Chamber and committees

The recent Statement of Funds Available (SoFA) includes funding of £4.2 billion for Operations, Maintenance and Renewals for the rail network in Scotland. The budget for railway enhancements is not included in the SoFA. This aligns with the Department for Transport SoFA for Control Period 7 (April 2024 – March 2029), which did not include enhancements funds.

There is no clear scientific consensus relating to muirburn on peatlands. A 2022 report by NatureScot has shown that there is limited and unclear evidence on the impact of muirburn on the total carbon budget. Therefore no specific assessment has been made of any climate implications of redefining the definition of deep peat from 40cm to 30cm in relation to the muirburn licensing provisions of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill.

When in good ecological condition, peat can store significant amounts of carbon and that this can help address the impacts of climate change. The provisions in the Bill take a precautionary approach aimed at allowing muirburn to continue as a land management tool, and as a method of controlling the risk of wildfire, alongside reducing the risk and volume of carbon emissions.

The Bill contains regulation-making powers which will allow further changes to the new law on muirburn to made by secondary legislation, should further relevant scientific evidence come to light.

Scottish Government Officials will attend the Sustainable Aquaculture Summit on 16 and 17 May 2023, including participating in a scheduled panel discussion at the event: ‘ Delivering the Scottish Governments Vision for the blue economy ’.

We are currently reflecting on the wide-ranging feedback we received from stakeholders during the recent stakeholder roundtables and are working with an independent contractor to analyse the public consultation responses to understand the views and perspectives of those that responded.

We will publish both the roundtable notes and the consultation findings later this year, which will inform the potential content and scope of any policy proposals and our consideration of appropriate next steps for this work.

The Scottish Government does not currently hold this information. Due to the wide-ranging nature of the question, (a breakdown, per year, per island from every government body who may or may not have delivered diversity initiatives) attempting to gather the information necessary would incur high costs in terms of official and ministerial resources and breach the disproportionate cost threshold.

Integration Authorities (IAs) are required to prepare and publish an annual performance report to demonstrate performance against the national health and wellbeing outcomes. In order to demonstrate performance, IAs use the core suite of integration indicators which includes a measure of the proportion of care services graded ‘good’ (4) or better in Care Inspectorate inspections.

All social care services, including those provided by local authorities, are regulated and inspected by the Care Inspectorate. The results of these inspections are published on the Care Inspectorate’s website.

Social care providers also provide a range of information which is used to collate publications of official statistics by the Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland (PHS). Scottish Government official statistics are available via the following link Health and social care analysis - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . This includes Free Personal and Nursing Care, Social Care Eligibility and Waiting Times, and Carers Census statistics. PHS official statistics releases include: Insights in Social Care, the Scottish Care Home Census, Delayed Discharges and Care at Home Demand ( Publications - Public Health Scotland ).

The Scottish Government meet weekly with the team at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to discuss their capital investment plans, including redevelopment of the Institute of Neurological Sciences in Glasgow. The Scottish Government would be happy to discuss with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde any plans they have to establish a Centre of Excellence for Brain Tumour Research in Scotland.

Since October of last year, 29 women have been approved for referral to the independent providers. For reasons of patient confidentiality, this is not broken down by provider. To date, 13 surgeries have been carried out.

Highland Council-run services between the Ardnamurchan peninsula and Corran have been cancelled for at least seven weeks as two vessels are repaired. The implementation of any temporary replacement service is a matter for the local authority.

The Scottish Government understands that in addition to the alternative foot passenger routes in place, significant work has taken place to improve road safety measures for vehicles using the detour along the A861. We understand that 24-hour works have been ongoing on the A861 and since the start of these arrangements a number of additional passing places have been introduced and extended, as well as improvements to drainage, patching works and use of roadside recovery where required. Further information on mitigations taken by the local authority can be found here .

The Scottish Government continues to engage with the Council on this important issue and the Minister for Transport met with the Council on 26 April. We understand that the expected return to service of the MV Corran remains early June.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government recognises the challenge for local authorities, including The Highland Council, that have responsibility for ferries, and have provided more than £136m over the last 5 years to support the running of these services.

We received around 3000 responses to the consultation on restricting alcohol advertising and promotion.