Scottish Government costs directly associated with the implementation of compulsory purchase orders cannot be disaggregated within the cost information that we hold.

The Scottish Government is currently conducting a programme of work to reform and modernise compulsory purchase to make the system simpler, more streamlined and fairer for all parties. The reforms are intended to support the delivery of all types of project, not just those related to renewable energy infrastructure, net zero and climate adaptation. Our aim is to move towards a system that is:

• Equitable: compensating claimants fairly and timeously;
• Effective: supporting efficient decision-making, whilst ensuring procedural fairness, openness, and transparency; and
• Easy to understand, providing all parties with certainty and clarity about how the process works and their rights, roles and responsibilities within it.

In March 2024, we appointed an expert advisory group to help support the reform process. We are working with the advisory group and engaging with a range of stakeholders to develop reform proposals ahead of a public consultation later this year. A Compulsory Purchase Reform Progress Report was published in December 2024, which recaps progress to date, summarises emerging proposals and sets out next steps:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/compulsory-purchase-reform-scotland-progress-report-december-2024/.

More information on the Compulsory Purchase Reform Programme, can be found at https://blogs.gov.scot/planning-architecture/2024/07/09/compulsory-purchase-reform/.

How public bodies are organised and structured depends on their status, function and the services they deliver. Public bodies determine the best way to structure their organisation to achieve their objectives, taking into consideration their own lines of accountability.

Public bodies do share services including estates, finance, digital and human resource, and the Scottish Government strongly encourages and supports this as part of public service reform programme. Further shared service development is a part of this programme. The Scottish Government is working with bodies in thematic clusters to identify further opportunities for efficiency and alignment, and empowering public bodies to deliver savings by working across the broader public sector.

The Scottish Government regularly publishes a register of orders submitted to the Scottish Ministers for confirmation since 2012: https://www.gov.scot/publications/compulsory-purchase-order-register/. The current register, published in December, includes compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) received up to the end of October 2024. The register includes information on the time taken between receipt of a CPO by the Scottish Government and the decision as to whether the order is confirmed.

A number of steps typically precede a CPO being submitted for confirmation, including negotiation with affected landowners and preparation of the relevant documentation. These are matters for the relevant acquiring authority and are not included in the CPO register.

Henry Graham.

Scotland uses the ICD-10 classification for coding diagnoses. Public Health Scotland understand that no changes or updates for any codes in ICD-10 are planned, as work is currently focused on implementation of ICD-11, which in Scotland is likely to be around 2029-2030. It is also understood that there is currently no reference to e-bikes in ICD-11.

Feasibility studies have been conducted on all buildings owned by the Scottish Government to look at options for installing renewable energy and to improve the buildings fabric in line with net zero standards.

In terms of part (a), statistics on police recorded crimes of weapon possession within a school are available in the following table. Information is available from 2017-18 onwards, the first year that data was collected separately for school settings. The fall in 2020-21 will reflect the closure of schools due to the Covid pandemic. Information is not held centrally on the age of the perpetrator, so whilst it is likely the majority of these crimes in a school involve a child or young person, it is not necessarily the case for every incident.

In line with other reporting from programmes funded via the General Revenue Grant, we do not routinely gather detail on the totality of Children’s Services Planning Partnerships spend, instead focusing on the activities they are delivering, outcomes achieved, and resources allocated to each activity. However, to help understand future funding needs we did gather some limited data from CSPPs regarding their spending plans.

The following table collates information from the 29 CSPP areas who responded.

I can confirm that I have written to the Chief Constable to draw the attention of her and her colleagues to the recent range of questions lodged on the use of e-bikes and e-scooters.