Chamber and committees

The CashBack for Communities fund is a unique programme that reinvests money recovered from the proceeds of crime to support young people across Scotland.

Phase 5 of the CashBack for Communities programme ran from 2020 to 2023. Twelve organisations received CashBack funding in the Highland area in 2022-23, with 11 of those organisations receiving Cashback support from organisations based elsewhere in Scotland.

Phase 6 of the CashBack programme runs from 2023 to 2026. Following a highly competitive funding round, one Highland-based organisation has been awarded CashBack funding to deliver projects over the three-year period. The project plans of three organisations out with the Highland area include plans to develop and deliver CashBack activities in partnership with Highland–based organisations.

Details of all the Phase 6 CashBack partners are available on the CashBack for Communities website: https://cashbackforcommunities.org/

The length of closures (in hours / minutes) of the A9 between Inverness and Perth due to an accident between 2018 and 2023 (to date), month by month are detailed in the following table:

The Scottish Land Commission was asked to run two initial workshops for the project partners in order to inform partners about the policy context, expectations and guidance for community engagement and benefit and consider how these are built into the way the partners will operate. No decisions on community benefit, engagement and ownership have yet been taken as the design phase for each project will engage with relevant local community groups, including those involved locally in ownership of land, to design an approach to community benefit which works for the communities local to each project. This will explore community benefit, community engagement and options for community ownership, where an opportunity for transfer of ownership, or shared ownership, exists. Notes from the workshops can be made available on request.

The detailed workings of the project governance board and what role it will have in the approval of investment cases are still to be agreed. This will be agreed by the board later in 2023, prior to investment decisions being taken. Consideration of an investment case for the project in the Scottish Borders is aimed to take place in late 2023/early 2024.

The £2 billion figure represents the current, combined investment appetite from the private partners. It is an indicative sum, subject to detailed negotiation of investment in specific projects. Detailed financial modelling and risk assessment will be undertaken for each investment before the investors make a firm financial commitment to each project. It is not a cap on investment through this partnership, nor an assessment of the total financing requirements of specific projects, rather it represents the current budget available.

The ethical framework will be approved and monitored by the project governance board. NatureScot will make available a draft version to interested parties on request to gather feedback.

Scottish Government officials are not involved in the detail of the individual pilot projects, nor engagement with land managers. In both pilot projects the project team includes local delivery partners such as the Tweed Forum, who will be making introductions to land owners and land managers, not NatureScot.

The Scottish Government continues to make progress to deliver on the Programme for Government commitment to develop a framework for Scotland which effectively tackles and challenges men’s demand for prostitution, and to support those with experience of it.

Principles to underpin the Framework were published in December 2022. The principles have been adopted across Scottish Government and we will look to have them incorporated within the planned refresh of Equally Safe, Scotland’s strategy to take action on all forms of violence against women and girls. The principles will also inform relevant policy and practice across the wider public and third sector, in turn supporting Scotland’s collective approach to tackling Commercial Sexual Exploitation.

The key focus throughout 2023 will be to use the principles to define the component parts of a Framework that will improve access to support for any adult with experience of prostitution, and at the same time challenge men’s demand. We anticipate being able to outline the component parts of the framework before the end of the year.

As with the development of the principles, we will continue to work with stakeholders as this work progresses and keep them advised of progress.

The Scottish Government has statutory requirements in the UK Marine Strategy to develop and implement pathway action plans to reduce the risk of introduction and spread of invasive non-native species (INNS), and to improve monitoring and surveillance to detect new non-indigenous species (or INNS) introductions, particularly at high-risk locations. The Scottish Government provides significant funding to tackle INNS, for example this includes part funding the Scottish Invasive Species Initiative, which is an ambitious £3.24 million partnership project tackling invasive non-native species alongside rivers and water courses.

Scottish Ministers, NatureScot, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and Scottish Forestry have statutory powers to enforce the Wildlife and Countryside Act UK (1981), using the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act (2011), which make it a criminal offence to release, plant or cause a species to be outwith its native range. This applies across all aquatic environments.

There is no statutory duty on the Scottish Government to achieve a biodiversity net gain.

Scotland’s draft biodiversity strategy published in December 2022 sets out a clear ambition for Scotland to be nature positive by 2030, and to have substantially restored and regenerated biodiversity by 2045. Five year delivery plans will set out the actions we need to take to achieve that ambition. We will consult on the first delivery plan in the summer. We will also bring forward a Natural Environment Bill, which will put in place key legislative changes to restore and protect nature, including, but not restricted to, targets for nature restoration.

The National Planning Framework also places a strong emphasis on securing positive effects for biodiversity as one of its six statutory outcomes (as identified in section 3A(3)(c) of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, as amended). The recently adopted National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) includes a cross-cutting theme to improve biodiversity and our strategy and policies support development that helps to secure positive effects for biodiversity. NPF4 Policy 3 sets out that development proposals will contribute to the enhancement of biodiversity, including where relevant, restoring degraded habitats and building and strengthening nature networks.