Chamber and committees

Transport Scotland officials have not met the leader of Glasgow City Council regarding the Low Emission Zone (LEZ), however officials continue to meet with councillors and officials on a regular basis. As part of the LEZ governance structure, Transport Scotland convenes several LEZ working groups, including the LEZ Leadership Group.

The LEZ Leadership Group is chaired by Scottish Ministers and held every six months. The group is made up of convenors/councillors and senior officials from the four local authorities implementing LEZs. Topics raised at the Leadership Group include (but are not limited to), LEZ support funding, city specific topics, operational matters and risk.

Throughout the LEZ consultation process both Transport Scotland and the four local authorities have listened to the views of businesses. The minimum and maximum grace periods reflect feedback from stakeholders, including the Federation for Small Businesses.

Whilst the Scottish Government has set the national framework for LEZs, it is for local authorities to design their LEZs as they see fit, which includes choosing an enforcement timeline (and associated grace period) which best fits their city.

The following two tables provide details of funding:

1. Awarded under various funding schemes to each of the local authorities for public EV charging infrastructure and to local authorities and other public bodies for public sector fleet EV charging infrastructure.

2. Awarded through the Energy Saving Trust to private businesses and domestic customers.

In addition to the figures in the Table 1, North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire Councils jointly benefited from a £5.3m grant to supporting public EV charging infrastructure through project PACE between 2019 and 2021, this resulted in the installation of 167 new charge points at 44 hubs across the region.

Table 1. Funding to Local Authorities

The Scottish Government deliver assistance and funding to local volunteer groups for the procurement of electric vehicles, e-Bikes and associated electric vehicle infrastructure through the Plugged-in Communities and eBike grant funds. This scheme is administered on behalf of Scottish Ministers by the Energy Saving Trust (EST). Some of the groups provided assistance through this scheme may not be full volunteer organisations but will have volunteers and volunteer drivers.

Table 1 – Funding for Electric Vehicles and e-Bikes procured through Plugged-in Communities and eBike Grant Fund in each Financial Year since 2016.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) publishes information on college withdrawals, as well as retention statistics for undergraduate courses at colleges and universities.

These statistics are measuring different things and are not comparable.

College withdrawal statistics (Chart 10) : College Performance Indicators 2020-21 (sfc.ac.uk)

College and university retention statistics (Background Table 3) : Report on Widening Access 2020-21 (sfc.ac.uk)

As Minister for Equalities, Migration and Refugees, I have portfolio responsibility for older people and this Scottish Government remains committed to delivering access to opportunities and services people need to ensure they are healthy, happy and secure in older age.

We will continue to work closely with the Older People’s Strategic Action Forum to review progress on the 2019 “A Fairer Scotland for Older People: framework for action” to ensure it remains fit for purpose.

The Fund's focus in 2023-24 will be on deploying £25 million in capital grants, as part of the £50 million multi-year programme that was announced last year.

Additionally, £25 million has been allocated to the Scottish National Investment Bank for 2023-24 to invest on a commercial basis, in line with the Bank's Investment Strategy.

Utilising the commercial investment expertise and experience of the Bank offers a key opportunity to unlock third party finance at the scale required to meet our ambitions for a just transition in North East and Moray.

The information you have requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people receive at least two hours of physical education per school week in primary schools, and at least two 50-minute periods of physical education per week in secondary schools - between secondaries 1 and 4.

Under the provisions of Curriculum for Excellence, schools and education authorities have the flexibility to decide upon the content of their lessons at the local level by taking into account the needs and circumstances of all children and young people in attendance. This includes taking decisions locally about the content of their PE lessons, where they can offer swimming lessons to their pupils if they wish to do so.

However, I recognise the importance of ensuring that all children can have equal opportunities to access swimming lessons, regardless of their families' social or economic circumstances. Therefore, we have been working with Scottish Swimming, Education Scotland, sportScotland and Scottish Water to pilot bespoke interventions and approaches within local areas to provide opportunities for more children to become confident, safer and competent swimmers.

I have written to the Scottish Funding Council, copied to Colleges Scotland and Universities Scotland confirming an additional allocation of £2.205 million (for the period April to July 2023), on top of our allocation of £2.025 million announced last year (for the period August 2022 to March 2023). This makes a total 2022-23 AY allocation of £4.23 million.

This means that the total AY 2022-23 award would for Colleges is £2.424 million and Universities is £1.806 million. This is in line with last year’s award of £4.229 million and sector allocations. The Scottish Funding Council will prepare guidance on the additional allocation together with details of institutional awards.

In secondary schools, we continue to support local authorities to ensure that every school has access to counselling services, which are now in place across Scotland. School counselling is just one of a range of services that schools have in place to support pupil’s wellbeing.

In colleges and universities, we have made significant investment to introduce more than 80 extra counsellors across institutions and will release funding to maintain support through to the end of the academic year.

Work is continuing on the review of the policies and operating arrangements which underpin the Home Owners Support Fund (HOSF). We now expect this work to conclude later this year due to the additional timescales required for the modelling work to be completed. We will continue to take account of stakeholders’ views as recommendations for any changes to the existing arrangements are developed.