Chamber and committees

The Provision of Displaced Persons Crisis Travel Management 2, which was awarded to the company, Corporate Travel Management (CTM), is a call off from a Crown Commercial Services framework and the original framework documentation is available from the Crown Commercial Services website: Travel and Venue Solutions - CCS (crowncommercial.gov.uk) . The contract notice with CTM was published on 9 August 2022.

The Patient Travel Guidance is a substantial exercise for the Scottish Government and NHS Boards and, regrettably, a start date is not confirmed at this time. This important piece of work requires prioritisation alongside our ongoing response to Covid and recovery of services and will be taken forward as soon as possible.

We intend to publish our Strategy for Seafood today. The strategy underlines the importance of the seafood sector and sets out how we are supporting industry to contribute to achieving our Blue Economy aspirations.

Scotland’s world renowned seafood sector is a vital part of our economy that particularly supports our coastal and island communities. Our marine environment contributes significantly to our commitment to being a Good Food Nation and to the ambition of the Local Food Strategy, with locally sourced seafood forming part of a healthy sustainable diet. The fishing, aquaculture and processing communities also have an important role to play in helping us achieve Scotland’s net zero targets and in implementing a range of measures articulated in the Bute House Agreement to improve existing ecosystems, encourage sustainability and protect our marine natural capital assets.

The strategy draws together and provides cohesion to the many existing initiatives which deliver for the seafood sector, and makes some recommendations which we will continue to explore as we transition towards net zero and delivery of the Blue Economy outcomes.

We look forward to taking this important work forward with the sector.

The publication of the strategy is consistent with our Programme for Government commitment to publish a strategy for seafood in 2022 and the document will be available to view on the Scottish Government website from today.

The Scottish Government does not hold any data on vehicles that have been recorded entering the Low Emission Zones declared in May 2022.

Local Authorities in the LEZ cities are responsible for data gathering.

As the ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) cameras have not yet been installed in the LEZ cities, data on vehicles recorded entering these zones is not yet available.

Section 34 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 is now in force, providing wider powers for local transport authorities to run their own buses. Additionally, secondary legislation to enable bus franchising and partnership options will be introduced before the end of 2023. These powers will complement and continue to build on the service improvements supported through the Bus Partnership Fund.

We recognise that not every local authority will want to run their own bus services, but the new powers enable them to determine what is best for their local areas. We will continue to work with local authorities as they explore the full range of options set out in the 2019 Act, including local authority-run bus services. Work is currently ongoing with local authorities and COSLA to determine how best to allocate funding in light of the emergency budget review.

The Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019 set legally binding targets for the public sector to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, with interim targets requiring a 75% reduction by 2030, and 90% by 2040. The Scottish Government is installing energy saving infrastructure across estate including LED energy lighting projects and solar panel installation at some of our buildings to reduce our energy use and operation costs.

A full list of electricity and gas costs for each building within the Scottish Government estate from 2019 to 2022 with projected costs in 2023 can be found using SPICe reference 63647.

Corporate Travel Management (CTM) won the contract for the Provision of Displaced Persons Crisis Travel Management 2, through fair and open competition. Due to the urgency of the requirement, the Scottish Government utilised the Crown Commercial Services framework to allow for accommodation, travel, venue and ancillary booking services to be provided in support of the response to crisis management in relation to Displaced Persons. The Framework was awarded by Crown Commercial Services who published an Invitation to Tender to invite bids. This was a single supplier framework and the Service Provider, CTM, waived their management fee due to the humanitarian nature of the requirement.

Any large infrastructure organisation that provides an essential service requires significant access to cash to maintain its activities and to respond to unforeseen events. Scottish Water’s cash balances each year are largely a function of when the business borrows from the Scottish Government relative to when capital investments are made; unlike similar infrastructure businesses, Scottish Water does not have access to any other credit facilities. Some of that capital investment will be on projects not delivered in the preceding regulatory period. Furthermore, at any point in time Scottish Water has on-going investment projects and hence has contractual commitments with its delivery partners and it must ensure it has sufficient funds to meet those contractual commitments. At 31 March 2022 Scottish Water had contractual capital commitments of £455.6m and at 31 March 2021 this figure was £541.4m, hence my comments in the Scottish Parliament on 18 May 2022 that Scottish Water's cash balance is ''substantially allocated at any time to investment projects''.

Over the past decade the Scottish Government has invested more than £55 million in electric vehicle charging. ChargePlace Scotland (CPS), a publicly available network of chargers, now consists of over 2,300 charge points across Scotland.

Responsibility for repairing charge points rests with the host or owner, which may be a local authority, other public body, third sector, or business. The CPS back office, which is a contracted service, advises hosts of faults as they arise.

Most faults on the network are short-lived and in the majority of cases require no physical intervention. Overall reliability across the CPS network is typically very good: on average 95% - 97% of charge points are operational each day.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on all public charge points in Scotland, only those on CPS.

(a) Information on the location of faults on the CPS network is not held by Scottish Ministers. Transport Scotland works with the CPS back office to enhance data provision and information, and I will ensure that members are kept updated on those improvements.

(b) Information on the costs of repairing broken or out of service charge points is not held by Scottish Ministers. Charge point maintainers provide quotes and issue invoices directly to the owner of the charge point.

With funding from the Scottish Government, SEPA has contracted an environmental consultant to manage the construction of a leachate management system at the former landfill site at Tarbolton Moss, to prevent the ongoing discharges of landfill leachate to neighbouring watercourses and make it possible for leachate disposal to the public sewerage system. The design phase is now complete.

SEPA continue to monitor ongoing environmental risks at the site and completed their latest survey in August 2022. This found no significant increasing trends associated with the migration of landfill gas or impact to groundwater from leachate.

My officials are working closely with our public partners to consider further actions for the long-term restoration of the site.