I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-06031 on 28 February 2022 which provides an update on publication of the Project Neptune report.

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
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The Scottish Government introduced the Animals and Wildlife, Penalties, Powers and Protections (Scotland) Act 2020 in November 2020. We made a number of important changes to legislation on wildlife crime including;

? Increasing the penalty for a range of wildlife offences to a maximum of 5 years imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine.

? Extending the time allowed to investigate wildlife crimes.

? Extending the offence of vicarious liability to apply to offences relating to the illegal use of traps and snares.

? Bringing forward a power to introduce fixed penalty notices for less serious wildlife crimes.

Scottish Ministers do not currently monitor any variance in the level of electric vehicle charge point tariffs. The charge point owner is responsible for the setting of any tariffs on their electric vehicle charge points. The Scottish Government do not have a position on the levels of tariffs that the hosts can set, however, we expect these to be in line with the recovery of costs.

A further £40,000 of the additional £0.5 million Care and Repair funding has been transferred to Care and Repair Lanarkshire.

We set out our commitment to establish an independent taskforce to consider whether the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Scottish SPCA) should be given extra powers to investigate wildlife crime in both the 2021-22 Programme for Government and in our Scottish Government and Scottish Green Party Shared Policy Programme.

The taskforce’s role will include due consideration of the potential implications of any proposed changes to the powers of the Scottish SPCA. The taskforce will report back by the end of 2022.

We will set out the remit of the taskforce in more detail in due course.

Statistics on homelessness, based on administrative data, are collected by local authorities in the course of processing homelessness applications and for households in temporary accommodation. A limitation of this approach is that data is not collected for any households, including students, that are homeless but do not engage with their local authority. Data is available for a number of characteristics including age, gender and ethnicity but not in relation to those in full or part time in further and higher education. The Scottish government does not collect economic activity in the collection, some LAs may however collect the information for their own purposes but the extent of this is unknown. The latest statistics publication is available here: Homelessness in Scotland: 2020 to 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government has already started work on a Review of Purpose Built Student Accommodation which is running in parallel with the development of a Rented Sector Strategy both of which will inform a comprehensive Student Accommodation Strategy.

The Scottish Government will invest £60 million to renew play parks in Scotland, so children have access to high-quality outdoor play in their own communities. This funding is for public, free-to-access parks and will be distributed to local authorities over the course of this parliamentary term.

In 2021-22, Glasgow City Council received £525,000 funding. For the financial year 2022-23, the Scottish Government and COSLA have agreed an allocation of £514,000 to Glasgow City Council to support the renewal of play parks. We wrote to all local authorities to confirm their second allocation of funding on 24 February 2022.

Table 1 presents the number of patients covered by the Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG) waiting for a hip or knee replacement procedure within an inpatient or day-case setting by NHS Board at 31 st December 2021.

Table 1: Number of patients waiting for a hip or knee replacement procedure 1,2 as an inpatient or day case at 31 st December 2021, by NHS Board.

I have frequent discussions with Ministerial colleagues on a range of matters. We are committed to reforming council tax to make it fairer, working with the Scottish Green Party and COSLA to oversee the development of effective deliberative engagement on sources of local government funding. including Council Tax, that will culminate in a Citizens' Assembly.

The independent review of the 2013 Town Centre Action Plan, A New future for Scotland’s Town Centres, was commissioned by Scottish Ministers and published in February 2021. We are working collaboratively with COSLA and partners to respond to the review with a revised action plan which will be published later in the spring, subject to approval from Ministers and COSLA.