Chamber and committees

Due to its volume, the requested data regarding the Private Rented Sector Landlord Loan Scheme has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre bib number 64462.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on whether schools are over-capacity, i.e. have no places for additional pupils in a stage of education.

Data on physical capacity in all local authority primary and secondary schools in Scotland is published annually in the School estates supplementary statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . However, this has to be combined with other information, including the number of teaching staff in each school and whether there are any temporary buildings, to understand the available places for pupils.

All local authorities in Scotland have a statutory responsibility to provide a school place for all the children in their area, and will seek to match school capacity to demand in each area. Where schools are over-subscribed, local authorities will offer places according to their admissions policy, which may include priority for siblings.

The Scottish Government’s £2 billion Learning Estate Investment Programme is being delivered in partnership with local authorities and will benefit tens of thousands of pupils across Scotland. Scottish Government funding through the Learning Estate Investment Programme is intended to augment - not replace - local authorities own investment in their school estate.

Under Section 29 of the Scottish National Investment Bank Scottish Ministers must establish and maintain an advisory group. Now that the Bank is fully established, and has a growing portfolio of investments work is underway to create the advisory group.

As part of the work currently underway Scottish Government officials are finalising decisions on the membership of the group and how often this group will meet.

The Deferral Working Group was established to guide and assist evaluation of the pilot approach and assist preparation and planning for full implementation of the associated legislation in August 2023.

Interviews were undertaken with 30 parents as part of the pilot evaluation and the findings from the evaluation were shared with the working group.

Results from a parent survey about deferrals conducted by Glasgow City Council was shared with the working group.

Give Them Time, a group who campaigned for the additional year of funded ELC for children who defer, attended the working group in July 2021 to share the views of parents they work with and these views were also fed in through officials at further meetings.

The Scottish Government committed an additional £250 million in the term of this parliament to deliver the national mission on drugs. We also committed in January 2023 to delivering a cross government plan that addresses the systemic stigma that keeps people from seeking support as well as a number of initiatives designed to make it easier for people who use drugs to access all the services they might need to improve their lives.

Ultimately, the costs of the strategy will be determined by the actions which are included when the strategy is finalised. These will require to be assessed and agreed within the context of the 2024-25 Published Budget process.

To support development of the strategy we have spent more than £70k on research and engagement since the announcement was made; and have provided grant funding to the Association for Real Change (ARC) Scotland.

Due to its volume, the requested data regarding the Private Rented Sector Landlord Loan Scheme has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre bib number 64462.

Business Gateway is an external support delivery body funded by Local Authorities and is not directly supported by Scottish Government. The Business Gateway 21-22 annual report was published in March 2023 and can be found here: BG_Annual-Report_March23_V6_BC-1.pdf (bgateway.com) .

The Scottish Government remains resolute in its commitment to Keep the Promise and the implementation plan published last year sets out our actions and commitments to help care experienced children, young people and their families. The Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) is a key element of these commitments.

We recently published the WFWF Year 1 evaluation interim report, which we are using to inform decisions on the best use of the outstanding WFWF. Our plans for the remaining allocation will be provided in due course.

Repossession involves the retaking of property when a borrower is in breach or default of a mortgage or loan secured on the property.
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The first table shows the number of repossessions registered by the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Services since April 2018, split by residential and non-residential and unoccupied property.