Chamber and committees

There are no plans to combine these systems which operate under distinct legislative requirements.

Both systems, however, seek to achieve shared strategic objectives, including achieving net zero emissions. Our work on planning reform is ongoing, including taking forward the provisions of the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 through policy, regulations and guidance. Building regulations address a wide range of building functions or performance standards, and complement broader provisions of the planning system. Improved energy standards will apply from December this year and changes will be made in 2023 to introduce provision for electric charge points in new developments.

Work is also ongoing to improve the consistency, transparency and accessibility of information in both the planning and building standards systems as part of our five year digital planning transformation programme.

The specific level of the producer fee is for Circularity Scotland Ltd (CSL), as a private business independent of Government, to set through a commercial negotiation with the producers which it agrees to represent. As such the Scottish Government was not consulted as part of the development of the producer fee.

Transport Scotland only holds information on charge points registered on the ChargePlace Scotland network, however this information is not held by parliamentary constituency only by Local Authority boundary.

Across all the local authorities that this constituency covers there are 455 rapid chargers on CPS. The location of these chargers can be viewed on the CPS map. Information on rapid chargers operated by other networks is available on electric vehicle charging platform Zap Map.

Work is proceeding to hold a procurement competition for new battery and electric trains to operate decarbonised rail passenger services on the Fife Circle and Borders routes, which will allow replacement of 42 ScotRail Class 156 diesel trains. We will also use the opportunity to secure options for further electric trains in future.

Social workers make a highly skilled, unique and valuable contribution to supporting individuals and families across Scotland.

Under current arrangements, the Scottish Government sets the overall strategic framework for social work delivery. The majority of social workers are employed by local authorities and the deployment of social work services is decided locally.

Social work professionals need to have the time to build relationships and trust, undertake person-centred assessments, plan for the future and arrange or provide appropriate support. The Scottish Government has invested £25m, as part of the 2022-23 Budget, to relieve pressure on the adult social care sector. £22m of this funding was distributed based on grant aided expenditure, as agreed by COSLA Leaders, and will be used to employ additional social workers or associated social work assistants or support staff – with the clear purpose of adding to the capacity of the social work workforce. Over the last five years the Scottish Government has provided over £25m to support the training of social workers, including for post-graduate bursaries and support for practice-based learning to increase the number of entrants into the profession.

The recently introduced National Care Service (Scotland) Bill reflects the Scottish Government's ambition for a National Care Service that ensures people of all ages can access the support they need to live a full life by improving consistency and quality of provision. We will transform people's experience of social care support and related services, strengthen prevention and community-based support and reform access.

The Bill will establish a new National Social Work Agency which will invest in the social work profession by providing national leadership, and overseeing and supporting social work in a range of areas, including workforce planning. These objectives will enable social workers to work more effectively with people to transform their lives and implement rights-based practice.

The following table provides a summary of Scottish Government funding for Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS) control on riverbanks in each of the last 15 years. Invasive species control projects based on river catchments control a number of species including American mink, Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed, Himalayan balsam and American skunk cabbage. It is not possible to disaggregate funding for giant hogweed control alone.

Large-scale control across river catchments is an effective way to reduce the biodiversity impacts of invasive plants like giant hogweed. However, it is challenging to eradicate completely and control must be maintained for many years to prevent reinvasion of the catchment.

Eleven of the thirteen Fisheries Trust areas where giant hogweed is widespread have initiated coordinated control programmes. In some areas, such as the River Tweed, invasive plant populations have already been reduced to very low levels. In others, control is at an early stage and concentrated on the upper parts of the catchment.

In 2017, the Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland (RAFTS), carried out an evaluation of effectiveness and lessons learnt from giant hogweed control programmes within seven Trust areas (Horril et al, 2019). All of the projects reported decreases of between 53% and 75% in the area covered by giant hogweed, while the plant was completely cleared from 16% of the infested sites within four years.

The paper highlights that the main barrier to successful control of invasive plants has been the short-term nature of project funding (1-4 years duration). To address this, the Scottish Invasive Species Initiative aims to quantify the level of support and coordination necessary to maintain invasive plant control programmes in the longer term.

For the financial year 2021-22, Scottish Development International (SDI) and its partners recorded 3721 new jobs and 4059 safeguarded jobs. These job numbers only cover the projects or companies that were directly supported or assisted by SDI. While the Scottish Government are not able to collect data on all jobs created in Scotland as a result of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), the recently published EY Attractiveness Survey 2022 estimates projected jobs created in Scotland from FDI to be around 10,000 in 2021.

In spite of the challenging economic climate of the past two years, Scotland has continued its strong performance in attracting Foreign Direct Investment. The EY recent results shows Scotland’s FDI projects (in calendar year 2021) outpaced Europe and the rest of the UK – Scottish projects were up by 14% from 2020, compared to 5.4% increase in Europe and 1.8% increase in UK. This resulted in a record number of FDI projects in Scotland, 122 projects in 2021, up from 107 projects in 2020. Scotland maintained its position as the top performing FDI region or nation of the UK, outside of London, for the 7th year running. The benefits of our approach are being felt right across the country with five of Scotland’s cities/towns in the top 20 UK locations for investment, and Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen in the top 10 UK cities.

These are fantastic results for Scotland and shows that our Inward Investment Plan is working. It also demonstrates the importance of FDI in supporting the ambitions set out in our National Strategy for Economic Transformation, by attracting high quality inward investment and technologies required in areas such as Energy Transition, Decarbonisation of Transport and Space.

The Regulations underpinning Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) do not mandate specific labelling requirements, but rather give producers and the scheme administrator the flexibility to decide on their preferred approach. We decided to take this approach following consultation with businesses during the development of the Regulations. You can read a summary of the consultation responses in paragraphs 160 – 162 of the Final Business and Regulator Impact Assessment (BRIA), published on 22 December 2021.

As independent Scheme Administrator established by businesses, Circularity Scotland Ltd (CSL) has developed its own labelling requirements for those businesses who wish to have CSL administer their obligations relating to DRS.

The Full Business Case Stage 1 Addendum for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), published on 16 March 2020, models the economic impact of DRS based on a central estimate for the producer fee and concludes that there is a strong economic case for DRS.

The specific level of the producer fee is for Circularity Scotland Ltd (CSL), as a private business independent of Government, to set through a commercial negotiation with the producers which it agrees to represent. The Scottish Government has not made an assessment of CSL’s proposed producer fees.