Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government works in conjunction with justice system agencies in monitoring the effectiveness of legislation on an on-going basis. There are no plans for a formal review of the criminal law on stalking at this time.

Scottish Government does not hold this information. Circularity Scotland Limited (CSL) was established as a private not-for-profit company by the drinks industry to meet its regulatory obligations. The Directors and Administrators of CSL have placed information on Companies House website about the Administration, which includes details of claims from creditors.

The Scottish Government remains committed to the delivery of a successful DRS in October 2025 and are pushing the UK Government to set out how this can be delivered across the UK. The onus is now on DEFRA to work with the devolved nations, industry and wider stakeholders to ensure this scheme is launched successfully and on time.

The Scottish Government does not collect information on the total number of kinship carers in each local authority area. We do, however, hold figures for the number of children who are looked after in kinship care and these are included in the Children’s Social Work Statistics for Scotland .

Latest information from the Annual Population Survey (April 2022 to Mar 2023) shows that there are 28,300 people in Scotland who are unemployed for 12 months or more and therefore are long term unemployed.

Through No One Left Behind, we are transforming the employability system to be more responsive in meeting the needs of people and adapting to rapidly changing labour markets. The number of people starting support through No One Left Behind has continued to increase year on year, from 2,818 in year 1 (April 2019 – March 2020) to 17,667 in year 4 (April 2022 – March 2023).

From 1 April 2024, following the end of referrals to Fair Start Scotland in March 2024, employability support for disabled people and those at risk of long-term unemployment will also be provided through No One Left Behind. This is a key step to simplify the employability system in line with ambitions set out in the National Strategy for Economic Transformation to eradicate structural barriers to labour market participation. Learning and evaluation continues to underpin our ambitions. The Implementation Evaluation of No One Left Behind and the Young Person’s Guarantee was published on 10 August, which offers valuable insight on how we continue to build upon the strengths of local delivery and good practice.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information you request regarding defibrillators in schools.

You may wish to contact Scottish Local Authorities individually for information they may hold. The Scottish local government page of the Confederation of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) has contact information for these: https://www.cosla.gov.uk/councils .

In the 2022-23 financial year, the final outturn allocations to the schemes were as follows:

• Warmer Homes Scotland - £42.5 million
• Area Based Schemes - £41.7 million
• Home Energy Scotland - £22.4 million

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children across Scotland can access high quality play opportunities in a range of settings. Through play, children and young people can explore the world around them in a creative and engaging way. It is important for their growth, development and wellbeing.

The Scottish Government has delivered funding of £20 million in the first three years of the play park renewal programme. Distribution and allocation of the remaining funding has been agreed with COSLA and we have written to all local authorities confirming their funding allocation until 2026 as per the table:

Since 2019-20, local authorities have been allocated an annual share of £8 million from the Ending Homelessness Together Budget to support the implementation of their rapid rehousing transition plans. This is in addition to £2 million allocated in 2018-19 from the same budget for each local authority to develop a rapid rehousing transition plan, and £5 million in 2020-21 from the Winter Plan for Social Protection to help mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic.

The additional £2 million allocated in 2023-24 for rapid rehousing transition plans is new money. No additional rapid rehousing transition plan funding was made available in 2022-23.

Since 2019-20, local authorities have been allocated an annual share of £8 million from the Ending Homelessness Together Budget to support the implementation of their rapid rehousing transition plans. The additional £2 million in 2023-24 for rapid rehousing transition plans has also been allocated from the Ending Homelessness Together Budget.

Homelessness in Scotland is a statistical bulletin published by the Scottish Government twice a year. This data provides quantitative evidence across a number of issues for homeless households, including applications, assessments, temporary accommodation and outcomes. We will use the annual and interim Homelessness in Scotland statistics as the key measure of the success of initiatives to reduce the number of households and length of time spent in temporary accommodation.

We will also work with the sector on the potential to develop an additional monitoring framework to provide more up to date data in between these statistical publications, balancing the need for information with the pressures on landlords.