Chamber and committees

It is the Scottish Funding Council’s role to work closely with the college sector to identify the best split of the available resources, taking into account Government priorities and the college sector’s needs.

The Scottish Government recognises the particular health challenges faced by those in rural areas. In addition to the support outlined in response to S6W-33562 on 3 February 2025, we have invested in a number of funding streams which have included allocations for community-led health initiatives in rural areas, including:

• £66 million in our Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults since 2021, with more than 4,800 grants made to local projects across Scotland over the first three years. Of these more than 900 grants were made to community projects supporting people disadvantaged by geographical location (including rural areas) - Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults Year 3 – Monitoring and Reporting Summary
• Over £65 million since 2020 to fund community-based mental health and wellbeing supports and services for children, young people and their families, including those in rural areas -

Independent-Evaluation-of-Community-Mental-Health-Supports-and-Services-April-2023.pdf

Access to counsellors in secondary schools and children and young people’s community mental health services: summary report - January to June 2023 - gov.scot

• Over £29 million of Community-led Local Development (CLLD) funding since 2021 to deliver over 1000 grassroots community-led projects across rural & island Scotland in partnership with rural organisations. Some of which have health related benefits ranging from mental health and wellbeing to physical health. Communities are empowered and supported to design and implement the solutions to the challenges and opportunities they identify in their local area, which may include community led health and social care provision
• A further £11.4 million in 2024-25 to support Community-led Local Development and similar initiatives in our rural and island communities.

Links to the most recent evaluation reports of each of these initiatives, including information on outcomes, are included above where available. A review of CLLD funding began in 2024-25, and will continue throughout 2025-26.

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 Scottish Government engages regularly with the college sector on a range of issues, including the 2025-26 budget, via Colleges Scotland.

The Scottish Government has not commissioned any public opinion and research organisations to carry out any work regarding Scottish independence or Scotland's constitutional future since May 2021.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the frequency and severity of storms. This information is collected and held by Met Office.

We are aware of concerns about the current capacity within planning authorities. The skills and capacity challenges faced by planning authorities are not unique to Scotland and are not restricted to minerals development. The Scottish Government is taking forward a programme of actions to boost planning capacity across Scotland.

Our Investing in Planning consultation last year identified a range of interventions to increase the capacity within planning authorities. In September 2024 we published a blog outlining the proposals we were intending to take forward, those which required further consideration and those which we did not intend to take forward at this time.

The Scottish Government has established the Hydrogen Planning Hub and the Housing Emergency Hub in response to concerns about capacity and skills. We are currently considering the further role that Hubs can play in supporting planning authorities to address the skills and capacity issues they are facing.

The National Planning Improvement Champion (NPIC) is working with individual planning authorities to pilot a new National Planning Improvement Framework. Planning authorities will carry out a self-assessment and work with the NPIC and others to identify areas for improvement and develop an action plan. We expect the first reports will be published shortly.

We also continue to engage with Heads of Planning Scotland to understand the pressures facing planning authorities in Scotland and how they can best be addressed.

As part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to reducing single use plastics, the use of plastic straws was discontinued in Scottish Government buildings in February 2018.

Since August 2022, there has only been one purchase of 1,500 paper straws in 2023 at a cost of £17.21.

Due to a change of catering contractor following a contract re-let, information is not available prior to August 2022.

Violence towards anyone is unacceptable and the safety of our children, young people and staff at school is paramount.

Since May 2023, we have responded to schools’ concerns about relationships and behaviour in a number of ways. This includes the publication of new guidance on gender-based violence in March 2024, updating our guidance on mobile phones and anti-bullying, and providing £900k to local authorities to support training of support staff.

In August 2024, we published a joint relationships and behaviour in schools action plan with COSLA. The action plan sets out 20 actions to be taken over the next three years at both national and local level to help support schools to improve relationships and behaviour. This includes a number of actions under the theme of reducing violence and harm in schools.

In addition, through implementation of the Violence Prevention Framework for Scotland, we have invested over £4m in the last two years to help prevent and reduce violence across Scotland. In 2024-25, £2m of this investment is being used to support delivery of prevention activity focussed specially towards young people in collaboration with a range of partners. This includes:

• £156,000 to support the delivery of Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP), a peer mentoring programme , delivered in schools and supported by Education Scotland.
• £337,000, to support Medics Against Violence who run a number of violence prevention programmes, including a secondary school programme carried out by volunteer medics, centred around educating young people about the impacts and consequences of violence and how to keep themselves and their peers safe, and;
• £56,000, to support the Police Scotland Youth Volunteers Programme, aimed at young people aged 13-18, which provides the opportunity to engage positively within their local community.
• £297,000 to support The No Knives, Better Lives engagement programme through Youthlink Scotland, which is focussed on preventing the incidence of violence including knife carrying amongst young people and provides resources, training and support to local partners.
• The creation and launch of the Quit Fighting for Likes campaign, for practitioners to use to have conversations with young people, to help them explore the harm caused through the filming and sharing of violent incidents on social media.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any examples of spray foam insulation being installed in lofts in Scottish properties as part of the Energy Company Obligation (ECO4) scheme. Delivery guidance published by Ofgem indicates that spray foam insulation in lofts would not have been eligible for ECO4 finance.

We have asked the UK Government to advise Scottish Ministers further about any concerns raised about the quality of retrofit work undertaken in Scotland as part of these schemes.

Myself and the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity have met formally with the Clyde Fishermen’s Association on three occasions since we were appointed to our roles in May 2024.