Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has worked with the Forces Families Federations to advertise our vacancies through the Forces Families Jobs website. The website is also promoted through our Welcome to Scotland guide as a route to employment for Service families.

Section 22 of the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000 enables the Auditor General to raise concerns of any public body. Audit Scotland, in their 2021-22 audit of Ferguson Marine Port Glasgow Ltd (FMPG) criticised the payment of bonuses to senior managers of FMPG, particularly in light of the delays to delivery of vessels 801 and 802.

Scottish Ministers concur with the issue highlighted by Audit Scotland and do not support the payment of bonuses. That is why the Former Deputy First Minister’s Statement to Parliament on 16 March 2023, opened with an acknowledgment of the concerns and agreed with the criticism of payment of bonuses to senior managers at FMPG and committed to ensuring that new arrangements were being put in place to ensure that such as eventuality did not arise in the future.

The Scottish Government has been working closing with FMPG in formulating a revised remuneration model applicable to the senior management team at FMPG to apply in future years. Ministers will update Parliament as soon as details of this revised remuneration packages for the FMPG CEO and senior management team have been agreed.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14178 on 30 January 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Scottish Government officials meet regularly with food banks and other food aid organisations, including the Trussell Trust and Independent Food Aid Network to discuss overall demand for their services and any specific issues arising.

As set out in our Programme for Government, we will soon publish a plan, grounded in human rights, that sets out what we will do to improve the response to financial hardship so as to reduce the need for food banks. We are committed to improving access to emergency payments and wider supports for households facing crisis, and the Trussell Trust and the Independent Food Aid Network agree that cash-first is the best approach.

Officials recently convened a roundtable of stakeholders, including food banks and other charities, to discuss infant food insecurity and support provided to families with infants under 1 facing a crisis. The next steps for this work will be to identify good practice in emergency pathways and ensure that such mechanisms are in place locally across Scotland so that families receive timely and coordinated support in an emergency.

The Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) have assured the Scottish Government that they have a range of measures in place to help protect staff, including training and risk assessments. We will continue to work closely with SAS to monitor the safety and wellbeing of their staff.

NHSScotland has joined the multi-agency Your Safety Matters (YSM) initiative, led by Police Scotland. YSM aims to minimise incidents of violence and aggression in workplaces, through campaigns, sharing resources and good practice.

Abuse towards NHS staff is unacceptable, and the courts have extensive powers to deal robustly with those who carry out such appalling behaviour on emergency workers.

The Scottish Government has no plans to build or install a Scottish independence readiness thermometer at any location.

The final stages of preparation for the Pathfinder phase for Bairns’ Hoose are underway. Applications for prospective pathfinders partnerships will open in Summer 2023 with pathfinders commencing in Autumn 2023. Further information on this phase will be included in the Project Plan Progress Report and Pathfinder Development Plan to be published this Spring.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of political integrity and transparency, and takes these issues seriously. We review and update guidance when necessary. Since 2016 Scotland has been a member of the Open Government Partnership, a global partnership with civil society that works to make governments more inclusive, responsive, and accountable. As part of this work, we will consider the options for a review of political integrity and transparency in Scotland.

The Scottish Agriculture Census was paused in 2022 which means no results were published in 2022. However the Scottish Government will launch the latest Agricultural Census on 1 June 2023 and plan to publish the 2023 results this autumn. The exact publication date will be pre-announced in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics as soon as possible.