Chamber and committees

We remain committed to the expansion of universal free school meals in primary schools. In the Scottish budget for 2023-24, we announced additional investment of £16 million in revenue funding and £80 million in capital funding for free school meal expansion. This will continue to fund the next phase of our expansion, which will be targeted to Primary 6 and 7 pupils in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment, helping children most in need first. This will be the next step in fulfilling our commitment to universal provision of free school meals in primary schools.

The Scottish Government welcomed the Commissioner’s progress report in May. The Scottish Government published its Improvement Plan 2022-23 in July setting out the actions we are taking to address each of the areas where the Commissioner identified a need for further improvement – including in relation to records management in request handling. The Government continues to work on standardising its records management practice and engagement with all staff is ongoing to ensure compliance with appropriate legislation and guidance.

Community Land Scotland Gaelic Development Officer post was a pilot project that was run in partnership between Bòrd na Gidhlig and Community Land Scotland . This project is now being evaluated and the report is expected in February 2023. This evaluation report will help inform future funding initiatives in our Gaidhlig communities.

The Scottish Government has provided additional funding of £200k in 2021-22 and 2022-23 to Bòrd na Gidhlig to support the network of Gaelic Development Officers across Scotland. These officers are supporting the Gaelic communities by providing a range of c ommunity-based activities through a variety of different schemes.

The focus of Bòrd na Gidhlig’s evaluation review of the Community Land Scotland Gaelic Development Officer post is to develop, and put in place, a more comprehensive and sustainable framework for delivering community based developments in Ga elic . At the core of this framework is the move towards a multi year funding arrangement to better support the work of development officers and to strengthen the network of officers to maximise the benefit to their communities. There are currently a total of 58 officer posts that have been supported by the Bòrd in communities this financial year with an investment of over £1.1M.

Our approach to supporting people who have a terminal illness is demonstrated in the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, which introduced a new definition of terminal illness. Rather than imposing an arbitrary life expectancy, the clinical judgement of the person’s doctor or nurse is relied upon. This allows people who have been diagnosed as having a terminal illness to receive fast-tracked access to Child Disability Payment or Adult Disability Payment

It is already the case that people who receive a disability benefit in relation to their terminal illness may be eligible to receive a Winter Heating Payment, where they otherwise meet the criteria for eligibility for the Payment. Any further developments to Winter Heating Payment including amendments to eligibility criteria will be considered once the new benefit is being delivered and its initial evaluation is complete.

All children and young people should receive the support they need to reach their full potential.

Education authorities are legally responsible for identifying and meeting the additional support needs of their pupils, including any additional support needs of pupils receiving Gaelic-medium education. The Scottish Government has supported education authorities in the delivery of these duties through the preparation and publication of statutory guidance.

We are also working closely with local government partners, through the Additional Support for Learning Project Board , to ensure we continue to see progress with the delivery of the recommendations from the 2020 additional support for learning review. In November 2022, we published an updated action plan and progress report to further support improvement in the implementation of additional support for learning, including within Gaelic-medium education.

The Scottish Government is aware of the paper that Dr Foxley and Professor Robertson have produced on Gaelic medium teachers and officials met with them on 1 December to discuss this.

The Scottish Government continues to work with university partners and other stakeholders to address recruitment issues for Gaelic education and other priority areas. The Strategic Board for Teacher Education oversees issues relating to teacher education including recruitment to the teaching profession.

We are considering the responses to our recent consultation on the Future of Gaelic and Scots. These will help strengthen our aims for the Gaelic language and support for those interested in teaching in Gaelic Medium Education.

The Scottish Government has not recovered and has no plans to recover any COVID-19 related funding from councils. Individual councils continue to have complete autonomy to allocate their reserves based on local needs and priorities.

The Scottish Ministers provided £145 million in Covid support grants to local government between 2019-20 and 2021-22 (TBC).

This included £95m for Hospitality and Leisure, £9.5 million for Public House Table Service, £4.7 million for Nightclub Closure, £1.2 million for Scottish Brewers, £29.4 million for Taxi and Private Hire and £5.5 million for Business Ventilation.

Local authorities have confirmed that £32 million has not been spent. Consideration of amounts to be recovered from local authorities is ongoing and therefore I cannot provide figures at this time. However, I would be happy to provide those figures once they are available.

Conditions may be attached to planning permissions for wind farm developments which “require wind turbines to be constructed and operated in accordance with the approved details and maintained in the approved colour, free from external rust, staining or discolouration, until such time as the wind farm is decommissioned”.

The Scottish Government does not monitor or enforce conditions attached to planning permissions, and therefore has not issued any fines relating to the failure to maintain wind turbines. It is the relevant local planning authorities who monitor and enforce development and operational controls imposed through conditions, and who can take enforcement action up to and including requiring removal of the turbine, as well as referring matters to the Procurator Fiscal to consider prosecution.

As per the answer to S6W-12989 on 22 December 2022, it is the responsibility of the wind farm operator to properly maintain their wind turbines, in accordance with their planning permission and any conditions imposed. The Scottish Government is not responsible for taking action in this area.

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