priorities and the upcoming publication of the OECD review ahead of my Parliamentary Statement that day.

At the meeting of 24 June SQA were invited to share thoughts on the Reform of SQA and Education Scotland.

These meetings were informal and as a result no minutes were taken.

The Gateway Review team for the recent Gateway Review into Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme interviewed representatives of the following:

• Circularity Scotland Ltd
• Food and Drink Federation Scotland
• Lidl
• Scottish Environment Protection Agency
• Scottish Environmental Services Association and Suez
• Scottish Government
• Scottish Grocers’ Federation and G101 Stores
• Scottish Retail Consortium
• Scottish Wholesale Association
• Tesco
• Zero Waste Scotland

The Scottish Government does not have the information you require in a readily available format in order to answer this question. In order to answer your question would therefore incur disproportionate costs.

However, information we do have in relation to school pupil attendance and absence throughout the 2020/21 school year can be found here:

This information shows the attendance and absence rates over the course of the entire 2020/21 school year (when schools were open for all pupils to return from specific stages).

It shows that attendance generally started at around 95% when schools fully reopened after a lockdown (i.e. August 2020 and April 2021). However, attendance rates slowly fell throughout each term.

However, on any given day, more children and young people were not in school due to non-Covid reasons, and that most pupils not in school due to Covid-related reasons was due to pupils being required to self-isolate. The actual number of pupils who were absent due to having tested positive for Covid (or displaying Covid symptoms) was generally under 1,000 pupils (out of approximately 700,000 pupils) on any given day over the course of the entire school year.

While it is reassuring that, during a further national COVID-19 lockdown in Q1 2021, once a decision to treat was made, cancer patients in NHS Forth Valley waited on average four days for treatment. However, the 62 day standard remains challenged and while the overall aim is to recover cancer waiting times performance, our priority - as the NHS continues to remobilise - remains ensuring that vital services are delivered safely to patients based on their clinical priority.

To support the improvement of cancer waiting times, we are now releasing an additional £10 million non-recurring revenue funding across NHS Scotland, of which £545,000 has been made available to NHS Forth Valley.

Recovery and Redesign: An Action Plan for Cancer Services was published on 9 December 2020. The Plan will ensure patients have access to the best possible treatment and care and is monitored and overseen by the National Cancer Recovery Group.

The Scottish Government is in weekly contact with NHS Forth Valley to ensure that patients referred with an urgent suspicion of cancer are moved through the pathway as quickly as possible based on clinical priority and plans are underway to review the boards implementation of the Scottish Government Effective Cancer Management Framework.

The information requested regarding the number people who have been identified and contacted through the NHS Scotland Protect Scotland app at a local authority level is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.