The Just Transition Fund has allocated £75 million to date, supporting projects and communities across the North East and Moray to create jobs, support innovation, and secure the highly skilled workforce of the future.

No, the Scottish Government Electricity Framework is a single supplier framework awarded to EDF. Local community owned energy providers cannot be added as a supplier to the framework. However it may be possible for local community owned energy providers to enter into direct supply agreements with EDF under contractual agreements which could be established between EDF and the local provider direct with no involvement from Scottish Government.

Within the National Electricity Supply Framework no power is procured from community – owned energy providers.

The framework has been set up to supply electricity to all of the Scottish Public sector. The supplier on the framework is required to purchase power on the futures market through a risk managed hedging strategy. The strategy is owned by a Risk Management Committee who represent all of the main Public Sector bodies.

The framework supplier needs to ensure it has the capacity to secure forward purchases on behalf of all framework customers. The supplier also needs to account manage each individual customer organisation including billing, invoicing, meter reading queries, complaints, energy efficiency queries, and social value programmes within the framework. As well as managing the consumption for over 30,000 meters for electricity that are part of the portfolio. Therefore, the supplier needs to have capacity to trade large volumes and achieve Value For Money for the whole Scottish public sector.

The National Electricity Supply Framework is not mandated however all 32 Local Authorities use the framework and there is local authority representation on the Risk Management Committee who oversee the purchasing strategy.

Following the appointment of Lord Cameron of Lochiel as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Scotland Office, I wrote to him on 17 April 2024 seeking an update on the proposed Order under section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998.

Alister Jack, the then Secretary of State for Scotland, wrote to me on 15 May 2024. In his letter, Mr Jack apologised for the delay. He said he was satisfied that a section 104 Order under the Scotland Act 1998 was the appropriate legislative vehicle, and he was content to provide his in-principle agreement to this Order. He indicated that his officials in the Scotland Office would shortly be setting up a working group of officials to consider the work plan for the Order, including timescales and Parliamentary requirements.

The UK General Election was then called on 23 May and took place on 4 July. Given the change in the UK Government, I wrote to the new Secretary of State, Ian Murray MP, on 12 August 2024 seeking his in-principle agreement to proceed with the section 104 Order. I have not yet received a reply.

Following the award of the construction contract for HMP Highland in April this year, the construction is progressing to plan on site and is scheduled to complete in 2026.

Transport Scotland has already allocated over £145 million of our 2024-25 budget to delivery partners across both Active Travel infrastructure and behaviour change. 2024-25 is the first year for a local authority and Regional Transport Partnerships led delivery model for infrastructure and behaviour change programmes that will encourage a shift towards more walking, wheeling and cycling. This funding remains in place.

The utmost importance is placed on balancing the Scottish Government’s budget each financial year. The Scottish Government and the whole of the public sector face a financial position that is extremely challenging. As with all programmes across Scottish Government, further active travel funding will need to be considered in this context for 2024-25. As the active and sustainable travel funding referred to in the Cabinet Secretary for Finance’s Pre-Budget Fiscal Update had not been allocated, no organisations nor local authorities will see their previously confirmed 2024-25 funding reduced as a result.

Public Health Scotland’s experimental core minimum dataset for the residential rehabilitation programme will include information on three core elements: client characteristics, client outcomes and the residential rehabilitation service pathways (including duration of placements and costs).

The following table sets out the comparisons on passenger data for the Aberdeen to Inverness and Glasgow / Edinburgh to Inverness rail services prior and during the peak pilot.

We don’t hold a breakdown of the Perth to Inverness section due to the way the data is collated by route.

A complete ban on the use of snares, as provided for in the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024, subject to parliamentary procedure, is expected to come into force on 25 November 2024.