The Scottish Government has been supportive of the Scottish Men’s Sheds Association since their inception in Scotland and since 2016-17 has supported the movement’s growth. In the financial year 2023-24, grant funding was provided under the portfolio of myself. However, the work of the Scottish Men’s Sheds Association is cross-cutting and is not supported by a specific minister. As with other third sector organisations, engagement with the organisation spans across a range of portfolio areas including health and social care, equalities, and communities.

The ‘Hate Monster’ is a Police Scotland campaign which ran for 6 weeks in Spring last year. The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

I will assume you are referring to the Scottish Government’s ‘Hate Hurts’ campaign which ran in March. The campaign showed the impact that hate crime has on those affected to help people recognise their experiences, highlighted the forms that hate crime can take and encouraged those who are witnesses to, or victims of hate crime to report it.

The campaign sends a message of reassurance to all communities in Scotland that hate crime will not be tolerated. c£390k was invested in the ‘Hate Hurts’ national campaign which included a broadcast and print.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-26524 on 23 April 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

The Business Support Partnership (BSP) is a commitment from Scottish Government, Scotland’s Enterprise and Skills Agencies, Business Gateway, and Local Government to develop a streamlined, efficient, and effective business support system that drives collaboration at a local, regional, and national level. Partners are committed to including the voice of businesses and communities and delivering inclusive and fair support that is underpinned by shared research, aligned customer surveying and data.

In its Strategic Delivery Plan 2023-2026, the BSP sets out its goal to ensure that the business support system in Scotland is inclusive, accessible and responsive, and that it recognises underrepresented groups, targets priority areas and supports socio-economic growth in response to data and the views of customers.

This is a long term undertaking, but one that is central to closing the gap in entrepreneurial participation. Better collection and reporting of data will provide us with essential information, which will allow us to prioritise and target support to under-represented and under-supported groups and to measure our progress.

Alongside this work we continue to develop our response to the broader recommendations of the Pathways report with emphasis on the establishment of Pre-Start support, with the Pathways Pre-Start Fund awarding £1.3m in partner led programmes aimed at widening entrepreneurial participation in 2023-24.

As a result of the UK Government cutting Scotland’s capital allocation, funding support will not allow us to reach our target, but it will still help create over 9,000 ha of new woodland. The implications of not meeting the 2024-25 woodland creation target will be examined in preparation for the next Climate Change Plan, including modelling the impacts on the capacity of Scotland’s forests to sequester carbon and their longer term contribution to Net Zero in 2045. Even though it will not deliver its very ambitious woodland creation target in 2024-25, Scotland is expected to deliver the large majority of woodland creation across the UK.

The taskforce has established four subgroups to focus on attraction, education and development, leadership and culture, and wellbeing. All subgroups are considering retention as part of their remit. Each subgroup will formulate and provide recommended actions to the main taskforce. The Taskforce is making good progress with the development of its recommended actions and will continue to work until members have agreed a comprehensive action plan. We anticipate the publication of a report later in 2024.

Corporate governance and accountability arrangements for public bodies are in place and built around an established series of statutory and administrative mechanisms. These ensure consistent processes and parameters, based on the principles in the Scottish Public Finance Manual, within which public bodies are required to operate in terms of the stewardship of public money, propriety and ethics.

This is supplemented by framework agreements that Scottish Government has in place with most public bodies setting out respective roles and responsibilities, including requirement for bodies to set plans which contribute to achievement of the National Performance Framework outcomes, including tackling poverty. These activities and the sponsorship and relationship arrangements the Scottish Government has with public bodies helps ensure that Scottish Ministers priorities are delivered.

Scottish Government funding to local authorities is allocated using a relative needs-based formula, taking into account disadvantage and various other considerations, including levels of deprivation. While local authorities decide how to spend their available finances they are guided by a set of national and local outcomes, with the Equality Act and associated specific duties providing a framework to help local authorities pay due regard to equality issues.

Specifically, local authorises, and other certain public bodies, in Scotland are subject to the Fairer Scotland Duty, which places a legal responsibility on them to actively consider how they can reduce inequalities of outcome caused by socio-economic disadvantage, when making strategic decisions.

The names and affiliations of the members of the Zero Emission Social Housing Taskforce, and its technical sub-groups, are published on the Scottish Government website: Zero Emission Social Housing Taskforce - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The Building (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2022 amended regulation 8 of the building regulations so that "highly combustible metal composite material" panels, combustible cladding and combustible insulation can no longer be used for new building work captured in the scope of the ban.

The indicative timeline for the Scottish Government’s proposed response to the consultation is March 2025 with an implementation date of January 2026.