We have undertaken a full policy development process in order to reach a finalised position of no support for coal extraction in Scotland, in line with statutory requirements. The first step in this process was the launch of a call for evidence which ran from 21 June to 2 August 2022, which invited stakeholders’ views and expanded our evidence base in this policy area.

The Scottish Green Public Sector Estate Decarbonisation Scheme (GPSEDS) acts as the main government-led capital funding mechanism to support leadership for decarbonisation of buildings owned by the public sector. A breakdown of GPSEDS funding received per public body is set out in the following table.

We have undertaken a full policy development process in order to reach a finalised position of no support for onshore conventional oil and gas extraction in Scotland, in line with statutory requirements. The policy position was subject to statutory and other assessments, including before finalisation. This included in our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan (ESJTP), and our National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4).NPF4 is publicly available here: National Planning Framework 4 - gov.scot.The draft SEA of the draft ESJTP is publicly available here: strategic-environmental-assessment-draft-energy-strategy-transition-plan-environmental-report.pdf. The partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment of the draft ESJTP is publicly available here: Regulatory Impact Assessment Template.

The Scottish Government recognises that the work of universities, research institutes and industry play a valuable role in the development of the hydrogen sector, and we routinely engage with relevant academic outputs of universities as we continue to develop our policies and assess research needs in this emerging sector.

Hydrogen policy officials met recently with several of the academics from Manchester University who contributed to the collection of papers in their wide ranging ‘On Hydrogen’ report and will take these papers into consideration as part of the broader research landscape in the hydrogen sector. The Scottish Government continues to welcome engagement with universities regarding hydrogen and is fully committed to helping the Scottish hydrogen sector develop and grow.

We are unable to provide this information in the format requested. The various agencies involved in the regulation of aquaculture which includes finfish, shellfish and seaweed sectors, undertake a wide range of duties in relation to aquaculture including governance, policy development, research and supporting Ministers.

The Scottish Government has not undertaken any formal assessment to assess the effectiveness of the enforcement of the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (Scotland) Regulations 2021. Officials engage regularly however with local authority licensing and enforcement officers to discuss enforcement matters.

The Scottish Government presently has no plans to review the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (Scotland) Regulations 2021.

The Scottish Government commissioned the Scottish Government's Centre of Expertise on Animal Disease Outbreaks (EPIC) to conduct research into the economic value of live cattle and sheep movements cross-border from the extended England-Wide Bluetongue restricted zone. Representatives from the Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers Scotland (IAAS) supplied livestock valuations based on the latest livestock trends to establish an estimated value of regular monthly trade which could be affected by the movement restrictions. EPIC have also undertaken a supplementary study aiming to understand the impacts on Scottish livestock movements in response to the extended England-wide bluetongue restricted zone.

Supporting cyber resilience in local authorities is a priority for the Scottish Government. We provide a range of measures to support both immediate incidents as well as helping strengthen local authorities’ cyber resilience in the longer term.

The Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre’s (SC3) core function is to work with the Scottish public sector to help them improve their preparedness, reduce vulnerabilities and learn from best practice. SC3 has 24/7 on-call arrangements to immediately engage multi-agency response, where necessary, for any public sector organisation who is subject to a cyber attack. When the cyber incidents occurred in Glasgow City and West Lothian councils, the SC3 quickly stood up a multi-agency response to support the councils.

SC3 provides several important services including:

• sharing of relevant threat intelligence and early warnings,
• liaising with partners such as NCSC and Police Scotland,
• advising on consequence and data leak management, and
• guiding on Cyber Incident Response support options.

Specific post-incident lessons learned are shared in appropriate channels. These continue to feed into scenario-based exercising through the Exercising Workstream to improve organisational preparedness. The SC3 has worked with the Digital Office CISO to deliver strategic level cyber exercising to several local authorities with more planned for later this year. Under the Standards & Insights Workstream, SC3 has also initiated two pieces of research targeted at the most common lessons from ransomware incidents, to provide additional guidance for organisations on legacy technology and multi-factor authentication.

We recognise the crucial role that councils and their employees play in communities across Scotland. That’s why the Scottish Government has made a record £15.1 billion available for local authorities for 2025-26, a real terms increase of 5.5% compared with last year.

It should be noted that local authorities are entirely separate entities from the Scottish Government. Their powers are set out in statute, and it is up to each local authority to manage its day-to-day business, including the management of its IT systems. The Verity House Agreement reinforces this principle of local autonomy, while also encouraging collaboration and shared learning across the sector.

Scottish Government commissioned Public Health Scotland (PHS) to implement and deliver the national Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) audit.

As part of the implementation, PHS is consulting with all NHS Boards to review services currently in place across Scotland and to consider how local examples of good practice feed into a national audit and are shared across the country.

PHS is collaborating with NHS Glasgow and Greater Clyde’s (NHS GGC) South Sector team and have met with the external provider of the digital solution technology for patient identification use in their service to understand the results achieved.

NHS Boards are responsible for the services they deliver. The decision to implement an external IT system to support service delivery is therefore the responsibility of NHS Boards.