Chamber and committees

Wildfires are costly to fight and can cause significant damage to woodland as well as water catchments and other ecosystem services. We know that wildfires can not only result in substantial carbon loss but also cause damage to our wildlife and require costly restoration in the aftermath.

Where a wildfire has occurred on land managed by Forestry and Land Scotland, FLS monitors the area damaged by fire, it’s cause if known, and an estimate of the SFRS resource used. Last year the burnt area of the FLS estate increased from over 250 hectares in 2022 to over 340 hectares in 2023. The scale of the impact of a wildfire will depend on the severity and in some cases that recovery will be quicker than others, but research has shown that even relatively small peat carbon losses from combustion take 10 to 30 years to reaccumulate post-fire.

In March of this year we published a Fire Danger Assessment of Scottish Habitat Types Deliverable-D2_3b-Fire-Danger-Fuels-Final-6-3-23.pdf (hutton.ac.uk) as part of our Strategic Research Programme for Climate Change Impacts on Natural Capital. That report, carried out by the James Hutton Institute, includes consideration of wildfires in Scotland. However we have not undertaken any research into the economic impact of wildfires more specifically.

The Scottish Wildfire Forum, which is chaired by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, includes Local Authorities, Regional Resilience Partnerships and other Agencies as members to assess wildfire risks and consider what mitigating actions might be taken.

Alongside the Forum, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service continue to work closely with land managers and local communities prevent wildfires ever occurring.

Work is also ongoing within our National Parks to address concerns around the risk and impact of wildfires. The Cairngorms National Park (CNP) consultation on Fire Management, which ran from February to April of this year, sought views on proposals to reduce fire management byelaws which aim to reduce the risk of wildfires being ignited, and on how the Park Authority might enhance its communication and education approach.

Both the CNP and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park also engage with key stakeholders through Visit Scotland’s Visitor Management Strategy Group Visitor Management: Scotland's Plan & Objectives | VisitScotland.org t o develop messaging around visitor related fires.

We do not intend to release this information while it remains commercially sensitive. Release of this information at this time would be likely to weaken the commercial position of Ferguson Marine while they pursue future contract opportunities and provide an advantage to competitors.

Drug-related hospital stats are published by Public Health Scotland and can be found at. Drug-related hospital statistics - Scotland 2022 to 2023 - Drug-related hospital statistics - Publications - Public Health Scotland Breakdowns are available by ‘drug type’, but are not specific to different painkillers, and are not cross tabulated with age.

National Records of Scotland also publish an annual official statistics report on Drug-related Deaths in Scotland. The most recent publication was released on 22 August 2023 and can be found at Drug-related Deaths in Scotland in 2022 | National Records of Scotland (nrscotland.gov.uk) . Within Table SUB2 ( Additional Data | National Records of Scotland (nrscotland.gov.uk) of the additional data tables published alongside the main report there is a breakdown of drug poisoning deaths by year and by substance, including specifically those drugs which were implicated or potentially contributed to the cause of death. National Records of Scotland does not publish an age breakdown of this data.

The Scottish Government remains committed to advancing equality for LGBTQI+ people across all areas of life, including the labour market.

We are providing over £1.1 million to organisations working to promote LGBTQI+ equality in Scotland in 2024-25, including for initiatives to tackle discrimination and empower LGBTQI+ people and allies to advocate for LGBTQI+ rights in their workplace.

Through our Fair Work First approach we are leveraging employers’ commitment to fair work for all, including the LGBTQI+ community, by applying Fair Work principles to public sector grants, contracts and other funding, where it is relevant and proportionate to do so. These principles ask employers to commit to creating more diverse and inclusive workplaces and providing channels for effective voice, including trade union recognition. These facilitate open communication with workers to share their lived experiences, advocate for equal rights and ultimately improve workplace culture; and help all workers protect their legal rights and ensure fair treatment.

The Scottish Government, through its partnership with Peatland ACTION, restored a total of 10,361 hectares in 2023-24. This is a record high delivery for the peatland restoration programme, and continues our progress towards the 2030 restoration target of 250,000 hectares.

To give effect to the principal recommendation of the Legal Aid Payment Advisory Panel, that independent research be commissioned to consider the financial landscape for legal aid providers, a working group was established in 2022.

Membership of the group included representatives of the Law Society of Scotland, the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association and the Scottish Legal Aid Board. The group met regularly and agreed a specification to tender for the required research.

Following two unsuccessful tendering processes, the Law Society of Scotland and the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association indicated their withdrawal from the working group. The Scottish Government share these frustrations, but an offer to re-tender remains.

The Scottish Government has held productive discussions with both the Law Society of Scotland and the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association on the purpose of the research and will continue to make the case for re-tendering. We do believe that there is much to gain by carrying out the research.

Following the implementation of a new payment service provider, Transport Scotland were notified by the ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) operator of a technical issue that was affecting less than 1% of CPS users. The issue caused the cards of those CPS members affected to be automatically ‘blocked’ by the system, leaving them unable to charge. Affected drivers were able to use other methods to charge, such as Webpay and contactless where available, and could also contact the CPS customer service team to start a charge remotely. The issue was fully resolved on 10 May. No compensation arrangements are in place, and to date CPS has not been contacted by any CPS users, including business users, seeking any.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring the provision of high quality child palliative care, regardless of location, supported by sustainable funding of at least £7m per year through CHAS (Children’s Hospices Across Scotland).

We are working with NHS National Services Scotland (NSS), Health Boards and CHAS to improve the sustainability and oversight of funding for CHAS and to develop a long term sustainable funding model.

The Palliative Care Strategy Steering Group’s Children and Young People’s Working Group is developing new actions to address equity and continuity of access to paediatric palliative care, including the staffing models required to deliver this.

The amount spent through the Bus Partnership Fund was £2.54 million in 2021-22, £9.93 million in 2022-23 and £8.03 million is expected to be spent in 2023-24 following the processing of final grant claims from Partnerships (consisting of local authorities, bus operators and other key stakeholders) in the coming months. This has delivered bus gates, enforcement cameras and traffic light equipment to help buses get through them more quickly in Aberdeen, North Ayrshire, Glasgow, Inverness, and Edinburgh. It has also made a number of temporary measures, such as bus lanes, permanent in Edinburgh and Glasgow.