Chamber and committees

The analysis of the Scottish Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) consultation and the Scottish Government response were published on the Scot.gov website on Tuesday 7 November. These documents can be accessed via the following links:

Consultation Analysis Report: https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781835214763

Scottish Government Response: https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781835214756

Scottish Government and Education Scotland are currently developing options for a national digital academy. These will include an estimate of costs.

The teaching standards set by the General Teaching Council for Scotland require teachers to be able to identify and respond appropriately to pupils with difficulties in or barriers to learning. Initial Teacher Educations supports student teachers to be able to support the child in question themselves or to seek specialised information and specialised support if necessary. Scottish Ministers have recently outlined in our Programme for Government 2023-24 our commitment to work with teachers to provide additional professional learning opportunities while seeking to build on the Additional Support for Learning Action Plan.

In 2022-23, the Scottish Government provided over £500,000 to voluntary sector organisations to support children and young people with additional support needs, including sensory loss. This includes funding to the Scottish Sensory Centre to support the training of school staff to provide effective support to Deaf children and young people.

The Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) gathers data on the age of the dwelling broken down into six categories, pre-1919, 1919-1945, 1945-1964, 1965-1982, 1982-2002, post-2002. The age bands used reflect different architectural styles, construction techniques and building regulation standards. Therefore, we are unable to provide data specifically on dwellings built prior to 1914 but can provide data on dwellings built prior to 1919. The proportion of the housing stock in each local authority area comprised of pre-1919 buildings is included below. We estimate that around 19% of occupied dwellings were constructed pre-1919.

The Scottish Government is committed to decarbonising Scotland’s buildings in line with our climate targets for net zero by 2045. We recognise it may be more challenging for some traditionally built homes and buildings to meet any energy efficiency and heating standard we propose, especially those granted listed status.

This is why officials have met with a variety of organisations with an interest in the retrofit of traditional and protected buildings. These include Historic Environment Scotland, Built Environment Forum Scotland, Under One Roof, Federation of Master Builders, and Historic Houses. The workshop on Traditional and Protected buildings, undertaken by the Tenements Short Life Working Group in October 2022 was attended by a range of stakeholders, including Changeworks, Church of Scotland, Local Energy Scotland, MAST Architects, National Trust for Scotland, Royal Incorporation of Architects Scotland (RIAS), and South Seeds.

Officials plan to continue engagement with key stakeholders alongside the planned consultation on proposals for a Heat in Buildings Bill. This engagement will be vital in helping us develop cost-effective and technically feasible solutions to improve the energy efficiency and transition Scotland’s traditional and listed buildings to climate-friendly heating. We are committed to ensuring that we do this while respecting and preserving the special characteristics of our buildings and places and considering the health and wellbeing of Scotland’s people.

The Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) collects information about the physical characteristics of Scotland’s homes. The SHCS gathers data on the age of the dwelling broken down into six categories, pre-1919, 1919-1945, 1945-1964, 1965-1982, 1982-2002, post-2002. The age bands used reflect different architectural styles, construction techniques and building regulation standards. In the SHCS, traditional buildings are defined as pre-1919 built as evidence shows that construction methods moved away from solid stone walls to more modern practices at this time. The proportion of the housing stock in each local authority area comprised of traditional buildings is included below. Averaged over 2017-2019 we estimate that around 19% of occupied dwellings were constructed pre-1919.

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is the lead public body on the investigation of, care for and promotion of Scotland's historic environment. HES published retrofit guidance for traditional buildings in November 2021 at Guide to Energy Retrofit of Traditional Buildings | Hist Env Scotland (historicenvironment.scot) . The Scottish Government values their technical expertise and regularly relies on their work and input to help define the approach to retrofitting traditional and listed buildings.

For example, following a series of stakeholder workshops held in 2021, an expert Tenements Short Life Working Group was formed. A specific workshop looking at traditional and protected buildings was undertaken as part of this process and Historic Environment Scotland were a key participant in this group A. The Final Report and Recommendations of the Tenements Short Life Working Group will be published shortly.

We are committed to continuing to work closely with HES to shape our future proposals on a Heat in Buildings Standard to ensure the best outcome for traditional and protected homes and buildings and the people who live and use them.

The Health and Safety Executive (the HSE) operates across the UK including in Scotland under governance from the Department of Work and Pensions within the UK Government. The HSE is responsible for helping people be safer at work.

As part of their responsibilities for workplace safety, the HSE publishes workplace safety statistics for Scotland. In November 2022, they published the latest statistics:

Workplace health and safety statistics for Scotland, 2022 (hse.gov.uk)

In presenting these statistics, the HSE indicated that '... this report represents a profile of workplace health and safety in Scotland and its primary purpose is to provide Scotland specific equivalents of the statistics for Great Britain published across HSE’s Health and Safety Statistics pages. The figures also enable comparisons between Scotland and Great Britain to be made. However, any such comparative analysis should be interpreted with caution since any differences in health and safety outcomes are likely to be at least in part driven by differences in the industry sectors and occupations people work in.'

More specifically, the HSE has carried out a statistical analysis of fatalities in the workplace across the nations of the UK. On page 15 of their November 2022 report, they indicated the following:

'Over recent years, the fatal injury rate in Scotland has been consistently higher than that of Great Britain, but there is no difference in the rate of non-fatal injuries. One explanation is that in Scotland, a greater proportion of workers are employed in higher risk industry sectors or higher risk occupations, compared with Great Britain as a whole. It is possible to standardise fatal injury rates by adjusting them to account for differences in industry composition between countries and regions and a recent research report shows the effect this has on the relative rates of the countries and regions of Great Britain.

The following table shows estimates of the unstandardised and standardised country-specific fatal injury rates for the period 2015/16-2019/20 (the full report can be found at www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/adhoc analysis/updated-standardised-fatals.pdf) .

Number, un-standardised rate and standardised rate of fatal injuries per 100,000 workers (2015-16 – 2019-20)

The Scottish Government welcomes The UK Commission on Bereavement’s report and the focus it brings to improving the experience of people affected by grief and loss. Bereavement affects many aspects of our lives, and we recognise that getting the right care and support following a bereavement is crucial for our health and wellbeing.

We are already taking forward a broad programme of work to improve the practical support, care and advice that is available for people who have been bereaved.

The Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention & Adult Learning and Empowering Communities (CYPFEI & ALEC) Fund has provided funding to 115 organisations - including Child Bereavement UK, Richmond's Hope and APEX Scotland who provide support to children and young people who have suffered a loss through bereavement. £14.5m core funding is prioritised annually, which is equivalent to £100m to date from these funds’ inception.

Officials will continue to engage and listen to bereavement sector partners as they take forward bereavement work, drawing on the UK Commissions findings.

The Scottish Government funded a national Childhood Bereavement Coordinator project, that concluded in September 2022 with the publication of the final report ‘Growing Up Grieving’. The Co-ordinator’s report included 7 recommendations which span a number of portfolios across Scottish Government. The publication of the report coincided with that of the UK Commission on Bereavement published in October 2022 and the Scottish Bereavement Summit which took place on 13 October 2022, which included delegates from a wide range of bereavement sectors. The summit looked at and summarised the UK Commission report and other recent bereavement reports - including Growing up Grieving , and asked delegates to vote on their priority areas. The final report was published on 28 June 2023, summarising the summit’s findings and compiling recommendations from the 5 recent bereavement reports with the views of summit delegates into one set of recommendations.

As the Scottish Government programme of bereavement work spans a range of Ministerial portfolios, the bereavement cross-policy network is continuing to engage with, and listen to, bereavement sector partners. Future bereavement work will draw on the UK Commission’s findings.