Chamber and committees

Scottish Ministers honoured the commitment to treat sympathetically the compensation claims of the tenant farmers in the court actions of McMaster & Others v Scottish Ministers and Mackay & Another v the Scottish Ministers. Settlement terms are confidential to the parties involved in a litigation and should not be disclosed.

The Mixed Tenure Improvement Service is delivered by the City of Edinburgh Council using powers as set out in the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004. Any concerns with the scheme would need to be raised with the Council.

Tackling the climate emergency is one of this Government’s key priorities and we are committed to ensuring that those who may be impacted by the transition to net zero are involved in designing how we manage it.

Our Public Engagement Strategy for Climate Change, published in September 2021, recognises our commitment to a participatory approach where people can actively shape just, fair and inclusive policies that promote mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.

Heating our homes and workplaces causes around 20% of our carbon emissions, so we cannot achieve net zero without improving energy efficiency and ending our use of gas boilers. We recently consulted on proposals for a Heat in Buildings Bill, receiving over 1600 responses. We will ensure that our proposals are affordable for homes and businesses, and take account of responses to the consultation.

Scottish Government are continuing to work with our partners COSLA and Scottish Refugee Council on the implementation of the actions set out in the Delivery Plan. There are no plans to cancel other actions.

A total of 13 applications were received for the post of Chair to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. The appointment process for that post remains on-going. At the same time, the SCCRC advertised a vacancy for a Legal Member, which also attracted 13 applications.

The Scottish Government posted the adverts on the Scottish Government hosted public appointments webpages.

The adverts were circulated to over 1500 individuals and groups who have registered on the public appointments notes of interest contact list. This information is circulated to bodies such as Citizens Advice Scotland, the Equality Network, Women on Boards, and Changing the Chemistry.

Scottish Government officials also reached out to a number of other relevant organisations to draw their attention to the vacancies. These were:

• The Faculty of Advocates;
• Scottish Legal Aid Board;
• The Society of Solicitor Advocates;
• Scottish Legal Complaints;
• The Equalities and Human Rights Commission;
• The Scottish Human Rights Commission;
• The Legal Services Agency;
• Law Centres Network;
• Fair Justice System for Scotland Group;
• Govan Law Centre; and
• The Scottish Ethnic Minorities Lawyers Association.

The vacancies were also posted on the Scottish Legal News website, the Scottish Legal News X page, and advertised via Scottish Legal News’ daily newsletter.

In November 2021 we committed to increasing residential rehabilitation capacity from 425 to 650 beds and to increasing the number of statutory-funded placements by 300%, so that by 2026 1,000 people are publicly funded for their placement.

From a baseline of an estimated 425 beds in 2021, we provided funding for 140 additional residential rehabilitation beds through our Residential Rehabilitation Rapid Capacity Fund. Of this amount, 36 are now operational, with a further 34 due to open across Aberdeenshire and the Highlands and Islands in the coming months. The remainder will become operational over 2025-2026.

The increased investment has also led to a number of privately-funded developments within the sector, which contribute towards our overall bed target. Scottish Government analysts are collecting updated data about current capacity in Scotland, including these wider developments, which when published will provide a public record for progress against our commitments by March 2026.

Public Health Scotland's June report found ‘the available evidence suggests that the Scottish Government is on track to hit its target of 1,000 individuals per year publicly funded to go to rehab by 2026.’ The statistics show that in the full financial year 2023-24, 938 placements were approved.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

As of 2 April 2024 (the date on which SPS’ year end people data was collated), SPS’ full time equivalent figure across prison officer positions was 3440.5.

Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) work with operators, crew and unions to ensure that all replacement ferries are safely crewed and operated from the ports and harbours they are set to serve before their introduction. The four vessels being built at Cemre are sister vessels, of a standardised design and layout and as such the crew will be interoperable. This will be the case also for the seven vessels as part of the Small Vessel Replacement Programme. Port works are also being undertaken to ensure that they are suitable for the new vessels.

Inter-island ferry services and operations must also comply with strict training and safety regulations for crew.

The Scottish Government publish full-time police officer numbers on a quarterly basis. The statistics published provide a snapshot of police strength at the end of each quarter. Police officer quarterly strength statistics Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The following table shows the number of full-time equivalent police officers at the end of each quarter during 2023-24.

Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) as procuring authority foresee the invitation to tender issuing late September/early October 2024. A contract range will be given but it will be for bidders to confirm the cost of the design and build contract and for CMAL to evaluate bids against the set criteria of the procurement process.

Engagement and consultation have been undertaken on both aspects ahead of the live procurement. Passenger accessibility and crew training and familiarisation has also been included in the scope of the Small Vessel Replacement Programme ahead of successful delivery.