Chamber and committees

In March 2023, the Scottish Government commissioned a literature review to assess the evidence on health impacts of low level air pollution in countries with ambient air pollution levels comparable to Scotland. Following publication of this literature review, which will take place before the end of 2023, views will be sought from the Cleaner Air for Scotland 2 health working group on whether additional research is needed to aid further understanding of health impacts.

As indicated in the Cleaner Air for Scotland 2 2022-23 annual progress report, which was published on 27 September 2023, these discussions will be completed by spring 2024.

My thoughts are with the family and friends of the individual, who tragically died in September 2018 at Saughton Mains and it is regrettable that Edinburgh Trams Ltd have been found to have breached health and safety legislation through failures to properly assess risk to pedestrians at this location. Health and safety legislation is a reserved matter.

The Scottish Government have had no discussions with Edinburgh Trams Ltd following this ruling.

Safety camera resources are primarily deployed in locations where they have the greatest potential to reduce injury collisions, and where there is evidence of both collisions and speeding. Safety cameras deployments are aimed at improving driver behaviours, leading to enhanced levels of speed limit compliance and ultimately resulting in fewer people being killed or injured on Scotland’s roads including trunk roads and main roads located within or close to local communities. This supports the delivery of Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030 and its overarching vision of ensuring Scotland has the best road safety performance in the world.

An annual site prioritisation process is undertaken each year to determine new safety camera sites across our road network. This national exercise acts to ensure the right camera technology is in the right place at the right time. It involves a range of partners including the three regional safety camera units, all thirty-three road authorities and Police Scotland, and acts to identify potential new camera sites which meet the minimum criteria, while at the same time assessing the performance of existing enforcement strategies.

Electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure is owned by many different executive agencies and other public bodies (such as SEPA) which are funded by the Scottish Government, as well as a small proportion owned by the Scottish Government directly. Each individual organisation is responsible for managing their own charge point assets and for making decisions about whether they should be designated for staff, visitors and/or fleet vehicle usage or for general public access. Not all charge point sites are suitable for general public access, for example those in secure staff car parks or in fleet vehicle depots.

There are no plans to centralise the management of EV charging infrastructure across all Scottish Government agencies or public bodies.

Since 2011, the Scottish Government has provided £65 million to support the installation of over 2,600 public charge points across Scotland, making it one of the largest and most comprehensive public EV charging networks in the UK. The Scottish Government’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund aims to provide a further £60 million of public and private sector investment to increase the number of public charge points to 6,000 by 2026.

The Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on the percentage of anticipated community benefit payments made to communities from renewable energy projects, broken down by local authority area.

The Scottish Government’s Register of Community Benefit, administered by Local Energy Scotland, shows commitments from operational renewable energy projects and can be accessed here: https://localenergy.scot/community-benefits-register/

The Register relies on developers and communities voluntarily submitting data. It is not exhaustive and does not provide a full picture of community benefit payments across Scotland. The Register should therefore be seen as a guide to community benefit provisions across Scotland.

The duty to provide free school meals to eligible pupils, education authorities have the power to provide meals on a discretionary basis to those who they believe require it. The Scottish Government would continue to urge local authorities to continue to resolve any payment issues without withdrawing meals from pupils.

The information requested is not held centrally. Pupil Equity Funding empowers headteachers, who know their children best, to provide targeted additional support for children and young people impacted by poverty to achieve their full potential, focusing on targeted improvement activity in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing. As set out in the refreshed 2023 National PEF Operational Guidance, intended to help schools plan how they will most effectively and fully invest their Pupil Equity Funding to improve the educational outcomes of children affected by poverty, schools are expected to incorporate details of their Pupil Equity Funding plans and explicitly report on the impact on outcomes for learners impacted by poverty. This should be done within existing local authority reporting processes to their Parent Council and Forum, including in their annual School Improvement Plans and Standards and Quality Reports. These plans and reports must be made publicly available so that parents and carers can easily access, understand and where appropriate, challenge, what is happening in their school with regard to Pupil Equity Funding.

The numbers of accused prosecuted and convicted under the new Protection of Retail Workers (Scotland) Act, which came into force in August 2021, will be available when the Criminal Proceedings National Statistics is published on the 24 th of October 2023. These statistics will cover the period up to March 2022.

Although the information about accused prosecuted and convicted under the new Act is not available yet, data about the number of charges resulting in a conviction has been extracted from the management information used to publish the Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard (Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services Criminal Disposals Dashboard ).

The number of charges under the new Protection of Retail Workers (Scotland) Act that have received a conviction in criminal court from August 2021 up to March 2023 was 543.

The Register of Community Benefit, administered by Local Energy Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Government, indicates that, since 2010, over £198 million in community benefit from onshore renewable projects has been committed to communities, including over £25 million in the 12 months. The register can be accessed here: https://localenergy.scot/community-benefits-register/ .

The Register relies on developers and communities voluntarily submitting data. It is not exhaustive and does not provide a full picture of community benefit payments across Scotland. The Register should therefore be seen as a guide to community benefit provisions across Scotland.

Officials are involved in the UK Government’s Cross-Government Working Group on RAAC. Recent meetings have confirmed that the Institution of Structural Engineers' guidance on RAAC remains a valid approach to the assessment of RAAC. This has also been confirmed in discussions with the Health & Safety Executive, the UK-wide regulator for health and safety.

Officials also regularly attend meetings of UK education departments convened by the UK Department for Education to consider RAAC.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills spoke to Baroness Barran, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education on 31 August regarding RAAC in schools and there has been subsequent correspondence between the Cabinet Secretary and Gillian Keegan, Secretary of State for Education.

On 16 August, the Deputy First Minister wrote to UK Treasury seeking clarity on new capital funding to deal with RAAC. On the same day, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice wrote to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities recommending a collaborative approach between administrations. Dialogue continues on both these issues.