After initial planning work with transport partners and stakeholder, Transport Scotland officials are engaged in finalising the programme for the National Rail Conversation, including the first significant public phase, of external stakeholder engagement. This will see key stakeholders, including rail staff representatives, invited to a number of events in the New Year. These sessions will enable those taking part to offer their views on the National Rail Conversation. Further details of the programme will be provided at these even and announced in due course.

The Scottish Government £50m Ukraine Longer Term Resettlement Fund was launched on 22 September 2022, and to date has received 21 enquiries from a mix of Council's and Registered Social Landlords. In terms of full applications submitted, four proposals have now come forward to the Fund, with others expected to follow in due course.

There is no formal closing date for the Fund, we are prioritising applications which deliver completed homes by 31 March 2023. Projects with homes completed in 2023/24 will be considered by exception.

In terms of the local authority areas where Scottish Government has received full proposals from, these are as follows:

Aberdeen City Council has been awarded up to £6.150m for up to 500 void properties on 28 October 2022.

North Ayrshire Council has been awarded up to £0.486m for up to 30 void properties on 6 October 2022.

Glasgow City Council - two applications from housing associations based within the Glasgow City Council area have also been received (with due diligence work currently progressing).

This does not include a pilot project, where we awarded £5m to North Lanarkshire Council for the refurbishment of up to 200 homes on 6 July 2022.

The Scottish Mental Health Law Review (commissioned by Scottish Government) published its final report at the end of September 2022 and set out substantial recommendations for reform. This included the current power of attorney process in Scotland. The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that Scotland’s incapacity laws remain fully fit for purpose and will carefully consider these proposals as part of any wider reform of the mental health and incapacity legislative framework.

The Scottish Government has established a statutory public inquiry under the Inquiries Act (2005) to examine the handling of the coronavirus pandemic in Scotland. The inquiry will provide scrutiny and establish the facts of the strategic response to the pandemic in Scotland. It will identify lessons and recommendations to help Scotland be as prepared as possible for future pandemics.

Phase 3 of the Creative Communities programme ran between August 2021- August 2022 and provided funding to 24 organisations across 17 local authorities. Led by Inspiring Scotland, the programme has: engaged with 56 volunteers, employed 112 artists, 22 community support workers, assisted 10 young people to complete internships and facilitated over 3,500 hours of arts workshops and creative activities. The third phase of the programme received a total of £600,000 in joint funding from Scottish Government’s culture and justice portfolios.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the number of appointments offered per full time equivalent GP.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) will publish data on activity levels in General Practice on 6 December 2022. This will include activity by encounter type. Encounters are recorded each time a member of the practice team enters information into the GP electronic health record. These include face to face consultations, telephone consultations, e-consultations, medicines management and administration.

The data will be published as experimental statistics, reflecting the developing nature of the data in relation to quality and ability to meet user needs.

PHS will also publish the GP In Hours General Practice Workforce Survey on 29 November 2022, which will provide estimates of GP workforce numbers.

The National Partnership for Culture published its recommendations on 16 March 2022. These 14 recommendations were underpinned by principles for meaningful delivery such as pooling of experience and resources across different fields. In response we are taking forward a range of actions, which are detailed in full in our publication of 27 September 2022, available at: National Partnership for Culture recommendations: Scottish Government response - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . This includes strengthening cross-portfolio links in areas such as health and wellbeing to harness opportunities for collaboration, as well as taking forward actions with partners to support cohesive working between national and local organisations. The National Partnership for Culture will meet to discuss its future plans on 14 December 2022.

This year’s winter vaccination programme has enjoyed very high uptake to date. According to the latest data, 87.8% of older adult care home residents, and 83.0% of those aged 65 and over, have received a winter COVID-19 vaccination.

Nevertheless, we are continually exploring ways to build on these very promising levels of uptake. We have undertaken a range of national communications and engagement activity to further encourage uptake, as well as supporting Health Boards and other partners with local activity.

We have embedded inclusivity as a key aspect of the vaccination programme from its outset, working alongside health boards and other partners to encourage uptake, remove barriers and respond to evidence of low uptake in certain communities, including those from more deprived areas.

There is capacity right across Scotland to get vaccinated, and I would encourage all those eligible for COVID-19 and flu vaccinations this winter to come forward.

There are two principal types of carbon in marine carbon habitats: organic carbon (can be digested by microbes and hence converted back to CO ₂ - approximately 15%), and inorganic carbon (microbially indigestible and chemically stable shell and coral - approximately 85%).

Estimates of carbon stored in the marine environment have large uncertainties due to incomplete mapping of habitats, sparse direct measurements and assumptions used in predictive modelling. The uncertainties result in estimated values being updated as new data becomes available meaning there are no definitive values, only best current estimates.

The current best estimate of carbon stored in Scotland’s marine environment is 5,616,100,000 tonnes CO ₂ -eq..

Details are set out in the following table:

Current estimates of carbon stored / sequestered in Scotland’s marine environment

The right to peaceful assembly and protest is a right that we all have and the Scottish Government wants to encourage the exercise of that right wherever possible. While it is not an absolute right - and conditions and prohibitions can be imposed where required and in the interests of a democratic society - the Scottish Government is clear that it should not be dependent on the ability to pay.

For each march or parade, local authorities and their partners, including Police Scotland and Transport Scotland (where the event is to take place on a trunk road), will consider traffic management issues and the various powers available to the agencies involved to regulate traffic, including Temporary Traffic Regulation Orders (TTROs).

In their report, published on 2 November 2022, the Independent Short-Life Working Group on Facilitating Peaceful Assembly in Scotland has made a range of recommendations including on traffic management issues as they relate to assembly. The Scottish Government will work with partners to consider these recommendations, including those on costs, in due course.

Due to issues with global supply chains Ministers are advised the process may take of the order of 36 weeks.

Ministers are seeking urgent options on the next steps and expect all possible measures to be taken to deliver the vessel to serve islanders as soon as possible.

Officials will continue to engage with Ferguson Marine as they assess the full impact of this with partners, including any financial implications which Ferguson Marine will share with both the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament once this has been confirmed. This engagement is ongoing.