Chamber and committees

The following table captures current roles and locations and indicates whether the role has been in place since 2018:

In accordance with the Scottish Ministerial Code paragraph 6.42, Ministers should use Government systems for all Government business. Any communication on Government business engages Ministers’ obligations to ensure accurate public records are kept.

The Scottish Government policy on use of mobile messaging apps can only be enforced using technical means on corporate devices connected to the Scottish Government.

Information about each VisitScotland board member, including their register of interests, is available at https://www.visitscotland.org/about-us/our-team/board

The latest available information on convictions is for the financial year 2022-23.

(a)Number of people prosecuted under the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Consolidation)(Scotland) Act 2003, where main crime, 2021-22 to 2022-23.

There were no prosecutions under the Freshwater Fish Conservative (Prohibition on Fishing for Eels) (Scotland) Regulations 2008, where main crime, between 2021-22 and 2022-23.

The national flags owned by the Scottish Government are listed in the following table.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

NHS Health Boards must ensure that everyone, regardless of their background or circumstances, has equitable access to mental health care.

If a patient is dissatisfied with their care or access to services, they should first raise their concerns with their local Health Board. If unsatisfied with the response, they can also escalate the matter to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) for an independent review.

We acknowledge that Highland has some of the highest rates of Huntington disease, we do not hold information to compare this to the rest of the country.

Despite the powers to mandate community benefits being reserved to the UK Government, Scotland has made significant progress with the voluntary approach through the Scottish Government’s Good Practice Principles (GPPs) for Onshore Developments, which recommends community benefit equivalent to £5,000 per MW per annum. This was first published in the GPPs in 2014 and maintained in the 2019 refresh, following a public consultation and co-development with communities and industry. These Principles have been widely adopted with over £30 million offered to Scottish communities in the last 12 months.

We are currently undertaking a consultation on our Good Practice Principles for onshore and offshore renewable energy developments, which closes on the 11 April. We want to gather a wide range of views to ensure Scottish guidance supports sustainable and meaningful outcomes, and encourage everyone to take part in the consultation.

The fixed fee system was introduced over 25 years ago, in 1999. The initial move to fixed fees in 1999 was designed to reverse the substantial growth in costs seen throughout the 1990s and which led to significant reforms both in Scotland and England and Wales.

Fixed payments and block fees reduce the administrative burden on providers and streamlines the accounts process. That system was designed upon a basis that solicitors should be paid fixed sums for specified work recognising that different cases will require different amounts of work, and that different cases will have different degrees of profitability, but over the total population of summary criminal cases that a solicitor undertakes in a year, the sums that will be paid from the legal aid fund will provide reasonable remuneration. Solicitors can “opt out” of the respective fixed/block fee regime and charge on a ‘time and line’ basis in certain circumstances.

One of our short-term priorities for Legal Aid Reform, which arose from the Legal Aid Payment Panel is to progress fee review planning and collaborate with stakeholders on reform of legal aid fees in 2025. I intend to publish the Legal Aid Reform Discussion paper shortly.