Chamber and committees

Questions regarding day-to-day operational matters of Historic Environment Scotland, including information relating to any repair and maintenance works, are best answered directly by Historic Environment Scotland.

I have asked Historic Environment Scotland to respond directly to the member with a full reply to his question in writing.

As you will be aware, the majority of bus services in Scotland are operated on a purely commercial basis by operators who use their own commercial judgement on service routes and frequencies. Local authorities can identify where there is a social need for particular bus services and can subsidise these at their discretion however this is entirely a matter for the local authority to consider and action as appropriate.

In relation to rail travel, the Scottish Government brought ScotRail into public ownership to ensure that ScotRail focuses its delivery on the needs of Scottish passengers. ScotRail keeps its services under continued review to ensure its services meet passengers requirements as much as possible.

Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) as procuring authority foresee the invitation to tender issuing late September/early October 2024. A contract range will be given but it will be for bidders to confirm the cost of the design and build contract and for CMAL to evaluate bids against the set criteria of the procurement process.

Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) work with operators, crew and unions to ensure that all replacement ferries are safely crewed and operated from the ports and harbours they are set to serve before their introduction. The four vessels being built at Cemre are sister vessels, of a standardised design and layout and as such the crew will be interoperable. This will be the case also for the seven vessels as part of the Small Vessel Replacement Programme. Port works are also being undertaken to ensure that they are suitable for the new vessels.

Inter-island ferry services and operations must also comply with strict training and safety regulations for crew.

Children's Hearings Scotland regularly publishes data on panel member numbers as part of their Board papers, which can be found here (Our Board (chscotland.gov.uk)). A breakdown by Local Authority is a matter for Children's Hearings Scotland. This information is not held centrally.

A total of £595.862 million has been allocated to the Affordable Housing Supply Programme for 2024-2025 which includes the previously announced additional £40 million. This has not changed following the fiscal statement.

The Scottish Government publish full-time police officer numbers on a quarterly basis. The statistics published provide a snapshot of police strength at the end of each quarter. Police officer quarterly strength statistics Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The following table shows the number of full-time equivalent police officers at the end of each quarter during 2023-24.

Engagement and consultation have been undertaken on both aspects ahead of the live procurement. Passenger accessibility and crew training and familiarisation has also been included in the scope of the Small Vessel Replacement Programme ahead of successful delivery.

Latest published data shows the aggregated spend on single building assessments, fire risk measures and remediation is just over £9.0m to the end of quarter one 2024-25; spend is updated quarterly, the next update will be published in October 2024.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information as the cost of tendering for the Small Vessel Replacement Programme is a cost borne by the bidders in the procurement process.