Keeping children and young people safe from online sexual abuse and exploitation is of the utmost importance to the Scottish Government.

We welcome the work of Childlight to harness worldwide data to help inform tangible action to protect children. We recognise that these problems are global and require global solutions.

In Scotland, we are working closely with partners to deliver a co-ordinated multi-agency response to preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation in all its forms.

We are establishing a new strategic group to provide national leadership and further improve our shared response in Scotland to child sexual abuse and exploitation, including online abuse. This group will first meet in the summer.

Through the Scottish Government’s membership of Police Scotland’s Multi-Agency Group on Preventing Online Child Sexual Abuse, we monitor emerging online threats and agree a shared approach to using technological advancements to tackle abuse, improve data-gathering, improve support for victims and survivors and promote key activities delivered by our partners.

We recognise that prevention is key to protecting children online and we are taking a range of actions to increase awareness of online child sexual abuse and exploitation and improve support to victims.

In 2023-24 we provided around £570,000 to third sector organisations involved in child safeguarding and prevention of child sexual abuse and exploitation, including online abuse. We have also updated our National Child Protection Guidance to support practitioners to develop effective, evidence-based responses to child sexual abuse and exploitation. In 2022 and 2023, we ran a national public awareness campaign to support parents are carers to keep their children safer online.

While regulation of the internet remains a reserved matter, we have successfully engaged with the UK Government on its Online Safety Act, to strengthen protections for children. We will continue to engage with both the UK Government and Ofcom to ensure that the Act does all that it can to protect children online. With the Minister for Victims and Community Safety, I will be meeting Ofcom to discuss implementation of this important legislation and to ensure that children in Scotland are kept safe online.

The Scottish Government has worked closely with Police Scotland during legislation development and implementation. It is important to remember that we are still within the transitional period of implementation and licensing authorities are processing thousands of licensing applications. We are aware authorities are working in partnership with local Police Scotland teams to investigate complaints about unlicensed operators, adopting an educate and encourage approach, with enforcement as a last resort. This is a supportive approach to businesses in a new regulatory environment and an approach advocated for by trade bodies representing the sector.

Operating without a licence ultimately is a criminal offence, which may attract a maximum fine of £2,500, and which may also invalidate insurance and other policies if premises are used without a licence. We have already announced that we will legislate to increase the level of the maximum fine and this is still the intention once the scheme is embedded.

The Scottish Government are aware there has been significant and extended community engagement regarding the Glen Affric beaver translocation proposal, but as NatureScot have not received an application, they have not yet been able to form an opinion of the community engagement in its entirety.

As with all beaver translocation applications, the Scottish Government and NatureScot would expect an application to address the issues highlighted by the community engagement and the work needed to manage or mitigate any legitimate concerns raised.

We understand Trees for Life and Forestry Land Scotland are still considering these aspects.

The Scottish Government is committed to expanding the range of beavers in Scotland to maximise the environmental, social and economic benefits that they can bring in consultation with local communities and land managers.

We appreciate that beavers can have negative impacts on agricultural land in certain circumstances. NatureScot have a range of mitigation measures that can reduce impacts and licensed control or translocation remains an option where there are no other satisfactory alternatives.

NatureScot will continue to work through the licensing process to ensure that beavers are reintroduced into appropriate areas where they can help enhance biodiversity and wider environmental gains and avoid potential negative impacts.

The Bill provides a number of rights for existing tenants and only some would relate to availability of housing which will be the main concern of prospective tenants.

The rights created in the Bill mainly apply to those who have a tenancy and there is a clear difficulty in extending those rights to prospective tenants as those rights could then apply to anyone with an interest in renting a property even if they may never take up a tenancy of the property.

At the end of December 2023, the Scottish Government directly employed 8,824 (full time equivalent) civil servants and engaged 1,436 contingent workers.

The latest available workforce statistics are at this link: Scottish Government workforce statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). This will be updated with end March 2024 data on Tuesday 11 June 2024.

The Scottish Government is proactively addressing the need to reduce in size to remain fiscally sustainable and has been on a reducing trajectory since March 2022. We continue to progress public sector reform, and workforce numbers are regularly and carefully reviewed to ensure that we are delivering for the people of Scotland as efficiently and effectively as possible.

VAT is a reserved area and the powers to set the VAT Registration Threshold sit with the UK Government.

The Scottish Government has not modelled the impact on public revenue in Scotland of a reduction of the VAT Registration Threshold to £30,000.

We encourage the UK Government to engage with devolved administrations and stakeholders to ensure that changes which affect all parts of the UK are fully considered as part of the assessment of impacts.

As the Care Inspectorate is an independent non-departmental body, it operates at arm’s length from Government. Therefore, while Scottish Minsters can agree the strategic direction of public bodies, it is crucial that their independent role is respected.

I can confirm that the Care Inspectorate has no plans to add a question on the extent of fair working conditions and pay to the Quality Framework for care services. The Care Inspectorate does not have an overt role in considering the pay and conditions of staff working in the sector.

However, where the Care Inspectorate identifies that staffing negatively impacts on the standard of care and experience of people, it would report on this and require improvements to be made.

As reflected in the answer to S6W-27466, a range of matters related to volunteer retention were discussed. Those included the development of the Tribunal Support Model (TSM) within Children’s Hearings Scotland (CHS), introduced to better support volunteers in local areas across Scotland. The National Convener also discussed the future additional demand for children’s panel members associated with the commencement of the Care and Justice (Scotland) Bill.

The National Convener had identified a general downward trend in broader volunteering and retention since the covid pandemic, and outlined his plans for future panel recruitment campaigns and retention efforts.

There is a long unbroken record dating back 6 decades of sufficient local volunteers coming forward to serve on the children’s panel, and the Scottish Government , through officials and portfolio Ministers, are in regular dialogue with CHS about recruitment and retention.

The issue of recruitment and retention of volunteers are independent statutory functions for the National Convener. His independence in discharging those functions is enshrined in the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011. The member may wish to write to the National Convener for further information about the recruitment and retention of volunteers.

The group Children’s Hearings Scotland Scandal were not discussed in the meeting. The Scottish Government is not aware of any concerns from that group which have not already been addressed, or that would have any material bearing on volunteer retention issues at the national level.

ScotRail operates 18 trains per day - an hourly service between Elgin and Inverness, which includes 7 return services between Inverness and Elgin and 11 services between Aberdeen and Inverness. Providing additional services between Elgin and Inverness was possible due to a £330 million investment from the Scottish Government, which was completed in December 2019.