Chamber and committees

Crown Estate Scotland is responsible for the ScotWind seabed leasing process, including setting Option Agreement fees and rent prices. Crown Estate Scotland informed Scottish Government of its pricing structure based on its own evidence gathering and information available at the time. Once projects are under seabed leases and wind farms are generating energy, rental payments are annual – these are separate from the Option Agreement payments.

The recently published report of the Independent Review of the Role of Incineration in the Waste Hierarchy recommends that the Scottish Government should develop an indicative cap that declines over time for the amount of residual waste treatment needed as Scotland transitions towards a fully circular economy. We are carefully considering all recommendations made in the report and will set out our initial response in June.

Scottish Ministers have committed to ending the practice of landfilling biodegradable municipal waste by 2025. In the update to our Climate Change Plan, we also committed to extend the ban to include biodegradable non-municipal waste, subject to appropriate consultation and work to provide assurance around some specific waste streams..

The Scottish Government, working with Zero Waste Scotland and local government partners, is providing centrally co-ordinated procurement support for local authorities without a solution in place in preparation for the ban coming into force in 2025. As part of this collaborative procurement programme, we are funding the provision of expert procurement, legal and technical support to local authorities to enable them to secure alternative solutions for their residual waste.

ZWS commissions research and policy reports for a variety of reasons. In some cases ZWS commissions reports which are intentionally aimed at wider public audiences, and in other cases, ZWS commissions reports to inform the development of programmes and interventions, or of Scottish Government policy.

In addition to the reports listed in my answer to S6W-08230, ZWS may have commissioned additional work that was not intended for publication. This includes commercially sensitive work that was undertaken specifically for individual organisations, work solely undertaken in-house by Zero Waste Scotland staff, and data generated to inform input to further published reports or to assist Zero Waste Scotland’s Strategic development.

The Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels publication provides information on the number of publicly funded school children in Primary 1, Primary 4, Primary 7 and Secondary 3 who have achieved the expected Curriculum for Excellence level in the literacy organisers (reading, writing and listening and talking) and numeracy.

Schools were closed in Scotland between March 2020 and the end of the academic year as a result of the pandemic meaning that they were closed on the date of 8 June 2020. It was concluded that it would not be possible to collect consistent data that was fit for purpose and that any attempt to do so would add considerably to other pressures on school and education authority staff. The decision was therefore taken to suspend the data collection in 2019-20.

The latest publication collected data for 2020-21 for Primary school (P1, P4 and P7) pupils only. Secondary school and special school data was not collected due to other pressures on these schools including implementation of the SQA National Qualifications Alternative Certification Model which was used to award National 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers in 2021.

The current intention is to collect all data– for Primary, Secondary and Special school pupils – in 2021-22, although this will be kept under review.

The latest information on Reading can be found at the following table and the link provided:

Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2020-21 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The recently published report on the Review of the Role of Incineration in the Waste Hierarchy recommends that Scottish Government and local authorities should work with industry to develop a strategic approach to planning and deploying waste collection, reprocessing and management facilities. We are carefully considering all recommendations made in the report and will set out our initial response in June.

In the meantime, we have launched our consultation on Delivering Scotland's circular economy– a Route Map to 2025 and beyond. The Route Map takes a whole systems approach to set out interventions to reduce waste and meet our recycling and waste targets in a way that maximises carbon saving potential. The consultation paper is available here: Delivering Scotland’s circular economy: A Route Map to 2025 and beyond - Scottish Government - Citizen Space (consult.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government recognises and supports the generous offers from the people of Scotland to privately sponsor Ukrainians through the UK Government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme, as well as the work of the many charities and groups across the country who are facilitating matches between displaced Ukrainians seeking accommodation and volunteer hosts.

On Tuesday 24 and Tuesday 31 May we delivered public webinar sessions on host guidance in collaboration with the Scottish Refugee Council. A final session will take place on Thursday 9 June. These sessions allow us to address questions on our recently published guidance for hosts on our website, which includes a range of information on safeguarding, property checks, matching, funding and the roles of hosts and their guests.

The Super Sponsor scheme is designed to provide a quick and safe route for displaced people from Ukraine to come to a place of sanctuary by removing the need for applicants to be matched to an individual sponsor prior to being given permission to travel to the UK.

Once people have arrived, a national matching service, delivered by COSLA, will match those settling here with longer-term accommodation across Scotland.

Displaced people from Ukraine are asked to complete a short questionnaire that captures key information and preferences. This information is then used to find suitable longer-term accommodation, which will be offered as a choice.

All 32 of our local authorities are taking part in this programme, and hosts have offered up their homes right across the country. The national matching service will ensure that people are offered settlement opportunities across Scotland, recognising that people will have different preferences and available housing is limited in some local authorities.

Crown Estate Scotland (CES) is responsible for the ScotWind seabed leasing process and the management and collation of the information used to support its decision to review and, ultimately, change the option fee prices for seabed leasing. The Scottish Government has already released the advisory note procured from Strathclyde University ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202200277291/ ) and did not provide any further information to CES.

CES also procured additional advice that the Scottish Government do hold but these have not been released due to the ongoing nature of ScotWind clearing process and applications.

On 26 April the Scottish Information Commissioner issued a decision notice (048/2022) requiring the disclosure of certain information about legal advice on the topic of a second independence referendum. The information had been withheld by the Scottish Government in response to a Freedom of Information request as it considered that the Government should have been able to receive the advice in confidence under “legal professional privilege”. The Commissioner, in responding to an appeal from the requester, took a different view - that considerations favouring release in this case outweighed those for maintaining legal professional privilege.

The Scottish Government has considered the Commissioner’s decision carefully.

There is a longstanding convention, observed by Scottish, UK and other governments, that government does not disclose legal advice except in exceptional circumstances. This convention, which is reflected in the Scottish Ministerial Code, is intended to ensure that full and frank legal advice can be taken by governments, just as other organisations and individuals can take legal advice in confidence and subject to legal professional privilege.

The convention is also reflected in the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, section 36 of which makes such information exempt from release to the extent that the public interest in disclosing the information is outweighed by the public interest in maintaining the exemption. It is on the applicability of this section of the FOI legislation that the Commissioner has come to a different view from the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government considers that the convention on legal advice is important for ensuring good government. It disagrees strongly with the Commissioner’s reasoning in his decision and considers that there are good grounds for a successful appeal to the Court of Session to challenge the Commissioner’s ruling.

However, we have also taken account of the fact that the material covered by this Decision dates from 2020 and relates to proposed government actions that have since been taken forward and on which the legal position can therefore already be assumed. The Government has therefore concluded, on the particular circumstances of this case only, that the time and expense required for an appeal would not be merited, and that it will release and publish the information concerned.

It should be stressed, however, that the Scottish Government’s publication of the material in this case does not set any precedent for its position on releasing any other information that is subject to legal professional privilege, including in response to any other Freedom of Information request. Nor does the Information Commissioner Decision represent a binding legal precedent. The Government will therefore continue to apply the relevant exemptions, in line with the public interest test, as set out in the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and to follow the Scottish Ministerial Code in relation to legal advice, including in relation to material related to a referendum. The Government also reserves the right to appeal future Information Commissioner decisions to the Court of Session if it considers that appropriate in the circumstances.