Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government publish Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics. In the latest publication, supplementary table 19 details the Tonnage and value of landings by foreign vessels into Scotland by main species 2018 to 2022. See Supporting documents - Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The civil service that supports Scottish Ministers is structured into eight Director-General areas, each containing a number of directorates and related public bodes which are responsible for proposing legislation and putting Scottish Government policy into practice.

Directors General are referred to within our governance processes as the accountable officers (AOs). They are accountable to Parliament for the duties given to them by the Permanent Secretary as the Principal Accountable Officer, and participate across the corporate governance system.

Each Director General and their accountabilities align to Cabinet Secretary and Ministerial portfolios to enable oversight and leadership for their respective Ministerial responsibilities.

These Directors General and their Directorates are all part of the Scottish Government organisation, referred to as core Scottish Government, that operates as a single employer. This structuring allows for the more flexible deployment of resources across portfolios to respond quickly and efficiently to Ministerial priorities and external events. It also supports the wider approach set out within the National Performance Framework, to focus the organisation on working and leading collectively to improve the National Outcomes for the people of Scotland.

Further details of the government structures can be found on the Scottish Government website Government structure - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The introduction of Air Departure Tax (ADT) was deferred due to state aid issues raised in relation to replicating the existing Highlands and Islands exemption that currently exists under Air Passenger Duty. As of January 2023, Scottish Ministers have a responsibility to ensure all subsidies – including tax exemptions – comply with the UK Government’s subsidy control regime introduced in the Subsidy Control Act 2022.

A referral to the Subsidy Advice Unit at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is necessary where a subsidy has a greater potential to lead to undue distortion and negative effects on competition or investment within the UK, or on international trade or investment. The Scottish Government has not yet had any specific discussions with the CMA regarding a future referral of a prospective Highland and Islands exemption but has had high-level discussions regarding the process through which a referral could be made. Prior to introducing ADT, the Scottish Government will assess whether a prospective Highlands and Islands exemption requires a referral to the CMA.

The Scottish Government continue to explore all options to implement ADT in a way that protects Highlands & Islands connectivity and complies with the UK Government’s subsidy control regime. The UK-wide Air Passenger Duty will continue to apply in Scotland until ADT is implemented.

Over the past 10 years, there has been a 50% increase in consultant oncologists, from 94.8 WTE (whole time equivalent) in March 2014, to 142.6 WTE in March 2024. We have also increased consultant radiologists by 31.9%, from 288.2 WTE ten years ago (March 2014) to 380.1 WTE in March 2024.

In addition to this, we have been increasing the number of available specialty training places for junior doctors in Radiology and Oncology training programmes, and more junior doctors are joining NHS Scotland than ever before, with more than 1,100 specialty trainees recruited throughout 2023.

To specifically support scope based diagnostics, the National Endoscopy Training Programme has been established within the NHS Scotland Academy to commission and deliver endoscopy training to a wide range of learners from different professional backgrounds, with representatives from every mainland health board in Scotland.

This ensures the availability of appropriately trained endoscopists and endoscopy support staff to deliver safe, high quality endoscopic investigations for Scotland’s patients. To date this has supported 80 trainees to complete Basic Skills courses, 137 trainees to attend upskilling courses, 54 trainees to attend immersion training at the Golden Jubilee University National Hospital, and 113 trainees to develop their ability to recognise lesions, primarily to support improved cancer detection.

We have also funded NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to develop a non-medical endoscopy programme. Since 2021, 53 places in total have been made available for non-medical endoscopy training and 20 places have been made available for non-medical cystoscopy training.

The Scottish Government has not made such an assessment. These are operational matters for Scottish Canals as part of their Asset Management Strategy work and responsibility to maintain and develop Scotland's canal network.

The Scottish Government has no plans to change its visual identity from the current saltire.

Since 2021, Scottish Government has provided three permanent CT scanners to support core diagnostic imaging capacity within Boards, including a mobile CT pod which is deployed flexibly to Boards that require additional capacity. One further mobile CT and seven mobile MRI scanners are also being used across multiple NHS Boards to provide additional capacity and earlier diagnosis efforts.To specifically support scope-based diagnostics we have published an Endoscopy and Urology Diagnostic Recovery and Renewal Plan backed by £70 million. The plan focuses on key areas including infrastructure. Funding has been allocated to extend the use of mobile endoscopy units for 24-25 to provide additional capacity.Further to this and despite the extremely challenging capital funding position, we are committed to continued investment in our capital radiotherapy replacement programme. We intend to invest more than £65 million over the next 3 years for this programme.We continue to invest in cancer services across NHS Scotland, with £11.3m recurring funding provided to Health Boards in 2024-25 to support cancer waiting times improvements, focusing efforts on the most challenged tumour types.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS currently share information regarding the number of individuals released under Emergency Early Release (ER) on the SPS website. Further work has commenced on an analysis of the entire ER tranche data, and the SPS hope to be able to publish a full data report, which will be available on the SPS website by the end of August.

SPS continue to be as open and transparent as possible, whilst continuing to meet our statutory obligation to ensure that those in our care have their personal information protected; as such we have taken the decision not to publish a breakdown of establishments of those released under the ER scheme as some of the data could relate to a small group of individuals, which may lead to their inadvertent identification. SPS will however, share information that does include individual local authorities and health boards as part of the released data set.

The Scottish Government is currently carrying out research with Rum residents and wider stakeholders, with the aim of reaching consensus on conditions of sale for Kinloch Castle. The Kinloch Castle Delphi Study is being led by analysts within the Rural and Environmental Science and Analytical Services Division of the Scottish Government.In March, we sent a survey invitation to all residents on the isle of Rum, and received a response from the majority of islanders. We shared the Round 1 report with all residents, and met with the Rum Community Association, Kinloch Castle Friends Association and Isle of Rum Community Trust to discuss the results. In July, we sent the Round 2 survey invitation to all residents. We have also invited Kinloch Castle Friends Association members to share their views in a separate survey. During Round 3, we plan to arrange an in-person community workshop on Rum. We aim to publish the final report by December 2024.

There were no artwork purchases in 2023-24.A detail of artwork spend in previous years is outlined below.