Chamber and committees

Media training offers Ministers and civil servants skills to represent the Scottish Government professionally and effectively in media appearances. Since 2016, all media training for Ministers or civil servants has been provided by Scottish Government Communications Division staff at no additional cost. Executive Agencies are responsible for their own training provision and information is not held centrally.

As part of wider catering provision in Scottish Government buildings, a catering contract is in-place to ensure value for money for taxpayers. In-line with Scottish Government spending controls, visitor hospitality is only provided in limited circumstances.

Robust contract management arrangements are in place and this includes an annual review of tariffs and costs which are scrutinised by an independent catering specialist to ensure costs are in-line with industry standards and the Consumer Price Index.

A breakdown of flags purchased since 2017 is shown in the table below. The Scottish Government does not hold information on flag purchases prior to 2017.

Railway safety is a matter reserved to the UK Government and responsibility for this lies with Office of Rail and Road who provides guidance to railway operators.

The Scottish Government has 8 flag poles of the following lengths:

59 ft (18m) x 2; 56 ft (17m) x 2; and 48 ft (14.6m) x 4

We do not hold any information on specific maintenance costs associated with these poles.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-34138 on 7 February 2025 for information on recorded levels of road traffic offences in Scotland. No information is held centrally relating to the costs associated with enforcement activity, legal processes and accidents arising from road traffic offences in Scotland.

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

Data on recorded road traffic offences is contained in the annual Scottish Government "Recorded Crime in Scotland" publication. Information on road traffic offences in the 2023-24 publication is at:

Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2023-24 - gov.scot

This publication includes data for 2023-24 as well as data relating to the last ten years. Data is provided at Scotland level as well as being broken down by local authority area. No information is provided broken down by trunk road.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The cost of maintaining the Scottish Government in each of the last five years is provided in the following table.

The national flags owned by the Scottish Government are listed in the following table.