Research has focused on the wider challenges and opportunities associated with rapid localised population growth where it is occurring in parts of Scotland. This was discussed at the October 2023 meeting of the Population Taskforce and is a priority within the Population Balance strand of delivery of the Population Strategy. The minutes of the October meeting are published on the Scottish Government webpages: https://www.gov.scot/publications/population-taskforce-minutes-october-2023/

Our approach to public sector pay has provided support to public sector workers during COVID-19 and the cost of living crisis, balancing fairness, affordability and fiscal sustainability within an extremely difficult fiscal context. We have protected the lowest paid and encourage employers to take a progressive approach to pay. As a result, public sector salaries in Scotland after taxes are 6% higher on average than the rest of the UK, with median full-time pay around £1,500 higher, up from around £430 prior to the pandemic.

A short briefing note will be prepared on how the London weighting allowance is calculated and applied, which can be shared with Mr Briggs in due course.

The Scottish Government is having to make very difficult decisions to deliver balanced and sustainable spending plans for the 2024-25 financial year, therefore it is unaffordable to progress our plans to pilot free bus travel for all people seeking asylum in Scotland.

I am grateful to the stakeholders involved in the working group set up to develop the free bus travel for asylum seekers pilot. My officials informed them directly of the difficult decision to cancel the proposed pilot scheme to provide free bus travel for asylum seekers on 16 August 2024.

We are kick-starting our commitment to invest up to £500m to anchor our offshore wind supply chain in Scotland with investment of £67 million in the sector this financial year. This investment will support market certainty, helping to create a highly productive, competitive offshore wind economy that provides thousands of new jobs, embeds innovation and boosts skills. We are working across public sector delivery partners to ensure that the funding is delivered to projects as quickly as possible subject to rigorous due diligence and value for money assurance processes.

Internal legal costs are not available because in line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by civil servants, including the number of hours spent on them, are not routinely recorded because there is no business need to do this.

The legal costs in defending and settling the Judicial Review brought by Mr Salmond in 2018 are published on the Scottish Government website.

The costs of legal services regarding the former First Minister’s judicial review are published at: Costs of legal services regarding former First Minister's judicial review: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The costs of the settlement in respect of the former First Minister’s legal fees in the Judicial Review are published at: Former First Minister Legal fees: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

As the action brought by Mr Salmond against the Scottish Government is live litigation, we are not able to publish the Scottish Government’s legal costs at this stage. We will publish this information in due course.

The Scotland Act 2012 introduced provisions for the UK Parliament to devolve further tax powers to the Scottish Parliament (now section 80B of the Scotland Act 1998, “Power to add new devolved taxes”).

This followed a recommendation from the Calman Commission, which stated that “we see no reason why the Scottish Parliament should not be able to legislate to create new taxes that affect the whole of Scotland uniformly and not just via local taxation, if it does so with the agreement of the whole UK Parliament”.

The specific legislative mechanism is an Order in Council which must be approved by both Houses of the UK Parliament and by the Scottish Parliament. Once approved, the Order in Council would add any new tax to the existing list of devolved taxes in the Scotland Act 1998.

Primary and secondary legislation would then be required in the Scottish Parliament for a new devolved tax to come into effect.

Following the general election, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray MP, requesting renewal of the agreement to the devolution of the necessary powers for a Building Safety Levy in Scotland that was in place with the previous UK Government.

An affirmative response to this letter was received on 27 August 2024 and arrangements are now being made for the necessary legislative procedures to take place in the Scottish and UK Parliaments to progress the devolution.

The Scottish Government’s 2024-25 Programme for Government announced that, subject to the devolution of powers, the Scottish Government proposes to bring forward a Bill to establish a Building Safety Levy in Scotland.

A consultation will be launched later this month to inform policy development for the proposed Bill. The levy is not expected to come into effect until April 2026 at the earliest.

Legal advice was provided to individuals in relation to the Scottish Parliament Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints. The total costs were £151,811.17 (exclusive of VAT). This information is already published at Cost to Scottish Government of its participation of recent inquiry’s: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The then First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon did not consult a lawyer of any kind ahead of her evidence session at the Scottish Parliament's Committee on the Scottish Government's Handling of Harassment Complaints.

Scottish Government Committee witnesses to the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints were not coached.

The Scottish Government set out in June 2021 our plan for implementing the recommendations of James Hamilton’s report, alongside the recommendations of the reports by Laura Dunlop QC and the Scottish Parliament Committee on the Handling of Harassment Complaints. Implementation was delivered through the Continuous Improvement Programme, which was reported regularly to the Scottish Parliament’s Finance and Public Administration Committee. The final report on the Continuous Improvement Programme was provided in January 2023, and with the agreement of the Committee the programme was then concluded and activities absorbed into ongoing work.

The Continuous Improvement Programme, which delivered the Scottish Government’s implementation of the recommendations of the Scottish Parliament Committee on the Handling of Harassment Complaints, was concluded with the agreement of the Scottish Parliament’s Finance and Public Administration Committee in January 2023, with activities absorbed into ongoing work and annual reporting thereafter. The Scottish Government provided a written update to Parliament on ongoing actions on 17 May 2024, ahead of the Permanent Secretary giving evidence to the Committee on 21 May 2024.