Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of ensuring that the public has a clear understanding of the correct disposal methods for batteries and battery-containing products. While progress has been made in raising awareness, we acknowledge that more needs to be done to further improve public understanding and encourage proper recycling practices.

We are committed to working with local authorities, industry partners, and the other UK nations to enhance public awareness campaigns and ensure that information on battery disposal is widely accessible and easily understood. Correct disposal involves taking batteries to designated recycling points, such as those found at supermarkets, local recycling centres, or household waste recycling facilities, rather than disposing of them in general waste bins where they can pose environmental and safety risks. Guidance on how to properly dispose of batteries can be found here

As part of this effort, we are exploring ways to update recycling regulations and improve infrastructure, ensuring the availability of convenient recycling options. This will complement public education initiatives aimed at fostering greater awareness of the importance of correct disposal and the locations of appropriate facilities.

In my response to question S6W-30360 on 9 October 2024 I said “funding has enabled a concentrated effort to eradicate the last remaining isolated population of grey squirrels in the North East of Scotland.”

I should clarify that the last remaining, isolated population of grey squirrels in the North East of Scotland is found in the City of Aberdeen.

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

As I set out in response to questions S6W-30360 on 9 October 2024 and S6W-30743 on 11 November 2024 we are providing a range of support and funding to work that aims to promote red squirrel populations.

A total grant of £1,052,796 has been awarded to the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS) partnership project by the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund, from April 2024 to March 2026.

A breakdown of how this £1m funding is being distributed across projects and localities is not held centrally.

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

As set out in the 2024-25 Programme for Government, the Scottish Government has committed to introduce the Natural Environment Bill as part of the year four legislative programme. Due to parliamentary procedure, we are unable to provide the precise date for introduction. The Scottish Parliament will announce the introduction date shortly before the introductory process begins.

When introduced, the Bill will establish the framework for statutory targets to restore and protect nature. It will also include provisions to modernise the way in which national parks and deer are managed and provide powers to update environmental impact assessment and habitats legislation to support delivery of our net zero and biodiversity goals.

Red squirrel populations fluctuate throughout the year and between seasons and it is not possible carry out direct counts across wide areas.

The most recent review of the population of British mammals, published in 2018, estimated the Scottish population of red squirrels at between 181,000 and 444,000 individuals.

This estimate is based on habitat use by study populations of red squirrels and modelling of carrying capacity of available habitats in Scotland. The modelling does not support estimates of regional populations.

A local authority is required to model projected impacts to local recycling rates of their project during the Recycling Improvement Fund application process.

Projected impacts are then reviewed by technical experts and contribute to an estimate of the total impact of all Recycling Improvement Fund projects on Scotland’s national household recycling rate.

The projected increase to the national household recycling rate from current projects is 2.5 percentage points, subsequent to the conclusion of the Fund in 2026.

IT system faults are unplanned events of a technical nature that result in an IT system that is required to operate the public charging network becoming inoperable or unable to work as intended. Downtime is a period of time when an affected IT system is inoperable or working sub-optimally due to a fault. This does not include planned downtime, for example, as part of routine systems maintenance.

IT system downtime does not necessarily mean that the charging infrastructure itself was affected or that drivers could not get the charge they needed. Most IT system faults that arise on the Charge Place Scotland network are resolved quickly and do not impact the majority of users.

Total Percentage ‘IT systems’ downtime:

• 2022: 3.5 hrs – 0.04% downtime = 99.96% uptime
• 2023: 13 hrs – 0.15% downtime = 99.85% uptime
• 2024: 53 hrs – 0.6% downtime = 99.4% uptime

Breakdown of ‘IT system’ faults over last 3 years:

• 2 December 2021 Downtime: 1 hour

Systems affected: Third party SIM card supplier’s system – A data centre shut down for maintenance. This caused the system to go down for 1 hour but the system defaulted to ‘any card’ mode which allowed drivers to continue using the network with minimal impact.

• 26 January 2022 Downtime: unavailable

Systems affected: Network wide outage caused by load balancing issues. Resulted in temporary communication issues between the network and the back office. Drivers still able to charge throughout this event.

• 13 May 2022 Downtime: Unavailable, but noted that fault arose on a Friday and was fully resolved by the Monday.

Systems affected: CPS website map. Status pins freezing and not updating.

• 26 May 2022 Downtime: unavailable

Systems affected: reoccurrence of map app issue noted above

• 8 June 2022 Downtime: 1 day

Systems affected: Third party SIM card supplier’s system – data centre shut down for maintenance as before (Dec 2021).

• 1 and 2 August 2022 Downtime: Below 1 hour

Systems affected : Third party data centre issue caused back office and website interruptions around 11pm. The issue originating at a data centre in London and impacted multiple customers across the whole sector, not just CPS.

