Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is funding Peer Works to deliver the productivity programme set out in the 2023-24 Programme for Government. Formerly called Productivity Clubs, Peer Works has been delivered by Prosper in partnership with the Scottish Government since 2019.

The aim of Peer Works is to start or accelerate organisations along a productivity journey by providing practical peer-to-peer support and knowledge sharing opportunities. There are currently over 2,600 members, and over 700 members have participated in events over the last year. A range of case studies can be found here: Peer Stories - Peer Works.

The Peer Works programme exists to support the needs of micro and small organisations. An evaluation survey indicated that nearly half of attendees in 2023-24 had not received advice or support in managing their business from any other source in the previous six months. Furthermore, 99% of respondents found the Peer Works events and activities useful and 47% made improvements to their business as a direct result of participation.

I have asked Janet Egdell, Chief Executive of National Records of Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

National Records of Scotland have today published: 2022 results | Scotland's Census (scotlandscensus.gov.uk).

Scotland’s Census results are designated as Accredited Official Statistics and form an integral part of the statistical system in the UK. The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), the independent regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority – Statistics for the Public Good, awards Accredited Official Statistics designation based on the quality, good practice and comprehensiveness of official statistics. 

More detail about the schedule for future reports can be found here. Census outputs schedule | Scotland's Census (scotlandscensus.gov.uk).

The European Convention on Human Rights is fundamental to our legal framework in Scotland. Our proposals in the Bill are fully compliant with the ECHR, including the right to private property.

More details on the consideration of the effect of the provisions of the Bill on human rights can be found in the Policy Memorandum accessible (parliament.scot).

This is a matter for local authorities. The information requested is not held centrally.

If passed by the Scottish Parliament, the Bill will allow Ministers to consider the impact on the local community of certain sales of land over 1000 hectares before the sale can proceed.

Ministers may decide that the landholding should be sold as separate lots, though this is not expected to be appropriate in all cases.

The Bill sets out a process for landowners to apply for a review of a Ministerial lotting decision as well as appeal and compensation processes.

More details on this issue can be read in paragraphs 109 to 134 of the Policy Memorandum accessible (parliament.scot).

Land is key to ensuring that rural and island communities can thrive, to giving people places to live and work, to providing essential infrastructure that people need and to help us keep people on the land.

When land is transferred at scale this makes it more difficult for communities and others to purchase land, as the supply of smaller and more affordable plots of land is restricted. This can be detrimental to the sustainability of those communities.

Further information on the transfer test proposals in the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill can be found in the Policy Memorandum (parliament.scot)

Accessibility obligations for taxi and private hire car drivers and Local Licencing Authorities are reserved to the UK Government under the Equality Act 2010.

However, the taxi licensing system is devolved under the Civic Government Act 1982 and is implemented by (local authority) licensing authorities. Therefore, the day-to-day administration of the licensing regime for taxis and private hire cars rests with independent local licensing authorities, who are best placed to take local circumstances into account in the decision making process to ensure that they provide safe and appropriate services for members of the public.

As this is a matter for SEPA, outlined in answer to S6W-28593, the Scottish Government does not hold the information being requested. I will therefore ask SEPA to write to the member to provide any further detail on the matter, where it is available.

It is important we work together to understand and plan for coastal change. The Scottish Government’s Dynamic Coast (DC) project is helping us understand the erosion threat to Scotland’s coast including in the Highlands and Islands.

DC2 assesses coastal erosion rates nationally and considers how these rates might be exacerbated by climate change. This report has been published and can be found at the following link;

https://www.crew.ac.uk/dynamic-coast

Throughout the project, we have worked closely with local authorities, including in the Highland and Islands, to help them plan for coastal adaptation. To support them, we have provided an additional £11.7 million of funding for coastal change adaptation from 2022-23 to 2025-26.

In 2024-25, the funding of £2.7m will be distributed to local authorities in two ways. £1.65m in direct allocation to coastal local authorities including the Highlands and Islands and £1.05m for case studies, including a study in Nairn looking at monitoring coastal data.

The civil service that supports Scottish Ministers is structured into eight Director-General areas, each containing a number of directorates and related public bodes which are responsible for proposing legislation and putting Scottish Government policy into practice.

Directors General are referred to within our governance processes as the accountable officers (AOs). They are accountable to Parliament for the duties given to them by the Permanent Secretary as the Principal Accountable Officer, and participate across the corporate governance system.

Each Director General and their accountabilities align to Cabinet Secretary and Ministerial portfolios to enable oversight and leadership for their respective Ministerial responsibilities.

These Directors General and their Directorates are all part of the Scottish Government organisation, referred to as core Scottish Government, that operates as a single employer. This structuring allows for the more flexible deployment of resources across portfolios to respond quickly and efficiently to Ministerial priorities and external events. It also supports the wider approach set out within the National Performance Framework, to focus the organisation on working and leading collectively to improve the National Outcomes for the people of Scotland.

Further details of the government structures can be found on the Scottish Government website Government structure - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).