Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

As previously advised with reference to question S6W-31621 on 3 December 2024, during daily routine engagement with the police, Procurators Fiscal undertake the long-established practice of instructing the police in their investigation of crime and all suspicious, sudden and unexplained deaths. The ongoing input and direction during the investigative process is not specifically recorded as implementation of section 12 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, nor is there any statutory obligation to do so.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Integration Authorities have delegated responsibility in Scotland for providing local alcohol and drug services. This activity is coordinated by Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) and funded by the Scottish Government. In line with the Verity House Agreement, the Integration Authorities and ADPs have a significant amount of autonomy over local decision making.

On 6 December I hosted the 42nd meeting of the British-Irish Council Summit on behalf of the Scottish Government. The Summit marked the 25th anniversary of the first Council meeting which was held in London in December 1999 following the historic Good Friday Agreement. The meeting was attended by the Heads of Government from all eight of the BIC Member Administrations, including the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer.

The theme of the Summit was ‘Financing a Just Transition’.

With global emissions continuing to rise, Council members discussed the importance of working in collaboration and shared the experience of their respective governments in supporting communities in the journey towards net zero – and about how best to attract global finance to maximise the social, economic and environmental benefits of the transition to net zero.

I highlighted Scotland’s leadership in this area by acting to underpin our net zero targets in a legislative commitment to achieving a just transition. I also highlighted the proactive, ‘investor-friendly’ approach that the Scottish Government is taking to attract investment in priority areas of net zero, housing and infrastructure.

The Council also reflected on the latest political developments such as international issues including the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Israel/Gaza as well as domestic issues such as the measures included in the Scottish budget to mitigate the two child benefit cap as an important step towards eradicating child poverty.

In addition to the formal Summit meeting, I had the opportunity to further build the Scottish Government’s relationship with the UK, Irish, Welsh Governments, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Crown Dependencies through bilateral meetings.

Members and the public are encouraged to use clips from Parliament TV on social media. This is an effective mechanism for sharing information about the work of Members and reaching new audiences.   

This material should not be used for party political purposes. This is set out in the Parliament’s copyright policy and license which governs the use of Parliament TV clips.  These restrictions apply to anyone using our clips, not only Members.    

The SPCB last considered this matter in April of this year when it agreed new guidance for Members and their staff on the use of clips for social media.    

The guidance was subsequently published in May 2024 and includes illustrative examples of what is and isn’t acceptable in line with both the copyright policy and the policy for MSPs’ on the use of parliamentary resources.  The material can be used to make a fair and accurate report of parliamentary proceedings and should not be edited, added to, distorted or digitally manipulated except to add accessibility features.  

SPCB policies and guidance are kept under review. Feedback is welcome so we can ensure they are as clear and useful to Members as possible.

We have allocated over £66 million of funding to Sustrans this financial year. This includes funding and support to Local Authorities and others to deliver infrastructure to help people walk, wheel or cycle, as well as support to upgrade and expand the National Cycle Network throughout Scotland. This is delivered by Sustrans’ Scotland based staff from their office in Edinburgh.

As part of our transformation of active travel delivery, the funding of the main Transport Scotland infrastructure programme, Places for Everyone, managed by Sustrans, winds down to December 2025.

The new Active Travel Infrastructure Fund which will see Transport Scotland directly award funding to Local Authorities, Regional Transport Partnerships and National Park Authorities.

The consultation closed on 20 September. Published consultation responses and an analysis report can be found at: Review of the Regional Strategic Bodies within the Glasgow and Lanarkshire college regions - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space

I can confirm that the Scottish Government will be proceeding with plans to:

• Dissolve the Glasgow Colleges’ Regional Board, the Regional Strategic Body for the Glasgow college region;
• No longer have New College Lanarkshire, designated as the Regional Strategic Body for the Lanarkshire college region; and
• Designate each of the Glasgow and Lanarkshire colleges as “regional colleges”.

Subject to the Parliamentary process, I expect the new arrangements to be in place for the start of academic year 25-26.

The Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) will work with both boards to develop transition arrangements and ensure the boards have appropriate support in place for any affected staff.

Information on the schools which meet the PE target is available from the school contact details dataset.

The percentage of primary schools meeting the target of providing at least two hours of PE per week as of July 2024 is 99.6%

In 2022-23 the Scottish Government provided SCQF with total funding of £44,000, and then a further £30,000 in 2023-24 to deliver its small scale Learning for Sustainability (LfS) grant fund to ensure there is a better offer on LfS-related qualifications for learners. In both financial years SCQF then allocated funding from this pot to individual projects within the overall funding amount – proposals were invited and then assessed and decided by an assessment panel involving officials and run by SCQF, based on agreed criteria. Ministers were not involved in final funding decisions to applicants.

In 2023-24 the International Sustainability Diploma, developed by the Futures Institute at Dollar Academy (FIDA), was successful in securing £6,030 of funding to support its accreditation at SCQF Level 6 and the course’s promotion to other schools and centres. The course is being piloted in approximately seven schools this year with the intention to scale it up further following this initial pilot phase.

In response to the Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment, the Scottish Government committed to undertaking further work to develop a consistent, high quality interdisciplinary learning (IDL) offer that provides all young people with an experience and in time, a qualification, that is valued by employers and further and higher education. An IDL working group is bringing together relevant partners already active in this space to take this work forward, including Dollar Academy and Powering Futures.

The following table provides the number of recorded injury road collisions where a police officer attended the scene and ‘poor or defective road surface’ was recorded as a contributory factor.

As this is recorded as a single contributory factor, it is not possible to distinguish between collisions involving defective road surfaces and collisions involving poor road surfaces.