Chamber and committees

CHS Annual Reports and accounts for 2021-22 and 2022-23 were published and laid in Parliament, in accordance with the Children's Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011, with the 2023-24 accounts to be laid in Parliament later this month.

This information is available on the CHS website: Reports and Planning (chscotland.gov.uk).

The Scottish Government believes the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) continues to deliver the high standard of services required to keep Scotland safe. Firefighters play a crucial role in keeping communities safe and preventing fires remains a priority and we continue to support the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to be a highly effective emergency service.

The Scottish Government fully supports the work being undertaken by the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS) partnership project. The project has been working in strategic areas to protect, maintain and promote existing red squirrel populations, and to defend these populations from the spread of squirrelpox. With support from project staff, professional Grey Squirrel Officers have been working with volunteers and landowners to deliver strategic grey squirrel control in four priority areas: Argyll, the Trossachs and Stirling; Tayside (collectively the Central Lowlands); North East Scotland; and South Scotland.

The SSRS Project has recently been awarded just over £1m by the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund. Over two years, this funding is enabling the creation of new community-focused rapid response monitoring and control networks across the northern Central Lowlands, made possible by increased year-round professional grey squirrel control activities in the area. This will pave the way for a long-term southward shift of the current “Highland Line Control Zone” – the 10km zone stretching from Balloch to Montrose and buffering the diagonal Highland Boundary Fault Line, where Scotland’s Highland red-only squirrel population intersects with the most northly reaches of grey squirrels incurring from the Lowlands.

This funding has enabled a concentrated effort to eradicate the last remaining isolated population of grey squirrels in the North East of Scotland. The project also aims to eradicate grey squirrels from the islands of Loch Lomond with the support of partners and landowners and additional funding from the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority.

Funding for land managers for grey squirrel control is also available through the Sustainable Management of Forests under the Scottish Government’s Forestry Grant Scheme.

The Scottish Government and partners will continue to be involved in discussions on taking forward the work currently being undertaken by SSRS.The Scottish Strategy for Red Squirrel Conservation was published in 2015 and we are currently reviewing this with a view to publishing a revised strategy in 2025.

We remain focused on delivering the next phase of our free school meal expansion programme, which is to Primary 6 & 7 pupils in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment and will deliver this within the parliamentary term. We are committed to universal expansion in primary schools when the financial circumstances allow.

We review the eligibility criteria for free school meals regularly to take account of changes to the national living wage. The eligibility criteria were last updated in April this year.

The Scottish Government has no plans to recommission the Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey (SALSUS), as it was integrated into the Health and Wellbeing Census in 2021-22.

The activities of our external network of international offices deliver tangible benefits to Scotland’s people, businesses and institutions, for example, supporting £1.73 billion in forecast export sales and more than 8,500 jobs in 2022-23. The offices help to ensure that Scotland remains well-connected among our closest friends and partners.

Delivering events and undertaking outreach work is an important part of our international network’s activity. It allows the network to promote Scottish goods and services and to make connections that support investment and knowledge exchange by engaging directly with businesses, governments, universities and other organisations in their respective countries. All events and outreach activities delivered by the international network are in support of business plans aligned to the government’s priorities, and funded within budgets agreed by Parliament.

Zero Waste Scotland intends to publish the report on their website on 11 October 2024.

While immigration is reserved, the Scottish Government is committed to seeking to work collaboratively with the new UK Government to ensure that the UK immigration system reflects Scotland’s distinct demographic, cultural and economic needs. The First Minister made this clear in his meeting with the new Prime Minister on Sunday 7 July and this was reinforced during an introductory meeting between the Home Secretary and the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice on 29 September.

In relation to Creative Scotland, Arts Council England currently endorse applications for the Global Talent Visa for the culture sector on a UK-wide basis. Creative Scotland is not currently seeking to become an endorsing body. Creative Scotland has a good working relationship with the international team at Arts Council England around mobility matters and engages with them on the process on an ongoing basis.

Scottish industry has made good progress in reducing emissions but there is more to do. Reducing industrial emissions is central to Scotland’s net zero commitment and our economic ambitions as outlined in our Green Industrial Strategy.

Realising the environmental and economic opportunities in net zero is a collective endeavour with many policy, fiscal and regulatory levers reserved at the UK level, including for carbon capture and storage which is critical to decarbonise industry. Last week the UK Government announced that £22 billion of funding for carbon capture projects in England, but provided no update on the Acorn Project.

National public health marketing campaigns which have run since the end* of the COVID-19 pandemic are as follows:

Financial Year 2023-24

Paid-for media public health campaigns

• Detect Cancer Early
• Dentistry Reform
• Mental Health
• Organ Donation
• Right Care Right Place
• Vaping
• Winter Vaccines
• Low cost/no cost public health campaigns
• Women and Girls in Sport Week
• Lyme Disease
• Smoking Cessation

Campaigns funded by Scottish Government, working in partnership with executive agencies or other public sector organisations

• Childhood flu - Public Health Scotland
• Sperm and Egg - NHS Grampian

Public health campaigns which have run so far in financial year 2024-25 are as follows:

Paid-for-media public health campaigns

• Dementia Stigma
• Detect Cancer Early
• Organ Donation Week

* The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 was no longer a public health emergency of public concern on 5 May 2023. For the purposes of answering this question, we have used this definition as a guide to defining the 'end' of the pandemic.