Chamber and committees

There were no prosecutions under section 40(1) of the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 (where main crime) since 1 January 2014.

Please note: The latest available data is for 2022-23.

The Scottish Government is currently considering extending the ban on combustible external wall cladding to hotels, boarding houses and hostels. This will be informed by research and consultation, including relevant work undertaken by the UK Government.

The Scottish National Investment Bank is operationally independent of the Scottish Government, it invests on a purely commercial basis and does not distribute grants of any kind.

Full details of the Bank’s portfolio can be found on its website and this provides a breakdown of the Bank’s investments by primary mission and also provides further details on each investment such as listing any co-investors and a summary of what the investment will achieve:

Scottish National Investment Bank Investment Portfolio

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the research, and intends to do this at the same time.

“Preparing Scotland” is a set of national guidance documents, currently under review, to assist stakeholders, including local authorities, in planning for, responding to and recovering from emergencies. It consists of a “Hub” which sets out the philosophy, principles and good practice for emergency response in Scotland, and “Spokes” that provide detailed guidance on specific matters. The spoke on “Responding to Emergencies” describes how resilience partnerships and SGORR activate, and how they meet, report and share information. In an emergency, and where the structures have been activated, local authorities engage with SGORR as part of a resilience partnership.

Supporting effective liaison with responders at all levels in Scotland and with the UK Government is key to the Scottish Government Resilience Room’s (SGORR’s) co-ordination of the Scottish Government response to civil contingencies emergencies. For civil contingencies emergencies with cross-border impacts, SGORR closely co-ordinates activities with the relevant UK Government response structures and other UK Government departments relevant to the response. SGORR’s role includes supporting the sharing of information as appropriate both on official and ministerial level, supporting the co-ordination of response activity with cross-border aspects, or facilitating the co-ordination of resource as required for the response.

The Clean Power 2030 Action Plan was published by the UK Government. The National Energy System Operator, in its advice to the UK Government on the Clean Power 2030 ambition, noted that whilst the ambition is achievable, several elements must deliver at the limit of what is feasible. The Scottish Government has been clear that the UK Government’s work to support clean power must respect devolved powers, ambitions and policies, and ensure investor and industry confidence.

The Scottish Government is continuing to take action to drive progress towards our renewable energy ambitions, which play a key role in the UK government's Clean Power 2030 ambition. For example, in our budget for 2025-26 we are almost tripling our capital funding in offshore wind development to £150 million, to invest in the infrastructure and manufacturing facilities critical to growing the sector.

Scotland’s strong pipeline of renewables projects and growing supply chain will be vital to achieving a secure, affordable and clean power system. Our focus is on seizing the economic opportunities of Scotland's green energy potential in a way that secures clear benefits for communities and reduced costs for energy consumers. We are working closely with the UK government to ensure that the delivery of the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan supports these aims.

The Scottish Government works with the SCTS in line with the Framework Document agreed between the SCTS and the Scottish Ministers.

The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) is a non-ministerial office established by the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008. Scottish Ministers do not oversee the performance of the SCTS. The SCTS is accountable to the Scottish Parliament .

As part of the Scottish Administration, the SCTS is subject to the accountability and audit provisions of Part 2 of the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000 and adherence to the guidance contained within the Scottish Public Finance manual .

As required by the 2008 Act, the SCTS prepares a draft corporate plan every 3 years for approval by Scottish Ministers. The corporate plan informs the development of a separate annual business plan with key targets and milestones, a copy of which is sent to Scottish Ministers.

In addition, the SCTS publishes an annual report of its activities together with its audited accounts after the end of each financial year. The annual report and accounts are laid before the Scottish Parliament and cover the main activities and performance against agreed objectives and targets for the previous financial year.

The total cost of operating the Scottish Government Resilience Room as calculated below includes salary costs for the teams responsible for developing and maintaining the SGORR function including co-ordination of resilience communications; on call allowances for 24/7, 365 days a year on call cover to monitor and where required respond to incidents; overtime pay for evening and weekend working in response to incidents; and travel and subsistence payments relating to incident response. This amounts to the following for each of the past five financial years: 2020-2021: £834,819; 2021-2022: £738,458; 2022-2023: £817,262; 2023-2024: £829,416; 2024-2025 (as of 5 February 2025): £574,682.

The Scottish Government Resilience Room has been activated 5 times in 2020; 5 times in 2021; 11 times in 2022; 8 times in 2023; 9 times in 2024; and once in 2025 to date. Of these 39 activations, 25 were for co-ordinating the response to severe weather. The remainder of the activations cover a range of civil contingencies emergencies, such as Covid-19; the 2022 power disruption on Shetland; protests threatening to disrupt fuel supply in the summer of 2023; or the worldwide IT outage in July 2024.