Chamber and committees

Although the number of individual Computing Science teachers visiting the website is not tracked, the STACS website is an important resource for the Computing Science community. 490 Computing Science teachers are members of the STACS website and have access to the full set of resources. Since launching in 2022 the website has had 53,000 unique visits.

Transport Scotland is currently undertaking a 12 week consultation with stakeholders – including communities and ferry operators – on this and other elements noted in the Islands Connectivity Plan. Timescales for implementation will be considered in due course following that engagement.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-25250 on‎ 16 February 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 .

This is operational matter for ScotRail and British Transport Police (BTP). The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

NHS 24 do not send ambulances to patients. If NHS 24 receive a call from a patient that is deemed to be an emergency, it is passed to a SAS call handler within the Ambulance Control Centres (ACC).

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with the Scottish Ambulance Service and Health Boards to ensure a continuous focus on responding to the most critically unwell patients as quickly as possible.

We continue to invest in supporting the Service and patients, including a record number of additional staff (1388) since 2020. Our £50m funding investment this year is being used, in part, to recruit a further 317 additional frontline staff across the country.

We have also set out a number of principles that health boards should aim to achieve in order to safely reduce handover times at the front door of hospitals. This is an important piece of work that will reduce the pressure on hospital and ambulance services.

Further to the response given by Miri McAllan MSP, in a particularly challenging fiscal landscape, the Scottish Government has had to take difficult decisions to deliver balanced and sustainable spending plans for the 2024-25 financial year.

The UK Autumn Statement was a worst-case scenario for Scotland. Our block grant funding, derived from the UK Government’s spending decisions, has fallen by 1.2 per cent in real terms since 2022-23 and our capital spending power is due to contract by almost 10 per cent in real terms over five years.

A significant proportion of the expenditure in the Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition portfolio is legally and contractually committed, and we have ensured that those commitments are met in full in this budget as well as allocating funding to support critical maintenance and renewal expenditure to ensure that the people of Scotland have access to a safe and reliable transport system. This has been compounded by continuing high inflation, which has further reduced our room for manoeuvre.

Factors that led to the reduction highlighted include rephasing of budgets to reflect construction and investment works progressing through the coming year and to reflect the profile of loan payments to CMAL.

As Miri McAllan MSP indicated, the Equalities and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement and Carbon Assessment were published alongside this Budget. These impact assessments not only analyse the budget and the impact of the decisions contained in it, they also consider the process of making those decisions, and how we make sure the needs of all people are actively considered. The Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition portfolio was actively engaged in the analysis and production of these assessments.

Further to the response given by Miri McAllan MSP, in a particularly challenging fiscal landscape, the Scottish Government has had to take difficult decisions to deliver balanced and sustainable spending plans for the 2024-25 financial year.

The UK Autumn Statement was a worst-case scenario for Scotland. Our block grant funding, derived from the UK Government’s spending decisions, has fallen by 1.2 per cent in real terms since 2022-23 and our capital spending power is due to contract by almost 10 per cent in real terms over five years.

A significant proportion of the expenditure in the Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition portfolio is legally and contractually committed, and I have ensured that those commitments are met in full in this budget as well as allocating funding to support critical maintenance and renewal expenditure to ensure that the people of Scotland have access to a safe and reliable transport system. This has been compounded by continuing high inflation, which has further reduced our room for manoeuvre.

Factors that led to the reduction in this budget line included the finalisation and publication of STPR2 in 2023-24. The reduction in Support for Sustainable Travel, in Support for Freight Industry and in the Future Transport Fund reflects anticipated expenditure in the financial year.

As Miri McAllan MSP indicated, the Equalities and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement and Carbon Assessment were published alongside this Budget. These impact assessments not only analyse the budget and the impact of the decisions contained in it, they also consider the process of making those decisions, and how we make sure the needs of all people are actively considered. The Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition portfolio was actively engaged in the analysis and production of these assessments.

This data has been collected by the Registrar of Independent Schools from available independent school census statistics. The census commences in the September of each year in accordance with part 4 of the Registration of Independent Schools (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended by the Registration of Independent Schools (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2021).

The following table outlines the number of children and young people who attended an independent school in each year since 2015, broken down by local authority. This data is not held from before 2015.

Grant funding to support Scottish Teachers Advancing Computing Science (STACS) / University of Glasgow commenced in 2021 and has continued on an annual basis since that date.

As a condition of the funding support the Scottish Government agreed with Scottish Teachers Advancing Computing Science a commitment to publish annual progress reports which are published on their website where updates and activity are regularly posted. The first year’s report is publicly available on the STACS website and they will be publishing a year 2 update report in the summer of 2024.

The annual report for 2022-23 is available at: https://issuu.com/stacshq/docs/stacsannualreport .

We have published a Business Regulatory Impact Assessment, which is available on the Scottish Government website at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/short-term-lets-business-regulatory-impact-assessment/

I also refer the member to the answer to question S6W-25506 on 28 February 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