• 18 September 2022 Downtime: 4 hours

Systems affected: eConnect issue – some drivers unable to start a charge with RFID cards. However, other access methods remained available to start/stop charges, such as the mobile app, webpay and contactless pay.

• 1 December 2022 Downtime : 2 hours 25 minutes

Systems affected: network issue resulting in the loss of RFID authentication for some drivers. However, other access methods remained available to start/stop charges, such as the mobile app, webpay and contactless pay.

• 14 December 2022 Downtime: 1 hour

Systems affected: DNS Certificate not approved – affected access to web application and driver accounts. Fixed by renewing certificates.

• 20 January 2023 Downtime: 4 hours

Systems affected: Network connectivity – Third party SIM card issue which affected multiple businesses/services not just the CPS network.

• 18 February 2023 Downtime: 07:13 – 09:15 – 2 hours

Systems affected: Live map/website certification affecting access.

Did not impact the network access in any way.

• 14 July 2023 Downtime: 6 hours 32 minutes

Systems affected: Software vulnerability resulting in the website being taken down until resolved. Network still fully functioned, no impact on driver experience.

• 26 September 2023 Downtime: 1 hour

Systems affected: Password reset for drivers on Econnect system. This resulted in high demand for access to the website. Development team placed the CPS website into ‘maintenance mode’ to allow them to investigate and implement a fix for the performance issue. No impact on charging sessions or connectivity between CPS & charge points

• 2 March 2024 to 12 March 2024 Downtime: Unavailable

Systems affected: webpage error relating to Google Maps. CPS live map not allowing a search of charge points to take place.

• 9 April 2024 – 14 April 2024 Downtime: Unavailable

Systems affected: Server error caused by too many drivers logging into their account simultaneously to effect a change. Caused the server to run slowly or show an error message. Did not impact network utilisation using any method of starting a charge.

• 3 May 2024 Downtime: Unavailable

Systems affected: Customer billing system. Did not result in ‘downtime’, some customers issued invoices with errors due to systems fault.

• 8 May 2024 Downtime: 9 hours 14 minutes

Systems affected: Outage at a third party data centre. Temporarily affected information stored in the CPS customer database. Did not affect the operation of the charge point infrastructure itself and it did not prevent users from accessing the network using either their RFID or other payment methods.

• 26 June 2024 Downtime: 2– 3 hours

Systems affected: Third party SIM card supplier’s system. Some drivers had issues starting and stopping sessions via the mobile app, although other access methods continued to work as normal.

• 30 June 2024 Downtime: Unavailable

Systems affected: Econnect. Some drivers unable to access their online account but this would not stop them from starting or stopping a charge session via the app or RFID card.

• 12 July 2024 Downtime: 13 hours

Systems affected: Third party supplier server outage. Some drivers unable to start/stop a charge using the mobile app. Affected some RFIDs. Those drivers continued to access via webpay, contactless (where available) and by remote starts by the contact centre. Minimal impact on drivers ability to get a charge.

• 22 July 2024 Downtime: 15 minutes

Systems affected. Telephony. CPS staff unable to answer calls.

This did not impact the network utilisation using any method of starting a charge.

• 10 & 11 August 2024 Downtime : 28 hours

Systems affected: network wide performance issue with intra-system communications dropping out unexpectedly, resulting in back office systems working at a reduced capacity.

On Monday 4 November 2024 I announced that, through a combination of public and increasing private sector investment, Scotland has achieved its target of 6,000 publicly available EV charge points two years ahead of its 2026 target and this was achieved through a combination of public sector and growing private sector investment. Charge point data provider ZapMap reports Scotland had 6,030 public charge points as of 31 October.

The amount of Scottish Government funding which has been awarded and drawn down by recipients to support investment in public EV charging in the last five years is noted in the following table, from financial year 2019-2020.

As I set out in response to S6W-30360 we are providing a range of support and funding to work that aims to promote red squirrel populations. Alongside the support detailed in my previous answer, we have also recently awarded the Eastern Lowlands Red Squirrel Group a development grant of £59,500 through the Scottish Government Nature Restoration Fund. The funding will be used to create a conservation strategy dedicated to protecting and restoring the red squirrel population across the eastern lowlands.

The grant will support a year-long initiative to get a better understanding of population sizes of both red and grey squirrels across Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan-shire, and identify key challenges and opportunities for safeguarding Scotland's beloved native red squirrels in the face of growing environmental pressures.

The Scottish Government processed payment of £5.7 million (90%) to Angus Council on 10 April this year based on the interim Bellwin claim provided by the council. Following certification of the final claim and the supporting evidence provided, the balance will be paid to Angus Council week commencing 11 November.