The Investing in Communities Fund (ICF) currently supports 105 organisations receiving a share of £27 million over the three years 2023-24 to 2025-26. Many of the organisations receiving ICF are delivering their projects for more than one community area thereby enabling an even wider combined benefit and providing assistance for people living in more than 128 communities.

The organisations that have been supported have been published along with details of the funding awards. ICF Round 2 - List of successful organisations

To date, there have been no cash settlements awarded to defenders in any civil or criminal cases regarding Low Emission Zones.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to expand the scope of SSSC registration to bring other groups employed in the self-directed support sector into the regulated workforce. For a further description of expansion of scope of SSSC registration please refer to answer given to S6W-13523 on 20 January 2023.

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

The first meeting of the Cabinet Sub-Committee for the Promise will take place when the membership and remit have been confirmed.

Rather than permanent monitoring, which is the common approach for water companies in England, Scottish Water worked with SEPA to carry out a comprehensive Scotland-wide environmental study programme to assess and model the impacts of its assets on water quality. The programme was undertaken during the 2015 to 2021 investment period with an investment of £40m. These studies supported identification and prioritisation of River Basin Management Planning objectives, which were published at the end of 2021.

The computer models Scottish Water developed allow it to understand when CSOs will spill, under what rainfall conditions and the impact those spills will have on the environment. Instead of taking the approach of English water companies, targeted monitoring is being put in place to support the information already obtained from the models and to support operational performance. The Scottish Government is supportive of this evidence based and proportionate approach by Scottish Water. We also support their decision to invest inn widening monitoring by installing 1,000 new spill monitors by the end of 2024 with an investment of up to £70m.

Scottish Water’s Improving Urban Waters Routemap commits it to publishing near real-time spill data for all monitored CSOs by December 2024. The data collected by the 1000 new monitors will support SEPA’s and Scottish Water work to prioritise investment where it will most benefit our environment and communities. Continued investment by Scottish Water contributes towards Scotland’s water quality being at its highest level ever, with 87% of the water environment rated as good or better, up from 82% six years ago. Scotland’s River Basin Management Plan sets out objectives, including those for Scottish Water, aiming to improve water quality to 92% of the water environment to be in good or better condition by 2027.

There have been no legal challenges brought to date regarding Edinburgh’s Low Emission Zone.

The Green Heat Finance Taskforce will continue to meet over the autumn as it works towards producing its final report in early 2024, as discussed in response to S6W-21001 on 20 September 2023.

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

The Scottish Government provided funding for summer programmes by calendar year below:

Scottish Government fleet purchases for the last 5 years, broken down by category, are provided in the following table.

All local authorities in Scotland have a statutory responsibility to manage and maintain their school estate, including school playgrounds.

Since 2007, the number of schools in ‘good’ or ‘satisfactory’ condition has increased from 61% to 90.7% - seeing a 77% reduction in pupils educated in substandard conditions.

In partnership with local authorities, we are investing significantly in the school estate through our Learning Estate Investment Programme to build on that progress.