The Scottish Government publish accredited official statistics annually, which include information on diversions from prosecution and are available on the Scottish Government website. The Scottish Government statistics are not directly comparable to the COPFS figures and the Scottish Government statistics should be preferred for statistical purposes.

COPFS operates a live, operational database to manage reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. This system is designed to support the operational needs of criminal case processing, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.

Due to the way that decisions on diversions are recorded on this database, in order to provide an accurate response to the question regarding sexual assault cases, a manual check of the relevant cases has been undertaken.

For consistency, the Scottish Government’s classification of “sexual assault” has been adopted.

Based on the results of those manual checks, the following table has been compiled. It includes numbers of cases in which the accused was offered diversion and following that offer, the diversion was considered completed or is still considered ongoing.

The overall numbers of cases containing an allegation of sexual assault (which have not been checked) are provided as a point of comparison.

The Scottish Government does not hold a central record of all financial support provided to credit unions. Where funding has been provided, it has generally been through broader third sector or financial inclusion programmes such as those delivered by Social Investment Scotland, rather than as ongoing, dedicated support to credit unions. For example, in total SIS has awarded:

Scottish Government officials met with the Association of British Credit Unions Limited in December 2024 (and are due to meet them again in August) and with the Scottish League of Credit Unions in February 2025. Officials and Ministers have also met with individual credit unions over that time and representatives of the credit union sector attended the June meeting of the Financial Services Growth and Development Board (FISGAD). Discussions covered the current operating environment for the sector, opportunities to strengthen resilience and sustainability, and ways in which the Scottish Government and industry can work together to improve access to financial services. Topics also included ongoing engagement on policy developments, the promotion of ethical and affordable financial products, and the role of the sector in supporting financial inclusion across Scotland.

Prior to 2018-2019 site start dates were not collected as there was no requirement on our previous recording system for this information. Due to this, approval dates were used as a proxy for start dates. The following table provides an average time between approval and site start date for affordable homes between 2018-2019 and 2024-2025.

The Home Energy Scotland website has estimates on the potential annual savings from installing a standard air source heat pump where there is an existing oil or LPG boiler: https://www.homeenergyscotland.org/heat-pumps

We provide uplifts through our Heat in Buildings delivery schemes to help meet additional challenges faced by homeowners in rural and island communities. The Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan offers an uplift of £1,500 to the grant and loan funding available for energy efficiency measures in remote rural areas and islands. The Warmer Homes Scotland scheme operates a national customer price model to ensure equal access to grant funded installation of energy efficiency improvements across Scotland, including in rural and island areas. And both our Area Based Schemes and the Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund provide an uplift to reflect higher delivery costs in more remote areas, of 11% in rural areas and 22% in remote rural/island areas.

Heating oil and liquified petroleum gas supply chains and energy price regulation are reserved matters. We engage constructively with the UK Government on a regular basis.

Scottish Ministers and Scottish Government officials frequently engage with a range of stakeholders involved in the rural off-gas heating market, both in direct meetings and as part of wider consultation events.

I hosted a series of roundtables on 6 August 2025 to discuss the proposed Heat in Buildings Bill at which a range of stakeholders were in attendance, including some representing rural and off-gas grid interests. These roundtables focussed on plans for the Heat in Buildings Bill and included discussion of how to overcome the challenges faced by some rural properties in transitioning to clean heating systems.

The then-Acting Minister for Climate Action, Dr Alasdair Allan MSP, met with the UK and Ireland Fuel Distributors Association, along with other representatives of the off-gas grid heating sector, on 26 February 2025. The discussion focussed on the role that renewable liquid biofuels may play in decarbonising heating in rural buildings. This is in addition to previous ministerial engagement on rural heat which has informed our approach to the Bill.

The Scottish Government fund the Gender-Based Violence and Learning Disabilities Steering Group facilitated by the Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities (SCLD).

The Steering Group’s Action Plan for 2024 – 2027 aims to reduce the risk of Gender-Based Violence against women and girls with learning disabilities and to improve access to support services and justice services for women and girls with learning disabilities who experience Gender-Based Violence.

Proposals are also being developed for the Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence (LDAN) Bill, which intend to ensure that the needs of people with learning disabilities are better identified at any point of contact in the justice system.

This includes work to ensure justice agency staff are better trained to engage appropriately with people with learning disabilities and what support, such as access to advocacy or an Appropriate Adult, is put in place to ensure meaningful involvement. Proposals for the Bill also include improvements to accessing advocacy.

This information is publicly available on the Traffic Commissioner website under PSV notices and proceedings for Scotland. The address is https://www.gov.uk/guidance/notices-and-proceedings-for-scotland

The ownership status of assets is an operational matter for Scottish Water. Scottish Water have advised that they are carrying out investigations to establish the ownership status of Glasgow Harbour Tunnel and will write to you directly with a response once they have concluded their investigations.

Information on the number of expressions of interest submitted to the Cladding Remediation Programme via the Single Open Call by applicant type is now published quarterly on the Scottish Government website: An Official Statistics in Development publication - Scotland’s Cladding Remediation Programme update: Q2 2025 - gov.scot.

The ‘pilot phase’ of the Cladding Remediation Programme began in 2021, and was designed to identify a range of buildings to help inform the development of the Single Building Assessment (SBA) process. As part of this work, several buildings were assessed, and now require a ‘refresh’ to ensure assessments are in line with the SBA specification. This will not mean starting the assessment process again, as all existing information will be made available to the competent, qualified person carrying out the refresh.

The 107 buildings in the ‘pilot phase’ were put on a pathway to assessment, starting with pre-assessment checks made by an appointed fire engineer consultant. 51 were assessed as being out of scope of the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act, following a review by the appointed fire engineering consultants.

Of the 56 buildings within scope:

• 10 of the buildings have been taken on by the developer
• two were identified by the fire engineers as being low risk and not requiring an SBA
• 12 have had or are undergoing an SBA commission by Scottish Government
• 32 will require an SBA - these will now have the opportunity to be funded for assessment through the Single Open Call

The Scottish Government Cladding Remediation Programme is providing support to the 32 eligible buildings to apply to the SOC and is working with the applicants at pace through the SOC process.

The Cladding Remediation Programme is aware that expressions of interest have been submitted in respect of some of the buildings included in the information gathering exercises being conducted with Local Authorities and Registered Social Landlords, which is referred to in the recently published Cladding Remediation Programme Next Phase Plan of Action (published here: Cladding Remediation Programme: Next Phase Plan of Action - gov.scot), as well as for other buildings in their ownership. However, until the information submitted as part of that exercise has been quality assured and validated it is not possible to identify how many of those have had an expression of interest submitted via the Single Open Call.