Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to introducing a Promise Bill in this Parliamentary term.

The Government’s future legislative programmes will be announced in the relevant Programme for Government in the normal way in due course.

We are currently conducting a number of consultations which will inform the next steps on key areas and, where appropriate to inform The Promise Bill.

This includes the next stages of reform of the children’s hearing system; the future of foster care; the definition of care experience; and the support available to those moving on from care.

The Scottish Government processed payment of £5.7 million (90%) to Angus Council on 10 April this year based on the interim Bellwin claim provided by the council. Following certification of the final claim and the supporting evidence provided, the balance will be paid to Angus Council week commencing 11 November.

The following table gives the number of live homeless applications at December 25th 2023 for each local authority, along with the number of adults and children these applications refer to.

The Scottish Government is keen to ensure that local areas provide support at all times and that they assess the needs of people in their areas and work with them to design and deliver services in a way that meets the needs of people impacted by drugs and alcohol, including services being easily assessable and available at weekends.

As well as local contacts, we support national phone lines that are available for anyone to call. Know the Score operate a phoneline which is open until 9pm during the week and then open 10am until 4pm on weekends. This provides free, confidential support for people experiencing issues with drugs, alcohol or mental health.

For families, Scottish Families operate a phoneline which is open until 11pm on weekdays and operates a call back service on weekends. This provides support for anyone concerned about someone else’s drug use with information, advice and linking to local support.

Through our National Mission we are providing an additional £250 million of investment over the course of this parliament to support reduce deaths and improve lives.

Our framework Drug and alcohol services - improving holistic family support - gov.scot (www.gov.scot), which was published on 8 December 2021, sets out principles of how we will improve holistic support for families affected by drugs and alcohol by taking a whole family approach and using family inclusive practice.

The framework is supported by investing totalling £6.5 million per year over the life of the Parliament.

We are working with local areas to improve their family support and implement family inclusive practice across alcohol and drug services. This is supported by a national working group.

Although SEPA official statistics for 2023 show that Scotland’s household recycling rate increased slightly to 43.5%, we know that there is more to do to accelerate progress to meet our circular economy aims.

The Scottish Government’s Recycling Improvement Fund has now awarded over £63 million to 25 local authorities to increase the quantity and quality of recycling across Scotland and we expect to see those projects deliver significant results locally in the coming years.

We are also in the early stages of the co-design of the new Household Recycling Code of Practice. This will deliver new statutory recycling standards and more consistent and easy to use services for households across Scotland. The co-design will enable national and local government to identify if additional resources are needed to achieve our ambitions to drive up reuse and recycling rates.

Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) is progressing the Small Vessel Replacement Programme Phase One vessels procurement and has confirmed that six shipyards have been invited to tender for the contract.

Scottish Government Ministers have no role in the procurement process or in assessing the bids.

Tender returns are expected in January 2025 with a view to awarding the contract in March 2025.

The total cost of the Scottish Digital Academy since its commencement in January 2018 to September 2024 is £4,320,722. This includes staff and programme delivery costs.

The Scottish Government national working group set up to improve family support and inclusive family practices across drug and alcohol services, includes members from the following organisations:

Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA)

Aberlour

Care Inspectorate

The Corra foundation

Quarriers

Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs

Circle

COSLA

The Beacons – My Support Day

Alcohol and Drug Partnerships

We can only provide information relating to the Scottish Government funded ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) public electric vehicle (EV) charging network. The commercial sector does not make their own charge point fault information readily available to third parties.

Overall reliability across the CPS network is typically very good with charge points being available for use 95% to 97% on average each month. Most faults on the CPS network are short-lived in nature and in the majority of cases require no physical intervention. Typically around 90% of faults are resolved within 48 hrs with the ChargePlace Scotland helpdesk remedying most faults remotely.

Please note, ‘faults’ cover many different scenarios and do not necessarily relate to issues that affect the operation of the charging infrastructure itself, for example, it could relate to lighting at the site. Some faults may be reported by more than one member of the public and therefore each recorded fault is not necessarily a unique instance. The following table shows the total number of ‘faults’ logged by members of the public.

CPS have published a Network Performance page on the CPS website Network Performance – Charge Place Scotland which provides a breakdown of ‘fault tickets’ by local authority from November 2022 onwards. Information prior to November 2022 has not been published on the website but is detailed in the following table.