Chamber and committees

All planning applications must be determined in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4), adopted in February this year, forms part of the statutory development plan alongside the relevant Local Development Plan (LDP).

NPF4 places climate and nature at the centre of our planning system and makes clear our support for all forms of renewable, low-carbon and zero emission technologies, including onshore wind.

NPF4 policy 11 makes clear that potential impacts on communities, nature and other receptors remain important considerations in the decision-making process. Additionally, the policy requires that project design and mitigation will demonstrate how impacts on communities and individual dwellings, including residential amenity, visual impact, noise and shadow flicker will be addressed. All applications are subject to site-specific assessments, including Environmental Impact Assessment where applicable.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra does not manage any buildings fitted with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete.

The National Theatre of Scotland does not manage any buildings fitted with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete.

The 2023-24 budgets for employability programmes, including No One Left Behind and Fair Start Scotland were confirmed by the Deputy First Minister on 25 May, with Grant Offer Letters issued to local authorities on 30 May for No One Left Behind. The budget for Individual Training Accounts has now been confirmed and the scheme will re-open during the week commencing 19 June 2023.

We are currently considering the budget for the Flexible Workforce Development Fund in 2023-24 through colleges and the Open University in Scotland and will provide a further update once budget discussions have concluded.

This is a matter for Local Authorities. This information is not held centrally.

Visits to schools by the Health and Safety Executive or any other organisation, are a matter for individual schools within each education authority area. The member may wish to contact the Health and Safety Executive direct in order to request this information. Contact details are available at: https://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/maps/scotland.htm

As set out in the answer to S6W-13149 on 10 January 2023, which can be found at Written question and answer: S6W-13149 | Scottish Parliament Website , the available information on average rents across the private rented and social rented sectors is as follows.

The latest Scottish Government Private Sector Rent Statistics, Scotland, 2010 to 2022 , published on 29 November 2022, presents average private rents by property size and Broad Rental Market Areas between 2010 and 2022 (years to end September), based predominantly on advertised rent data. This is the lowest level of granularity available for the Scottish Government Private Rent Statistics, as the data collection method used has not been designed for the purpose of providing local authority level results. In addition, data is not held for the years prior to 2010. The next publication covering the period 2010 to 2023 (years to end September) is planned for November 2023.

Information on average local authority rents is included in the Scottish Government Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Statistics publication, which contains a time series from 1997-98 onwards of average weekly rent by local authority area (Table 8), with the average rent figures presented being based on each Council’s total standard rental income being divided by total HRA stock.

Separate information on average social sector rents is published by the Scottish Housing Regulator, based on average rent figures collected from individual social landlords as part of the Charter Data collection. Results are available in the Scottish Housing Regulator Statistical Information webpages , with social landlord level average rent figures available from 2013-14 onwards, and local authority area level average rent figures published as part of the stock dataset for the most recent two years 2020-21 and 2021-22.

In addition, summary figures on average housing association rents by local authority area across the earlier years 2005-06 to 2012-13 are available in an archived Scottish Government Housing Statistics publication table .

Forestry and Land Scotland employ two members of staff in the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Team. One person is employed on a full-time basis and the other is employed on a 0.6 FTE basis (22.2 hours per week). Both members of staff are employed as Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Managers and the total value of their combined salaries is £76,309.60 per annum.

Forestry and Land Scotland also provide Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion support to the SG Agency Scottish Forestry.

The number of seasonal rangers employed by Forestry and Land Scotland are as follows:

The Scottish Government places a great importance on openness and transparency, and publishes ministerial engagements, travel and gifts in line with the ‘ Scottish Ministerial Code’. The Scottish Government has no current plans to review the information published.