We continue to work closely with Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) to develop and implement a plan that is informed by the lived experience of disabled people and will deliver actions to help with the challenges they are currently facing. Venues should be familiar with and address their broader duties under UK health and safety, and equalities legislation including, for people with a visual impairment, the requirement for service providers to make reasonable adjustments in circumstances where disabled people are placed at a substantial disadvantage compared with non-disabled people. The Scottish Government expects all relevant organisations to comply with the requirement of the Equality Act 2010. We welcome the report’s recommendations which will support venues in meeting these requirements.

Creative Scotland’s regularly funded organisations, which include a number of venues across Scotland, are contractually obliged to develop and implement Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plans. Creative Scotland provide their own guidance on how to best achieve this edi-toolkit-dec-2019.pdf (creativescotland.com). This covers all aspects of the work for these organisations, including audience development activities. Facilitating access and participation to culture, is central to the artistic purpose of all Scottish Government funded culture bodies and they all share a desire to communicate with as large and diverse an audience as possible.

Safety is a paramount priority and the Scottish Government fully supports Police Scotland and its partners in dealing with illegal use and misuse of off-road vehicles.

Enforcement is a matter for Police Scotland and local policing teams are best placed to identify where misuse is causing public concern and ensuring those areas can be prioritised to prevent future incidents. Police Scotland have previously outlined work within local policing divisions that raises awareness about the dangers of the misuse of these vehicles and we encourage local authorities to continue to work with Police Scotland to address this issue.

Within Glasgow, there are a range of initiatives being pursued by Police Scotland working closely with partners including Glasgow City Council. This includes nine officers within the Greater Glasgow Division who are trained with off-road motorbike capability and can access hard to reach local areas and open spaces. The local division also promotes social media messaging promoting legal use of these vehicles.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission’s forecasts from December 2023 estimate the cost of Hospitality Relief for Islands and Specified Remote areas to be £4 million in 2024-25. An Island Communities Impact Assessment, published alongside the Non-Domestic Rates (Islands and Remote Areas Hospitality Relief) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 which deliver this relief, considers the impact of this relief.

The number of unique views to the Scottish Youth Parliament/Children’s Parliament Mind Yer Time website in each of the last 12 months are as follows:

Scottish Government officials meet with St Mary’s Music School on a regular basis to discuss funding and other issues, for example the impact of the removal of VAT exemption on school fees. We also continue to work with the school to regularly update the St Mary’s Music School (Aided Places Scheme) (Scotland) Regulations 2015, which includes an examination of, for example, the income thresholds for parental contributions and ancillary grants.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-29611 on 20 September 2024. 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.

FLS has a portfolio of 25 operational windfarms on the national forests and land, amounting to a total of 1217MW installed generation capacity. FLS is not currently aware of any community ownership in this portfolio.

Pilots of a new pre-application consenting process developed by the Consenting Task Group commenced in January 2024 in the Shetland and Highland local authority areas.

Our priorities for this year, developed by the Consenting Task Group and agreed by the Scottish Aquaculture Council, include delivering more pilots, completing and responding to evaluation activities to improve the process, exploring opportunities to better coordinate Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) activities and working to align onward application processes.

We are also taking action to clarify the consenting process for aquaculture developments beyond 3 nautical miles.

As part of this work we have recently published a consultation on proposals for plans to address an existing gap in aquaculture planning regulations by extending Local Authority planning controls through marine planning zones further offshore out to 12 nautical miles.

The public consultation will run until 11 December and can be viewed at Extending marine planning zones: consultation - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space.

The National Electricity Supply expires on 31 March 2026, the framework has 3 optional 12 month extensions.

Variations to the framework can be made, however these must be in accordance with procurement law and be non-material changes and in agreement with the Supplier.

There are 107 entries in the pilot phase of the Cladding Remediation Programme. Entries in the pilot can comprise a single block or building, or a development, or part of a development consisting of multiple blocks or buildings.

Only a Single Building Assessment meeting the Scottish Standards can identify what cladding if any, a building has and further identify whether the cladding is unsafe.

Developers, homeowners or other organisations could have commissioned assessments without informing the Scottish Government. Therefore, the true number may be higher and could increase as further information becomes available.