Chamber and committees

Neither the Scottish Government nor Forestry and Land Scotland had cause to terminate any contracts and consequently no such payments were made to individuals, contractors or companies.

We are aware of the emerging issues around single-use vaping products. We will be discussing this with our local authority partners, who have responsibility for providing advice on responsible disposal of waste in their area.

The fact that Forestry and Land Scotland have purchased Glenprosen, along with the price paid, are already in the public domain.

Local Authorities undertake tobacco control through tobacco sales enforcement and tobacco and electronic cigarette control.

The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on tobacco control, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government has increased local government funding by over £1 billion in 2022-23, a real terms increase of 6.3 per cent, despite a 5.2 per cent real terms reduction in the overall Scottish Budget.

The Scottish Government provides funding annually to Health Boards for smoking cessation and prevention services. The funding is provided as part of a wider Outcomes Framework allocation whereby budget is provided to Health Boards to cover a range of outcomes. It is then up to Health Boards to decide on the amount spent on each of those outcomes.

The following table sets out estimated funding for smoking cessation and prevention which is calculated on the basis of smoking rates and deprivation, however as above it is for Health Boards to determine final spend on this outcome.

The Scottish Government publishes an annual report on marketing spend in each financial year, which can be found at https://www.gov.scot/collections/marketing-spend/ .

The Scottish Government ran a smoking cessation campaign in 2017-2018. The costs for this campaign totalled £370,978.50. The total media spend for this campaign was £253,352.78 across TV, radio, digital and outdoor advertising. The digital advertising included £23,252 on Facebook advertising in support of the campaign. No other social media advertising was used as part of the campaign.

No change of use has yet taken place at Glenprosen. In due course Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) will require to have an approved Land Management Plan (LMP) in place for the area acquired at Glenprosen. That LMP will need to have been approved by Scottish Forestry (SF), following an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and full public consultation with all relevant statutory / local stakeholders, including the community.

I would be concerned about reports of this nature. I’m happy to take further representations from the Member and I will ask officials to follow this up with the Board.

Until the Land Management Planning process and associated consultation has been completed there is no certainty over the level or nature of new planting at Glenprosen and therefore any costings would be speculative.

Termination of the previous employment was undertaken by the seller, when they wound down their business and FLS has no knowledge of the costs incurred.