Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not routinely collect statistics on wider international parental child abduction cases outwith the 1980 Hague Convention On The Civil Aspects Of International Child Abduction. The Scottish Government’s Central Authority has been involved with 110 cases between 2015 and 2021, where an application under the 1980 Hague Convention On The Civil Aspects Of International Child Abduction has been made to a foreign country to bring a child back to Scotland.

Funding for devices was provided to local authorities by the Scottish Government. As such, local authorities undertook their own procurement exercises and devices purchased became assets of, and are managed by individual local authorities. Decisions on their use, including around security, are taken locally.

The Scottish Government’s 2021/22 Programme for Government commits to work to ensure that a legitimate and constitutional referendum can be held within this Parliamentary term, if the Covid crisis is over, and that a detailed prospectus for an independent Scotland will be prepared to allow the people of Scotland to make an informed choice over their future.

The work to prepare an independence prospectus is being co-ordinated by the Constitutional Futures Division within the Constitution and Cabinet Directorate. This division is currently comprised of one Senior Civil Servant and thirteen other officials (12.9 FTE).

The work to take forward referendum legislation will be co-ordinated by a team in the Elections and FOI Division, also in the Constitution and Cabinet Directorate. The team is currently comprised of three officials.

The staff numbers may change as the work programme evolves. Both streams of work will also draw on other civil servants who will contribute to varying extents as part of their wider responsibilities in supporting the Scottish Government.

As civil servants are not required to record the time spent on individual tasks we cannot provide a figure for total staff hours spent on taking forward these commitments.

The Scottish Government has today introduced legislation to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004, to ensure the process by which a trans person can obtain legal recognition is simplified, in line with the commitment made in the 2021/22 Programme for Government and the Scottish Government and Scottish Green Party Shared Policy Programme.

As set out in the Restorative Justice Action Plan, we have committed to make restorative justice services available across Scotland by 2023 to all those who wish to access it. We are working with stakeholders on creating a ‘hub and spoke’ model for service delivery. This will consist of a National Hub that will have a strategic, oversight role, with services delivered locally via Regional Hubs. The location where facilitated meetings will take place will be determined by the needs of those looking to access the service.

This information is not held centrally. Where such services are currently available they are provided at a local level. As set out in the answer to S6W-06718 on 2 March 2022, we are working closely with stakeholders to deliver the Restorative Justice Action Plan, with the aim of making restorative justice services available across Scotland by 2023.

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

We do not have the information requested as we are still in the test phase of this programme which will help establish eligibility. In this government’s first 100 days, we established six pilot schemes to provide free bikes for school age children who cannot afford one. A further four pilots were then established by the end of 2021. These pilots will run for up to 12 months, testing different approaches and delivery models to help inform a national rollout. Scottish Cycling are running a pilot in North Ayrshire and Cycling Scotland are running a pilot in Renfrewshire. Within these pilots access is being provided through training provision rather than ownership models. For that reason we do not have the specific number of bikes issued, but training is wide spread.

We continue to work with the yard to do everything we can to ensure that the new vessels enter service as quickly as possible, to deliver the further service improvements our island communities deserve .

After further analysis has been undertaken regarding the recently discovered legacy cabling issue, the new Ferguson Marine Chief Executive will outline the revised schedule for vessels 801 and 802, in his quarterly update to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee at the end of March 2022.

The total estimated costs to complete the vessels remains the capital spend of £110m-114.3m, this is likely to change with the most recent cabling issue however we are unable to provide an update at this time, as we await the quarterly update. There is no resource funding at this time or loans to any parties regarding the build out of 801/802.

This information is not held centrally.

SFRS has a capital budget of £32.5 million in 2022-23. Decisions on the allocation of its capital budget, including whether to prioritise fleet, equipment or buildings is a matter for SFRS.

The Scottish Government is in regular contact with SFRS to ensure it has the resources it needs to keep communities safe. SFRS is currently undertaking an assessment of the risks faced by communities and the assets which are needed to deal with those risks and this will inform future discussions on both capital and resource budgets.