Chamber and committees

Officials operate flexibly across a range of policies and programmes according to the specific requirements of their work at any given time. They do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of their time spent working on particular project. It is therefore not possible to provide an expenditure figure regarding how much the Scottish Government has spent on work by officials involved with the development of Digital Waste Tracking.

As a four nations programme, staff resource contributing toward the development of Digital Waste Tracking is shared across UK Government and the devolved nations, with the UK Government, through Defra, providing the majority of resource and funding.

Zero Waste Scotland

We are not aware of any money spent specifically on Digital Waste Tracking within Zero Waste Scotland. A Zero Waste Scotland employee provided a response to the consultation on Digital Waste Tracking on behalf of the organisation in 2022. Some preparatory research went into the preparation of this response. Zero Waste Scotland does not have a record of any further staff allocation to the development of Digital Waste Tracking.

SEPA

SEPA staff work also flexibly across a range of priority projects and work areas, and do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of their time spent working on different activities. Due to the cyber-attack SEPA experienced in December 2020, data is not available on resourcing of digital waste tracking work prior to December 2020. It is therefore not possible to provide a complete and detailed expenditure figure regarding how much existing SEPA resource has worked on Digital Waste Tracking.

Since December 2020 SEPA has used existing staff resources to provide:

• 1 Principal Scientist working on the project until June 2022
• 1 Senior Scientist working on the project until August 2024

Additional funding was secured from the Scottish Government to employ a User Researcher in 2022 at a cost of approximately £80k. The focus of the above-noted posts was on supporting the establishment of the UK Digital Waste Tracking project, engaging with industry and SEPA teams to define user requirements for the system

Since March 2022, additional funding from the Scottish Government has supported the recruitment of two fixed-term Senior Policy Officers to work on the project at a cost in the region of £530k. They are supporting both the UK Digital Waste Tracking project, further refining the detail of SEPA’s operational requirements, and preparing for agency readiness.

Management oversight for the project has been provided from existing resources, taking on average no more than the equivalent of 1 day per week. Given the complexity of SEPA’s interaction with the UK project and requirement for a robust governance framework for SEPA’s Digital Waste Tracking implementation project, a Senior Project Manager has also been provided to support Digital Waste Tracking from existing SEPA staff resource since May 2024.

The Scottish Government fully supports the work being undertaken by the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS) partnership project. The project has been working in strategic areas to protect, maintain and promote existing red squirrel populations, and to defend these populations from the spread of squirrelpox. With support from project staff, professional Grey Squirrel Officers have been working with volunteers and landowners to deliver strategic grey squirrel control in four priority areas: Argyll, the Trossachs and Stirling; Tayside (collectively the Central Lowlands); North East Scotland; and South Scotland.

The SSRS Project has recently been awarded just over £1m by the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund. Over two years, this funding is enabling the creation of new community-focused rapid response monitoring and control networks across the northern Central Lowlands, made possible by increased year-round professional grey squirrel control activities in the area. This will pave the way for a long-term southward shift of the current “Highland Line Control Zone” – the 10km zone stretching from Balloch to Montrose and buffering the diagonal Highland Boundary Fault Line, where Scotland’s Highland red-only squirrel population intersects with the most northly reaches of grey squirrels incurring from the Lowlands.

This funding has enabled a concentrated effort to eradicate the last remaining isolated population of grey squirrels in the North East of Scotland. The project also aims to eradicate grey squirrels from the islands of Loch Lomond with the support of partners and landowners and additional funding from the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority.

Funding for land managers for grey squirrel control is also available through the Sustainable Management of Forests under the Scottish Government’s Forestry Grant Scheme.

The Scottish Government and partners will continue to be involved in discussions on taking forward the work currently being undertaken by SSRS.The Scottish Strategy for Red Squirrel Conservation was published in 2015 and we are currently reviewing this with a view to publishing a revised strategy in 2025.

Zero Waste Scotland intends to publish the report on their website on 11 October 2024.

Page 161 of the ‘Progress in reducing emissions in Scotland: 2022 Report to Parliament’ by the Climate Change Committee (Progress in reducing emissions in Scotland 2022 Report to Parliament (theccc.org.uk)) contains the following recommendation:

“Legislate the Circular Economy Bill and set targets to reduce waste and improve recycling rates beyond 2025, ensuring these are more ambitious than existing targets. Targets should be set on the basis of separate waste streams (rather than 'All waste') and where possible consider carbon-based metrics”

The Scottish Government’s Zero Waste Plan, published in 2010, set out targets to recycle 70% of all waste by 2025 and 60% of household waste by 2020.

Scotland has made significant progress in reducing waste, increasing recycling and decarbonising the waste sector, but there is further work to be done. The overall recycling rate in Scotland of 62.3% in 2022 is at its highest level since records began in 2011. In 2022 the household recycling rate was 43.3%.

The Circular Economy (Scotland) Act, passed unanimously in June 2024, includes our commitment to determine new circular economy targets for Scotland from 2025, to support our work to reduce emissions to tackle the climate emergency.

The approval, construction and installation of Solar photovoltaic projects over 150kW is monitored through the Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD). Information is provided both as a spreadsheet and as an interactive map which provides the location and capacity of all renewable energy projects within the planning system.

Renewable Energy Planning Database | DESNZ & Barbour ABI (barbour-abi.com)

The electricity capacity and generation provided by all grid-connected renewable projects is monitored through UK Renewables Energy Trends.

Energy Trends: UK renewables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Both these data sources are updated on a quarterly basis and summary data is provided within Scotland's quarterly energy statistics publication.

Quarterly energy statistics Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Details of all small-scale renewable energy installations in the UK are available from the MCS data dashboard

About the MCS Data Dashboard - MCS (mcscertified.com)

Two incineration facilities, both of which already held planning permission at the time of the incineration review, have become operational since June 2022.

These facilities have permitted capacities of 270,000 and 150,000 tonnes per annum but their operational capacity is likely to be less. For example, data available through SEPA’s ‘waste sites and capacity tool’ shows facilities typically operate at less than their permitted capacity.

To support future planning decisions, we accepted the review’s recommendation to develop an indicative capacity cap. It is important that any indicative cap is as robust as possible and developing such a cap is a significant piece of work.

For that reason, we are undertaking work to improve the quality of data on waste to support the development of an indicative cap. This includes, working with other governments of the UK to implement mandatory Digital Waste Tracking from April 2025, which will provide a step-change in the quality of Scottish waste data, and engaging with partners, including ZWS and SEPA, to draw together key waste composition, carbon and environmental impact data insights.

Together, these initiatives will provide invaluable data to support the accurate forecasting of Scotland’s waste infrastructure needs and the development of an indicative cap. Further information on these developments can be found here:

Digital Waste Tracking Consultation Response.

Outcome of the Household Waste Composition Analysis.

Our draft Circular Economy and Waste Route Map, published 18 January 2024, set out further detail and associated timescales on the steps we will take to minimise the environmental and climate impacts of waste, including the development of an indicative capacity cap.