Chamber and committees

We have always been clear from the outset, that the funding provided in 2021-22 would be for 1 year only.

This was funded from the Covid consequentials afforded to us by the UK Government. The scheme was designed to help public bodies, local authorities and communities prepare for the 2021 season and provided some seed funding to support rangers and temporary infrastructure. It was necessary given the challenges faced in 2020 with little international travel opportunities and a large desire for domestic countryside visits.

The fund was extremely successful. A list of successful awards can be found here: Better Places Green Recovery Fund - Successful Projects | NatureScot

Going forward however, we continue to focus on long term solutions. For example, to date our Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund is supporting projects across the country to the tune of £15m. This includes permanent infrastructure such as car parks, toilets and waste disposal facilities, each with a 10 year minimum life span. We plan to continue this fund into 2022-23.

The work of the Visitor Management Steering Group will also continue. For more information please see: https://www.visitscotland.org/about-us/what-we-do/working-in-partnership/visitor-management-plan .

At 1 October, all six local authorities in the pathfinder programme have mainstreamed their support provision and remain committed to delivering a Housing First programme. I can confirm that the Housing First pathfinder programme formally ends on 31 March 2022. The Scottish Government has provided local authorities with 50% of funding for the final year to support the mainstreaming of Housing First. This funding ended on 30 September 2021.

To support the scaling up and mainstreaming of Housing First, the Scottish Government has been working in partnership with Homeless Network Scotland on a suite of tools to support local authorities and their partners:

• Publication of a National Framework which provides a comprehensive overview to all organisations involved in developing and implementing Housing First e.g. local authorities, health and social care partnerships.
• Development of a ”check-up” process has been undertaken to support the scale-up of Housing First and enable measurement against the Housing First principles. The check-up process involves self-reflection, peer input and includes a sounding board of experts to help local authorities improve their programme.
• A dedicated monitoring framework to capture Housing First progress across Scotland’s local authorities. The monitoring framework collects in-depth detail on all Housing First tenancies from 1 April 2021 on a quarterly basis. The second quarterly progress report was published on the Scottish Government website on 30 November 2021.

Scottish Government’s funding of Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans support the development of Housing First across Scotland. Officials are supporting local authorities through regular meetings and on an individual basis. These foster a supportive environment to ensure effective implementation of Housing First programmes across Scotland. Homeless Network Scotland’s annual Housing First Conference on 31 March 2022 will coincide with, and celebrate the end of, the pathfinder programme.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all school-aged children and young people in Scotland have access to a digital device by the end of this parliament. Given the scale and complexity of this programme of work, the 100 days commitment was to commence planning not to deliver the devices.

In 2020/21, we provided £25 million of funding to councils across Scotland to tackle digital exclusion, resulting in over 72,000 pupils receiving a device to support their learning.

The following table shows the number of devices distributed via that funding, as reported by individual local authorities.

The total number of electric vehicle charging points installed at each building on the core Scottish Government Estate is in the following table. Each charging point can charge 2 electric vehicles at the same time except the charging points at Bonnington, Atlantic Quay and Kirkwall which are single points.

I am pleased to confirm the publication today of the Scottish Government’s second thematic report on implementation progress following Dame Elish Angiolini’s Final Report.

The thematic progress report showcases the significant steps partners have taken to implement Dame Elish Angiolini’s recommendations, as well as highlighting our commitment to consult next year on legislative proposals in advance of bringing forward primary legislation.

I commend Police Scotland, the Scottish Police Authority, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland for the collaborative working and progress to date. As set out in the last report, this second report features updates from all partners, with tables to record progress against every recommendation grouped under the following themes:

• Rights & ethics
• Jurisdiction & powers
• Governance & accountability
• Transparency & accessibility
• Equality, diversity & inclusion
• Conduct & standards
• Training & HR
• Efficiency & effectiveness
• Audit & review

The report can be accessed here: http://www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781802017168

The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government.

The latest annual data available, published in March 2020, estimates that 24% of children lived in relative poverty, after housing costs, in Scotland in the period 2017-20.

These statistics predate the impact of Covid-19 on the financial security of families and the removal of the £20 per week uplift to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits. Data covering the first year of the Covid pandemic (2018-21) will be published by the end of March 2021.

We recognise the challenge faced in reaching the interim child poverty targets for 2023-24, that is why we have declared a national mission to tackle child poverty and have committed concrete action including the doubling of the Scottish Child Payment from April 2022.

The Scottish Government will publish the second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan by the end of March 2022, setting out a range of actions which will put us on a critical path to the targets set.

There are no plans for a compensation scheme to be offered to businesses due to travel disruption as a result of ferry delays and cancellations. Any such scheme would be extremely challenging and would ultimately draw resources otherwise intended for the operation of ferry services.

Scottish Ministers do fully recognise the importance of reliable ferry services to the economic, social and cultural development of island and remote mainland communities. We have committed to investing at least £580 million in ports and vessels over the next five years to improve resilience.

CalMac Ferries Ltd (CFL), have operational responsibility to deliver the lifeline services and work throughout disruptions to find ways to continue the freight and passenger service to the communities. However, it is impossible to completely remove the risk of disruption due to either inclement weather or other reasons.

Transport Scotland continue to work with CalMac Ferries Ltd and engage with local stakeholders in order to ensure any disruption to services have minimum impact on communities, and assess all the options available to maximise available capacity across the CHFS network.

Our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan, to be published next year, will provide a roadmap for the future of Scotland’s energy system. We will co-design this Plan with the workers, businesses and communities most impacted by the net zero transition, including those within or associated with the nuclear energy industry. Workers, unions and the communities they are part of have always been at the heart of a just transition and will continue to be so. Together, we must provide certainty for those affected as we set out how the economic and social impacts of Scotland’s changing energy system will be managed.

We will outline the sequencing for specific Just Transition Plans in the new year, and as part of that, will explore if there are any sub-sectors of the energy system that would benefit from a standalone Plan.

There is now a suite of 15 ecosystem health indicators relating to condition, function and resilience of ecosystems, available on Scotland’s Environment Web at: https://www.environment.gov.scot/our-environment/state-of-the-environment/ecosystem-health-indicators/ . NatureScot is currently working on updates to the indicators to take advantage of new data that have become available.

At the time of the 2018 discussion paper, NatureScot and the James Hutton Institute were working to develop two new indicators, for nitrogen pollution and summer temperatures. Both indicators use bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) which are very sensitive to environmental change. This work has been completed and the additional indicators are available on Scotland’s Environment Web, at: https://www.environment.gov.scot/our-environment/state-of-the-environment/ecosystem-health-indicators/resilience-indicators/ .