Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is working on production of the Islands Connectivity Plan. Priority is being given to a long-term plan and investment programme for vessels and ports, with the aim of publishing a draft for consultation by the end of 2022. There are no plans to carry out an assessment of the type mentioned by the Member.

Membership, remit and operation of the Islands Transport Forum are still to be agreed.

However, it will be essential that the Forum considers all the issues and opportunities relevant to islands transport. This will require engagement across a broad range of sectors and stakeholders.

Between Ellon (from & including the roundabout at the junction with the A948) to the junction with the A982 at Peterhead

The following table sets out the number of fatal casualties on the A90 between Emmock roundabout Dundee and where the A957 Slug Road crosses the A90 at Stonehaven.

An evidence based approach is central to the development of our policy to restrict promotions on less healthy food and drink.

Further to our 2018/19 consultation , we recently consulted again on our proposals on restricting the promotions for foods high in fat, sugar or salt to further inform the evidence base and development of this policy. This provided an opportunity for people and organisations to share their views on these proposals in the current context, including relating to cost of living pressures. Responses to this consultation are now being analysed and will help to inform development of this policy.

We continue to engage with a range of stakeholders and update our wider evidence base to inform a suite of impact assessments in order to assess whether the proposed measures are proportionate as well as to consider their impact on health inequalities. This includes engagement with businesses to inform a Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment that will set out the anticipated costs and benefits of these measures. These impact assessments will be published upon introduction to Parliament of the Public Health (Restriction of Promotions) Bill.

Transport Scotland received 14 bids for the Bus Partnership Fund. As of the end of August 2022 the Scottish Government allocated £25,801,453 to Partnerships from the Bus Partnership Fund. Funding was issued to a lead Local Authority to manage on behalf of Partnerships which cover more than one Local Authority area, therefore it is not possible to break down the funding awarded by Local Authority. The following table shows the value of each bid.

Table 1: Bus Partnership Fund awards:

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10290 on 24 October 2022. 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

The grant to the Scottish Maritime Cluster Limited was made in line with set objectives none of which have any impact on (a) piers and (b) harbours on the Clyde and Hebrides ferry services contract.

The Scottish Government have invested over £50 million in ChargePlace Scotland, Scotland’s public charging network, which now has more than 2300 publicly available charge points, over 63 thousand member registrations and over 1,770,000 successful charge sessions recorded in the last 12 months.

Responsibility for repair of charge points lies with the host (also known as the ‘owner’) who procured and installed the charge point. The role of CPS is to advise hosts of faults as they arise.

Most faults on the network are transient and in the majority of cases require no physical intervention. This means that a high proportion are closed down swiftly and effectively. Overall reliability across the CPS network is typically very good and on average 95% - 97% of charge points are operational each day.

The subject of correspondence cases varies. These are not recorded or categorised by reason or by local authority area. Each piece of correspondence is dealt with on its own merit, given careful consideration with appropriate actions taken at the time of responding.

In 2021 we received 124 pieces of correspondence relating to ChargePlace Scotland and 80 in 2022.

The recently re-established Headteacher Recruitment and Retention Working Group works jointly with education stakeholders to develop, agree and take forward actions to help improve the recruitment and retention of headteachers in Scotland. The group has been meeting on a quarterly basis since January 2022 with the last meeting taking place on 7 September 2022.