Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government believe that our National Parks bring many positive benefits to our environment and our economy, which is why our Programme for Government 2021-22 commits to the creation of at least one new National Park by the end of this Parliament, provided relevant legal conditions can be met.

The process for selecting and establishing new National Park is set out in the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000. That legislation rightly includes a thorough consultation process and Ministers will provide an update on the timings for that in due course.

There are currently 51 Ramsar sites in Scotland, all of which are also designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Special Protection Areas or Special Areas of Conservation.

The most recent baseline data is contained within the 2016 Zero Waste Scotland report How Much Food is Wasted in Scotland? | Zero Waste Scotland . This report uses 2013 data and is broken down as follows:

• Household (solid and liquid waste) – 598,946 tonnes (60.6%)
• Food and drink manufacturing – 248,230 tonnes (25.1%)
• Other sectors – 140,714 tonnes (14.2%)
• The total of 987,890 tonnes covers all quantifiable food and drink waste in Scotland and provides a baseline for the Scottish Government’s flagship target to reduce all food waste arising in Scotland by 33% by 2025. Food losses incurred in primary production are currently excluded from the baseline figures. A Waste Composition Analysis, originally planned for 2021 but delayed due to Covid-19, is being carried out by Zero Waste Scotland this year and more detailed information will be available once that work concludes.

We are committed to implement the recommendations in the Independent Review of Adult Social Care Report, including the creation of a National Care Service (NCS), which we aim to introduce in the first Parliamentary Session. Our ambition, however, is to go beyond the creation of a NCS for adult social care. in the formal consultation we published in August 2021, we invited views on creating a comprehensive community health and social care service, including social work, that supports people of all ages. Our proposals include establishing a National Social Work Agency which would have responsibility for national workforce planning for social work.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The Improvement Service collects data on instrumental music tuition in schools on behalf of local authorities, including information on charging structures and participation. This information can be found at the following link: https://www.improvementservice.org.uk/research .

Based on population projections published by National Records of Scotland, it is estimated the eligible two-year old population is 14,500 children. The Scottish Government is working with UK Government departments and the Office for National Statistics to acquire further UK government held data which will enable us to measure the eligible population more accurately.

The latest data published by the Improvement Service in May 2021 reported that at the national level, there were 6204 two-year-olds accessing funded ELC. Of that number, 4113 two-year-olds were accessing 1140 funded hours. Updated figures will be published by the Improvement Service in the next month.

In December, the Scottish Government will publish Schools in Scotland, Summary Statistics report for 2021. This report will include figures to show the number of registrations of two-year-olds at national and local authority level.

In recognition of importance of reducing flood risk the Scottish Government has, since 2007, provided £42 million each year to local authorities through the general capital grant to invest in flood protection measures. In September 2020, the Programme for Government also committed an additional £150 million over five years from 2021-22 to support flood risk management actions. Reducing flood risk is a priority for this Government and we will continue to support authorities to deliver actions that protect our communities.

The Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 (“the Act”) encourages a co-ordinated, plan-led approach to flood risk management, which runs in six year cycles. As part of the first cycle under the Act, 14 Flood Risk Management Strategies were published in 2015 by SEPA and 14 Local Flood Risk Management Plans (LFRMP) were published in 2016 by local authorities. Actions prioritised to reduce flood risk in Newcastleton are included within the 2016-22 Solway LFRMP; this included a flood study for Newcastleton, which has now been completed by Scottish Borders Council. It is for the Council and other responsible authorities such as Scottish Water to take forward and deliver the actions set out in the Strategies and LFRMPs.

SEPA and local authorities are currently in the process of reviewing and updating the Strategies and LFRMPs for the 2022-28 cycle. Once finalised, the Strategies will be submitted to Scottish Ministers for approval.

We also work closely with key partners to promote community resilience and flood preparedness. We have increased our funding to £195,000 for the Scottish Flood Forum, which provides vital support to communities such as Newcastleton. The Scottish Flood Forum offers advice and information to individuals to help them protect their homes from flooding or to recover from flooding.

Following the announcement from the First Minister of the £500 'thank you' payment for health and social care staff in November 2020, a short-life stakeholder focus group was assembled. This group, including stakeholders from social care provider representative bodies, CoSLA, trade unions, local authorities, Office of the Chief Social Work Adviser and Scottish Government legal officials, met regularly in December 2020 to agree on the eligibility criteria for social care staff to receive the payment. Social care workforce policy officials engaged with stakeholders, remotely due to restrictions, on the complexity of the guidance and sought to ensure that no processes involved would present unreasonable difficulty for stakeholders involved in the process.

For staff in NHS Scotland, it was important to set out clear qualification criteria for the payment, which were agreed in partnership with NHS employer and Trade Union colleagues, and which could be applied fairly and consistently across NHS Scotland Health Boards. The payment applies to staff directly employed by NHS payment and remuneration arrangements, and has also been extended to certain facilities management staff working in Public Finance Initiative and Public Private Partnership Hospitals who work exclusively for NHS Scotland. The Scottish Government does not hold information on all of the contractors working in the Health sector, however, those employed by a private employer and not covered by the specific provisions of PCS(COV)2021/3 are not eligible for the payment.

Scottish Ministers are incredibly grateful for the hard work and dedication of staff working for non-registered support organisations, and for the undoubtedly vital support they provide to people. However, following extensive consultation, it was determined by the stakeholder groups that only those services which were required to register with the Care Inspectorate as delivering adult social care can be considered as frontline social care. Non-registered services were considered to be support services, not delivering frontline social care and therefore not within scope to receive the payment.

There is no single dataset of all flytipping incidents in Scotland, as there is no legal requirement for duty bodies or landowners to report on flytipping externally. The figures provided below represent incidents reported via the Litter Monitoring System and FlyMapper.

It is clear that the data varies significantly from year to year but it is not possible to deduce whether this relates to variations in incidents or variations in reporting by relevant bodies.

The Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrel project has been running since 2008. The Developing Community Action phase of the project is due to run until April 2022.

Partners have agreed that that essential elements of the community action phase will need to continue and hence partners have also agreed to develop an interim phase to bridge the gap to develop a longer term model for continuing to support these activities. NatureScot is working with partners to assess the key outcomes and costs for this interim phase, and will look to provide a funding contribution once these costs and priorities are clear.

NatureScott considers that securing the legacy of this project is a priority given the importance of red squirrels in Scotland’s native wildlife.