Chamber and committees

“Beyond the Glen” is an industry-led strategy and therefore responsibility for delivery does not lie with Scottish Government. We work to support the industry in development of the sector, including through delivery of the strategy, and we have provided additional funding where possible.

The Scottish Venison Association (SVA) is proposing that a review of the strategy should be undertaken in 2023. Part of this activity will include an internal review of the SVA.

The Scottish Government is a founding partner of CyberScotland Week which is celebrating its fifth year.

The Scottish Government has also set up the CyberScotland Partnership which now manages the Week. This year there are over 100 events taking place across the country, and across all sectors, ranging from raising awareness to upskilling to promoting careers in the cyber security industry.

I will be officially opening CyberScotland Week at the FutureScot Cyber Security Conference in Glasgow on 27 February. On the same day, the Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise will be officially opening Systal Technology Solutions’ Secure Operations Centre at their headquarters in Robroyston. The Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport is also participating in the Week by sharing cyber resilience messaging to sports’ Governing Bodies.

Like many organisations across Scotland, the Scottish Government is participating in CyberScotland Week by providing a programme of staff training and awareness events.

Prompt payment of the supply chain is not only the ethical and socially responsible thing to do, it is critical to the sustainability and resilience of our supply chains in delivering critical products, services or works to, or on behalf, of the people of Scotland. The Scottish Government is committed to paying our contractors promptly and ensuring that they do the same with their subcontractors. There is already a significant range of measures in place in Scotland to tackle late payment in both public and private contracts through legislation, policy and practice.

The Scottish Government continues to lead by example through our target to pay all valid invoices within 10 days of receipt whereas our statutory obligation is 30 days. For financial year 2021-2022, 97% of valid invoices received were paid within 10 days and 99% paid within 30 days.

The Scottish Government sought views in our 2020 Public Procurement Survey of Suppliers, where 85% of respondents were SMEs. The survey included a number of questions on payment performance, and identified opportunities to improve payment performance, particularly for sub-contractors in supply chains.

As a result the Scottish Government worked alongside public bodies, supplier groups and other stakeholders to bolster the Scottish Government’s prompt payment policy. An updated procurement policy note was published in April 2022 which was welcomed by the Federation of Small Businesses and the Small Business Commissioner. The updated policy encourages public bodies to consider bidders past payment performance during tender exercises, and to request bidders confirm that their terms & conditions for all sub-contractors will contain a prompt payment clause, driving payment of valid invoices within a maximum of 30 days throughout the full supply chain for public contracts.

Scottish Government Procurement officials continue to support the updated policy implementation and work with stakeholders to determine how to monitor the extent to which the policy is embedded within public bodies procurement processes.

In terms of payment in advance, the Scottish Public Finance Manual states that advance payments should only be made in exceptional circumstances, where good value for money can be made from them and all reasonable steps should be taken to protect public funds.

Scottish Government Human Resources does not hold a central record of the creation or approval of new posts, this process is handled by individual business areas under the direction and approval of a Director. There is no single Directorate responsible for all rural and island based staff.

To provide information that is equivalent to the creation of posts, we have:

• Identified SG offices in rural and island locations based on categorisation established by National Records of Scotland or by Local Authority.
• Provided the headcount of directly employed staff at those locations in each of the last 5 years, with the year-on-year change indicating instances when new posts may have been created.

Our most recently published data are at 30 September 2022. 30 September has been used as the reference date each year for comparison purposes. These data cover staff in Scottish Government Core Directorates only.

Table showing headcount variation year-on-year from 30 September 2018 to 30 September 2022

The Scottish Government supports the intention behind this Bill, and the improvements in animal welfare it hopes to achieve. Scottish Ministers would have liked to have given their full support to these measures as part of the now fallen UK Animals Abroad Bill. Sadly this opportunity has now been lost and due to last minute handling by the UK Government, Scottish Ministers have not been given sufficient time to consider the provisions put forward in the Low Welfare Animal Activities Abroad Bill.

The Scottish Government is grateful to all officers who provide a blue light response as they attend serious incidents. The additional skills gained by officers as they undertake emergency response driver training is integral to providing an effective and safe response to 999 calls.

The Scottish Government does not collect data on Police Scotland’s driver training programme. Delivery and recording of this specialist training is a matter for the Chief Constable under the oversight of the SPA.

The Scottish Government welcomes the results of this survey from Scotland’s two main autism charities. This Bill extends further than autism and includes people with a learning disability and potentially a wider range of neurodivergent conditions. However, from our scoping work with a range of stakeholders we understand that even within the autism community there are a range of views on how this might be taken forward and no wider consensus regarding the benefit of a Commissioner.

We have undertaken significant engagement to date, scoping the Bill with a range of stakeholders. The report analysing the findings of these engagement events will be published soon.

We are establishing a lived experience panel to work closely with us to co-design and deliver a consultation paper later this year, which will set out options for the Bill, including the potential role and duties of a Commissioner.

To date nine mammals including four seals, four otters and one fox have tested positive for influenza of avian origin H5N1 in Scotland. APHA (Animals and Plant Health Agency) routinely undertakes diagnostic testing of wild animals found dead under the GB wildlife surveillance scheme. The detection of the virus does not mean that it was the cause of death of these animals. This is an unusual event and infection of mammals with influenza of avian origin remains an uncommon infection, including in humans. The risk of the H5N1 strain to non-avian UK wildlife remains low.

Of the nine mammals that have tested positive for influenza of avian origin, there are no known links to the release of non-native game birds. The Scottish Government continues to monitor the outputs the GB wildlife surveillance scheme and assess any future risks.

My officials in Scottish Enterprise remain in regular contact with the Joint Administrators and continue to work closely with them to help find a sustainable future for the Stoneywood site in Aberdeen.

The administration process continues to progress and prior to formal marketing of the site, the Administrator has re-engaged with potential interested parties. Any discussions between interested parties and the Administrator will likely take place in the coming weeks.

Responsibility for the management of local roads, including decision making on street layouts, remains with local authorities as set out in the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984.

The Scottish Government supports local authorities to deliver safe and accessible active travel infrastructure through the provision of the £35 million Cycling Walking Safer Routes grant which goes directly to local authorities on a pro rata basis.

Support is also provided to local authorities to deliver safe walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure that is accessible to all through the Scottish Government funded Places for Everyone programme (PfE). Through the PfE programme, support is available at the design stage, and with completion of Equality Impact Assessments (EQIA), to ensure access for all and equality of opportunity in public space.

The Scottish Government is funding Living Streets to research the user experience and consistency in design for walking and cycling infrastructure such as continuous footways and bus stop bypasses.

Where new infrastructure is found to cause accessibility issues for visually impaired people, we would encourage people to engage with their local council.