Chamber and committees

Ophthalmology is a post-graduate specialism in medicine which does not involve universities, and as such no data exists with respect to university training places for this specialism. The Scottish Funding Council holds data regarding university training places for optometry.

During the initial passage of the UEFA European Championship (Scotland) Act 2020 (the EURO 2020 Act), the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee’s report included a recommendation, which the Scottish Government accepted, that a formal evaluation of the operation of the legislation’s provision in practice should be undertaken.

Any scope to report on, and evaluate, the EURO 2020 Act was severely limited due to the Coronavirus pandemic’s impact. The rescheduled event took place in 2021 with a limited number of spectators present. Public health considerations were of paramount importance and a number of mitigations were put in place for the event in order to reduce the risk of transmission. Glasgow City Council oversaw compliance with these measures.

The Scottish Government was unsuccessful in procuring an independent evaluation of the operation of the measures provided for by the EURO 2020 Act and associated regulations. However, feedback on operation of the legislation was gathered from event partners, including Glasgow City Council and UEFA.

A summary of feedback received from partners was as follows:

• Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) have not received any reports under the EURO 2020 Act. As far as COPFS officials are able to identify, COPFS did not receive any reports in relation to ticket touting, illegal street trading or illegal advertising with offence dates between 11 June and 12 July 2021.
• Glasgow City Council noted that the legislation was essential in ensuring restrictions could be put in place. However, it would have been useful for event partners to have agreed upon the requirement to implement legislation sooner, particularly had the original 2020 dates taken place. This would have allowed for a fuller public consultation and more notice to traders of the restrictions being implemented;
• The Scottish Football Association echoed the point around the need for identifying a legislative solution sooner, in the context of the originally scheduled EURO 2020. However, the Scottish Football Association recognised that the Scottish Government successfully managed to expedite a process, timetable and resource base that provided considerable comfort and confidence to key project stakeholders – UEFA, the Scottish Football Association, and Glasgow City Council; and
• UEFA noted that, despite the strong and clear wording of the legislation, implementation of the legislation was challenging. Whilst UEFA considers that Glasgow City Council Trading Standards’ level of resource and patrolling was sufficient, it has also observed that Glasgow City Council Trading Standards did not feel comfortable going above and beyond what they would do in normal circumstances against infringing activities.

The summary feedback set out above – along with the more detailed findings collated by officials as part of this exercise – will be used to inform the public consultation of EURO 2028: commercial rights protection which was launched on 2 May 2024.

Scotland will co-host EURO 2028 as part of a joint UK and Ireland Championship. The event is expected to take place in Summer 2028 and last around four weeks.

We are working closely with a range of partners, including the UK Government, Welsh Government, Northern Ireland Executive and Irish Government, to deliver EURO 2028.

Some mega sporting events require specific legal protections. For EURO 2028, UEFA has requirements to protect its own and event sponsors’ and licensees’ commercial rights during the event. It also usually requires restrictions on ticket touting. The Scottish Government has today launched a survey at http://www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781836012108 seeking views from anyone with an interest in EURO 2028 commercial rights protection.

UEFA’s requirements for EURO 2028 are not yet confirmed. The proposals set out in the consultation are based on government guarantees made to UEFA when bidding for EURO 2028, and experience from EURO 2020 when Scotland was one of eleven host nations. That event was postponed to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

For EURO 2028, it is likely UEFA will require protections, including relevant criminal offences and enforcement powers, around:

• Unauthorised street trading
• Unauthorised advertising
• Unauthorised resale of tickets

The survey seeks views on:

• What the impacts were of the measures put in place for UEFA EURO 2020, which took place in 2021;
• How business could be impacted by the measures that are likely required by UEFA for EURO 2028; and
• What kinds of measures and exemptions would be most appropriate to meet likely UEFA requirements.

The survey will be open for 12 weeks, from 2 May 2024 to 26 July 2024.

The results from the 2022 Scottish House Condition Survey were published on 29 February 2024.

In 2022 the Scottish House Condition Survey asked the following new question on fire alarms: Has the dwelling satisfactory equipment for detecting fire and giving warning in the event of fire or suspected fire? Responses were recorded as a yes or no answer, and in order to be recorded as ‘yes’ a dwelling must have interlinked fire alarms installed meeting a number of criteria.

In 2022 around 7% of local authority dwellings (25,000) and 5% of housing association dwellings (13,000) were recorded as not having satisfactory equipment for detecting and warning in the event of fire (not necessarily due to alarms not being interlinked).

While all dwellings meeting the fire alarm criteria have interlinked fire alarms, there may be some dwellings recorded as having insufficient fire detection equipment that do have interlinked fire alarms but failed the fire alarm criteria due to other factors such as insufficient number of alarms, improperly powered alarms, or improper locations of alarms. However, due to the yes/no mode of question this number cannot be quantified from 2022 Scottish House Condition Survey data. From 2023 the question on fire alarms will provide details as to why a dwelling’s equipment for detecting a fire is unsatisfactory which will allow analysis in this area from 2025.

Our thoughts are with the families and friends of those who sadly died before a decision could be made on their application.

We know some people waited an unacceptably long time for Child Disability Payment and urgent action was taken to address this resulting in improved processing times.

We aim to process all applications as quickly as possible and have an accelerated application process for people who have a terminal illness diagnoses. We urge anyone who is applying on behalf of a terminally ill child or young person to use this dedicated route and ensure their application is given utmost priority.

While we cannot comment on individual cases, there are a number of factors that impact on how long it takes to make a decision including the time taken to gather information to support an application from a professional such as teachers or health care practitioners. This can take time – but under the DWP, people had to do this themselves – and we know people greatly value this service.

Primary Teachers are generalists; therefore, they deliver the totality of the Curriculum including PE. Specialist PE teachers are predominantly based in secondary schools.

The table shows the number of Primary schools in each authority with teachers listing Physical Education as their main subject. Head teachers are not included.

Individual teachers may have posts in more than one school. Note that in some local authorities physical education teachers that serve more than one school are recorded as centrally employed rather than allocated to individual schools. Teachers recorded in this way do not appear in the following table.

Primary schools with teachers in post with Physical Education as their main subject taught 2023 - Excludes head teachers.

The Scottish Government’s role is to set the strategic policy for the NHS in Scotland, NHS Boards are responsible for service delivery and treatment. All Health Boards should consider patient transport needs when they plan and deliver services and must ensure Patients have access to all information on any relevant patient transport (including community transport) and travel reimbursement entitlement.

The Scottish Government intends to publish a consultation on proposals to introduce a carbon land tax in summer 2024, as set out in the statement made by the Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Net Zero and Energy on 18 April 2024.

The information requested on what data we hold on any current physiotherapist vacancies across all NHS boards can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: https://turasdata.nes.nhs.scot/data-and-reports/official-workforce-statistics/all-official-statistics-publications/05-march-2024-workforce/dashboards/nhs-scotland-workforce/?pageid=11224

Throughout the public consultation and in reaching the decision to close fishing for sandeel in all Scottish waters, the Scottish Government recognised the importance of potential wider environmental and ecosystem benefits, which included potential benefits to sandeel, seabirds, marine mammals, and other fish species.

There are currently no plans to conduct an assessment of the potential impact of the closure of fishing for sandeel in Scottish waters on seabird populations, including Atlantic puffin, as these measures only came into force on 26 March 2024. However, there are several monitoring and research programmes in place that can add to the evidence base in relation to potential impacts of closing fishing for sandeel in Scottish waters, and which can be drawn on should such an assessment be undertaken in the future.