Chamber and committees

Our contractors have upgraded or replaced 227 street lights on the A90 trunk road over the last five years.

It is for the Chief Constable, working with the working with the Scottish Police Authority, to determine how to allocate its budget to meet policing priorities including incidences involving unexploded wartime military ordnance.

You may wish to write directly to Police Scotland on this matter.

It is for each of Scotland’s 32 Local Authorities and the individual emergency services to allocate resources to areas of priority and need. Decisions on operational matters are for the individual services and Local Authorities to consider and action. You may wish to contact them directly to establish how incidents involving unexploded wartime military ordnance are managed.

The training provided to Police Scotland Officers in responding to incidents involving unexploded ordnance is an operational policing decision for the Chief Constable, under the scrutiny of the Scottish Police Authority

It is for the Chief Constable, working with the working with the Scottish Police Authority, to determine how to allocate its budget to meet policing priorities including the provision of all necessary training. The Scottish Government is providing record police funding of £1.55 billion this year – an increase of £92.7 million.

You may wish to write directly to Police Scotland on this matter.

It is for the Chief Constable, working with the working with the Scottish Police Authority, to determine how to allocate its budget to meet policing priorities including incidences involving unexploded wartime military ordnance.

You may wish to write directly to Police Scotland on this matter.

Registers of Scotland is a non-Ministerial Public Body answerable to the Scottish Parliament.

The work of the Registers of Scotland is demand led, depending on the volume of activity in the housing market. RoS is continuously working to improve its efficiency and thereby keep its running costs as low as possible. The costs of running RoS are largely covered by the fees charged for its services, and that is expected to remain the position.

The reach of radio across Scotland remains strong and the Scottish Government recognises that community radio plays a valuable role in the broadcasting ecosystem in reaching out to communities right across Scotland, including rural and island populations. Community radio provides a platform for diverse cultural outputs and for local voices and the Scottish Government is highly supportive of the role it has in promoting language and culture to those communities.

Output being produced across radio broadcasters contributes to the learning and use of the Gaelic language and it is a vital part of the fabric of what will serve and sustain the Gaelic speaking community in Scotland. We therefore continue to make the case to the UK Government and Ofcom of the importance of greater support for indigenous languages across all aspects of the broadcasting ecosystem.

MG ALBA has on occasions supported and encouraged Gaelic input into local and community radio and will continue to do so. SG has also supported Frieda Morrison, presenter and producer of Scots radio and with her distinct Doric programmes. Also, Isles FM, located in Stornoway broadcasts in English and Gaelic for local audiences.

The Scottish Government has not made specific representations to the UK Government in relation to spectrum policy, however we continue to engage with Ofcom, who has responsibility for allocating spectrum and assessing appropriate levels of local content, to press for a network of radio stations that ensure that Scotland’s needs across rural and urban areas are met.

Ofcom is reviewing public service media and the Scottish Government will be closely engaging with this and making representations on the importance of a diversity of voices being maintained and strengthened across broadcasting services in Scotland, including community radio.

The Scottish Government responded to Ofcom’s last review of public service broadcasting setting out our expectation for enhancing representation of people and place in Scotland to strengthen the a sense of community and culture. Local voices and coverage of local issues, whether through news coverage, or programming about and told by the people in Scotland’s diverse communities, need to be protected in the regulatory framework.

Fundamentally, we believe that broadcasting should be devolved so that the decisions that impact audiences and the creative industries in Scotland can be determined by the Scottish public through the Scottish Parliament.

The Scottish Government has not had any conversations to date with the UK Government in relation to specific barriers to spectrum access for local and regional broadcasters, however we continue to engage with Ofcom, who has responsibility for allocating spectrum and assessing appropriate levels of local content, to press for a network of radio stations that ensure that Scotland’s needs across rural and urban areas are met.

We maintain a close interest in audience and stakeholder views on reception and spectrum allocation because of the implications for the level of service provided for audiences here and we meet regularly with representatives of Ofcom to urge them to consider how they might ensure that audiences in all parts of Scotland receive the best possible level of service.

Ofcom is reviewing public service media and the Scottish Government will be closely engaging with this and making representations on the importance of reducing any barriers for access to vital broadcasting services in Scotland, including community radio.

Fundamentally, we believe that broadcasting should be devolved so that the decisions that impact audiences and the creative industries in Scotland can be determined by the Scottish public through the Scottish Parliament.

Registers of Scotland is a non-Ministerial Public Body answerable to the Scottish Parliament.

RoS is predominantly funded by the fees which it charges for the services it provides. In FY 23-24 RoS’s income from fees was £94.6m.

Beyond that RoS are currently allocated a capital (CDEL) budget each year, a budget to cover non-cash costs such as depreciation (RDEL) and a budget to cover forecast movements in accounting provisions (AME).

During 23-24 these three budget lines totalled £11.2m, which is 10.7% of RoS’s total expenditure of £104.8m.