Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government will continue to pursue effective deer management that will help secure our climate and nature objectives, on land owned by the Scottish Government and other land. This includes changes that are being made to deer legislation through the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill, implementing recommendations of the Deer Working Group, and progressing deer management priorities set by the Strategic Deer Board.

The Scottish Government has been actively working to increase the number of wind turbines on land it owns. The vast majority of the land owned by Scottish Government is occupied by croft tenants. Third party lease negotiations require the support of the crofting tenants and approval by the Scottish Land Court before the development can proceed.

The primary reasons for the deer management activities on Scottish government-owned land is as follows.

Forestry and Land Scotland

FLS culls deer primarily in order to protect, enhance and restore a wide range of woodland across the 640,000 hectares of public forests and land which it manages which can be damaged by deer overgrazing and trampling vulnerable habitats, preventing young trees from growing. The proportion of the cull carried out for ‘environmental protection’ purposes is 96%-100%. FLS also cull deer to protect grazings and crops as and when required. The proportion of the cull carried out for agricultural purposes is 0%-4%. They do not carry out culling for population control purposes.

NatureScot

The primary reason for deer culling on NatureScot-owned land is environmental protection. This information is not broken down proportionally.

Scottish Water  

The primary reasons for deer culling on Scottish Water land include for population control, environmental protection and agricultural purposes. This information is not broken down proportionately.

Scottish Government does not directly use any electricity generated by wind turbines on land it owns. We do not hold information on the amount of electricity supplied to the grid.

Total spend with media agencies over the last five years (2019-2024) was £50,729,800.33, as published here Marketing spend - Marketing spend - gov.scot

Media planning and buying is placed by call-off from the Media Planning, Buying and Associated Services framework (Ref: SP-23-05). The work is competed through the Framework and tenders are evaluated for value and quality. Framework suppliers when bidding are required to provide full detailed costs against indicative volumes, using the price guarantees set under the Framework.

Where appropriate media spend is audited for value against the Framework pricing as well as quality by an independent media auditor on a six monthly basis.

While the Scottish Government remains committed to its vision for an integrated and community-based hearing service in Scotland, re-phasing of funding has meant that not all the challenges we are facing will be addressed in a single budget and therefore there is no community hearing service in operation at this time.

While our response to the Independent Review of Audiology is implemented, we will continue to work with the NHS, Third Sector and private providers to identify and cost an appropriate model of community care for any future service reform, and ensure that the voices of those with lived experience inform this work.

The Scottish Government received the following rental income from the agricultural and crofting tenancies £208,396.54 in 2020-21, £212,951.73 in 2021-22, £214,950.92 in 2022-23, £220,002.31 in 2023-24 and £220,147.55 in
2024-25.

126 pedigree bulls are kept at the Scottish Government’s Knocknagael farm, near Inverness for the crofting cattle improvement scheme.

We do not hold information on the numbers and types of livestock owned and managed by our farm and croft tenants.

To support food producers to meet labelling regulations, Food Standards Scotland (FSS) has published various forms of guidance and training material which are designed to lay the relevant information out in an easy-to-understand way. This includes guidance on the Food Information Regulation, allergen labelling, food sold prepacked for direct sale and front of pack nutrition labelling along with online allergy training and MenuCal resource.

In line with the Food Standards Scotland (FSS) Food Crime Prevention Strategic Plan 2024-27, FSS works in partnership with local authorities, other law enforcement agencies (LEA), industry and stakeholders at various strategic and tactical fora, including:

• the National Multi Agency Counterfeit Alcohol Working Group
• regular engagement with the drinks industry
• share intelligence with relevant LEA and local authority partners
• engagement with international LEA partners - Europol, OLAF and participate in Operation OPSON
• Food Crime Global Alliance
• access to Trading Standards intelligence system
• media awareness - including risk communication to consumers
• horizon scanning
• proactive sampling projects
• multi-agency inspections
• through joint working/liaison with Police Scotland, HMRC and local authorities
• intelligence requirements from/to various partners
• Food Alerts for Action (FAFA) via local authorities
• liaison with Public Health teams and National Poisons