Chamber and committees

The Finfish Aquaculture Advisory Panel is chaired by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and last met in May 2022. The recent focus of work of the parties involved in the panel has been on the development of the SEPA sea lice risk assessment framework and it will be for SEPA and the Panel members to determine when the Panel next meets.

In light of extreme pressures on housing systems, we have recently confirmed plans to bring forward a 2024 review, with a focus on the timeline for delivery of 110,000 affordable homes. To effectively meet housing need and support affordable housing priorities across different areas we want to support all tenures while still prioritising social rented homes.

The review’s metrics are under development and outcomes will be shared with Parliament when available.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-24405 on 22 January 2024. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at Questions and answers | Scottish Parliament Website

An independent review of the current regulatory framework for Scottish aquaculture by Professor Griggs was published on 10 February 2022 and is available to view on the Scottish Government’s website: Aquaculture regulatory process: review - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Gender Equality Taskforce in Education and Learning last met in May 2023. At that meeting, members continued to consider and refine the Taskforce’s workplan, with a particular focus on ensuring that its three strategic goals are consistent with its more detailed, thematic workplan. I will be present at the next meeting of the Gender Equality Taskforce, which will take place in early 2024.

Effecting the type of systemic change which the Taskforce aims to do is complex and long term. I am committed to continuing and accelerating such work to ensure that girls and young women do not experience gender inequality in so many aspects of education.

The Scottish Government has a contract for the provision of an electronic vote counting solution between the Scottish Ministers and Fujitsu Limited dated 16 October 2020. This contract delivered electronic vote counting services for the Scottish Local Government elections held on 5 May 2022. The software used for electronic vote counting is specialist elections software provided by a separate elections company, as a sub-contractor to Fujitsu. The electronic counting solution has already been tested rigorously, and independently assessed as secure and suitable, and successfully delivered the national Local Government elections in May 2022. The same elections specialist company provided the software that successfully counted votes and delivered the Local Government elections results in 2012 and 2017, as sub-contractors to a different prime contractor, CGI. The current contract also covers electronic vote counting services for Local Government by-elections held up to 31 January 2027. The solution remains in live operation for by-elections and there is no current intention to repeat the rigorous and independent testing that has already taken place.

The Scottish Government is committed to providing revenue funding to the Regional Transport Partnerships (RTPs) and revenue budget allocation was provided in the 2024-25 Scottish Budget. Budget allocations are subject to Scottish Government in-year spend controls and assurance processes, and allocations will be communicated to all RTPs directly in the coming months.

The Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) general capital support budget allocation is funded through the Local Government Finance settlement. A decision was taken to pause funding for 2024-25, given the current financial constraints, with a view to keeping under review in future years. Transport Scotland and SPT are in dialogue about the impact of this decision and maintaining their forward investment programme. These discussions will also explore the opportunity to utilise reserves currently held by SPT, and the impact of any use of reserve balances or re-phasing of capital funding, on SPT's forward maintenance and investment programmes.

Curriculum for Excellence seeks to provide our young people with the knowledge, attitudes and skills to succeed as underpinned by its four capacities: successful learners; confident individuals; responsible citizens and effective contributors. Financial literacy and the life skills feature in learning about numeracy and maths, business studies and personal and social education.

Education Scotland provides support to schools through curriculum guidance, in particular the “ Building the Curriculum 4 ” publication which is relevant to literacy, numeracy and associated thinking skills; skills for health and wellbeing, including personal learning planning, career management skills, working with others, leadership and physical co-ordination and movement skills; and skills for enterprise and employability. Schools can also access the Skills for Development Framework from the Scottish Qualifications Authority relevant to their senior phase qualifications.

In the senior phase, financial literacy features in qualifications such as SCQF levels 4 & 5 Personal Finance awards and the Applications of Mathematics qualifications, which provides advanced learning in a range of core and practical maths skills; including finance. Education Scotland also provide a range of further professional learning resources on financial literacy. A range of organisations offer further support to schools to reinforce and enhance learning in financial education including HMRC, Barclays Lifeskills, NatWest MoneySense and the Young Enterprise ‘My Money’ Talks.

In relation to skills for life and work, examples of relevant senior phase qualifications and awards include: the SafeCert SCQF Level 6 Award in Emergency First Aid at Work; Prince's Trust SCQF Awards and certificates in Personal Development and Employability Skills; Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Youth Scotland Dynamic Youth Awards. These are in addition to a range of SQA technical and vocational qualifications. Total attainment for SQA Skills for Work, SQA Awards, National Certificates and National Progression Awards in 2023 was 72,120 passes, up 12.3% from 64,240 in 2022, the highest number on record.

CalMac are continuing to develop the LNG workstream for Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa, including through discussions with Wartsila the engine manufacturer. The methane slip in service would be influenced by the route the ship is to operate on and the amount of venting produced by the number of times changing over fuel source or when slowing down suddenly for navigational purposes. For these reasons the rate of methane slip will not be fully known until the ships are deployed and fully operational.

We are currently in discussions with COSLA regarding the distribution of this funding. We will write out to local authorities in due course to set out our expectations regarding the use of the funding.