Chamber and committees

As part of the Scottish Government's response to the Education, Children and Young People Committee's Inquiry on Additional Support for Learning, I committed to undertaking a literature review to ascertain the current knowledge on masking for children and young people with additional support needs.

The scope of the literature review is currently being considered by my officials and I will up-date the Education, Children and Young People Committee on progress of this work as soon as I have received a substantive update.

Statistics on additional support needs teachers, split by local authority, back to 2010 are available on the Scottish Government website in Table 6.7 of the teacher census supplementary statistics: https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/

The Framework for Tax 2021 stated the Scottish Government’s commitment to ensuring that the largest businesses pay the same combined poundage in Scotland as in England by the end of this parliamentary session.

Over 95% of properties are liable for a lower poundage rate in Scotland than in anywhere else in the UK. Since the Barclay Review made this recommendation, we have introduced the Intermediate Property Rate on 1 April 2020. On 1 April 2023, we increased the rateable value threshold at which the Higher Property Rate applies, from £95,000 to £100,000.

Since the Scottish Digital Academy was established in 2018, there have been 1,348 employee registrations from Scottish public bodies. This includes recognised Advisory and Executive Non Department Public Bodies.

Broken down by year:

2018 (51)

2019 (39)

2020 (33)

2021 (56)

2022 (238)

2023 (483)

2024 to October end (448)

Number of registrations by public body:

Accounts Commission for Scotland (1)

Bord na Gaidhlig (1)

Cairngorms National Park Authority (4)

Care Inspectorate (40)

Children’s Hearings Scotland (19)

Community Justice Scotland (20)

Creative Scotland (14)

Crofting Commission (22)

Highlands and Islands Airports (4)

Highlands and Islands Enterprise (10)

Historic Environment Scotland (37)

Independent Living Fund Scotland (2)

Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority (33)

National Library of Scotland (52)

National Museums of Scotland (4)

NatureScot (93)

Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (2)

Public Defence Solicitors Office (1)

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (12)

Scotrail (6)

Scottish Agricultural Wages Board (1)

Scottish Childrens Reporter Administration (44)

Scottish Enterprise (146)

Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (317)

Scottish Funding Council (48)

Scottish Land Commission (2)

Scottish Legal Aid Board (70)

Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (16)

Scottish Natural Heritage (33)

Scottish Qualifications Authority (146)

Scottish Social Services Council (53)

Skills Development Scotland (71)

Sports Scotland (8)

Visit Scotland (11)

Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland (3)

Scottish Commission for Social Security (2)

The number of sailings where all cabins were fully booked on the Aberdeen – Lerwick passenger vessels for each Contract Year is displayed in the following table, which also includes the number of passenger vessel sailings each year.

The Scottish Government has had no applications for consent under s36 of the Electricity Act 1989 to construct an electricity generating station that uses biogas as its fuel source and has therefore not been required to assess any environmental impacts in relation to anaerobic digestion and biogas infrastructure.

The Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2017 requires those preparing qualifying projects to undertake and prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report. An EIA Report is required to describe the factors specified in Regulation 4(3) within those 2017 Regulations that are likely to be significantly affected by the development. This can include population, human health, biodiversity, land, soil, water, air, climate, material assets, cultural heritage, including architectural and archaeological aspects, and landscape.

The Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005 (legislation.gov.uk) creates a statutory obligation for those preparing qualifying public plans and programmes to assess their likely environment effects and to seek ways to minimise adverse effects, if they are likely to be significant. A Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) offers an opportunity to judge the likely environmental impacts of plan, programme or strategy across a number of receptors, including biodiversity; population; human health; fauna; flora; soil; water; air; climatic factors; material assets; cultural heritage, including architectural and archaeological heritage; landscape; and the inter-relationship between these topics.

The Scottish Government supports the expansion of anaerobic digestion and biogas capacity, where it adheres to the guiding principles for bioenergy use as set out in our draft Bioenergy Policy Statement (BPS). These include the use of biomass, when in compliance with SEPA environmental regulations and stringent sustainability criteria. Bioenergy use must support emissions reduction and facilitate Scotland’s sustainable development goals.

The draft BPS also sets out that in the longer term, bioenergy should be prioritised towards applications with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) - which will support decarbonisation across relevant sectors and contribute to efforts to meet Scotland’s net zero targets.

Since the Scottish Digital Academy was established in 2018, the total number of employees completing courses is 9,452 which is 49 per cent of the total number of course registrations (19,209).

2018 (162)

2019 (400)

2020 (477)

2021 (771)

2022 (1712)

2023 (3307)

2024 to October end (2623)

Figures include core Scottish Government employees and Scottish Government Executive Agency employees.

Since the Scottish Digital Academy was established in 2018, there have been 206 registrations from the third sector.

2018 (0)

2019 (10)

2020 (12)

2021 (8)

2022 (63)

2023 (54)

2024 to October end (59)

The Scottish Government has noted the UK Government’s discussion paper on business rates with interest and will carefully consider the outcome.