Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government understands that a Dundee consortium, led by Abertay University, have been successful in their bid to house one of three regional CoSTAR labs, which attracts a portion of the £12.5m funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for these regional labs.

We welcome engagement with all relevant parties to help ensure the success of this project, and all work that contributes to a sustainable future for Scotland’s creative industries and related technology sectors.

Deer management covers a range of work, including culling deer and other damage mitigation actions such as deer fencing which can have an effect on deer movement and impacts.

We do not hold figures for the overall breakdown of deer management actions undertaken in Scotland. However, the annual cull data collected by NatureScot, plus estimates of unreported private sector deer culls, suggests that culling estimates that in 2020-21 approximately 20% of deer culled in 2021 were culled by Scottish Government agencies and 80% by private land managers and non-governmental organisations.

Since May 2021, the Scottish Government has not held any Ministerial meetings with All Perspectives Ltd, which owns GB News.

Within this period, Scottish Government culture officials have also not met with All Perspectives Ltd on either a formal or informal basis.

The location and movement of firefighters is an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and this information is not held by Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government recognises that it will be necessary to undertake detailed analysis, including costing and cost-benefit analysis of this wide-ranging report before it is possible to make definitive statements about individual recommendations. A team is being recruited to undertake this work.

We recognise that there are higher levels of chronic pain amongst minority ethnic populations and included minority ethnic participants in the work with both The Lines Between Pain Management Panel consultations: report - gov.scot and Healthcare Improvement Scotland Gathering views on chronic pain | HIS Engage . Whilst budget did not allow for the use of an interpreter, both projects heard from minority ethnic participants. The published Pain Management Panel report details the breakdown of demographics included in the 16 member panel on page 6.

The Scottish Government has not assessed the impacts of source reduction and separation on the availability of residual waste, specifically for the production of SAF, and other fuels, oil and chemicals. However, it is considering potential actions it could take on Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) as it develops its aviation strategy.

The independent review of incineration assessed what residual waste capacity Scotland needs to manage Scotland’s unavoidable, unrecyclable residual waste. It modelled several scenarios, including the impact of meeting Scotland’s waste reduction and recycling targets, and concluded that, if all energy from waste facilities in the development pipeline are built to schedule, there is a risk of long-term overcapacity beginning from 2026 or 2027.

The remaining elements of How To Save a Life media campaign, totalling to £360,012, not asked about in previous parliamentary questions included:

• TV adverts– £216,349
• Bus advertising - £78,140
• Glasgow Naloxone Taxi Livery– £3,240
• Project development costs - £22,315
• Independent Evaluation carried out by Glasgow Caledonian University – £39,968

We constantly review the operations of our international offices to ensure their work to promote Scotland remains measurable, transparent and provides value for money.

To help with this review process, each Scottish Government international office submits a monitoring and evaluation report every financial year which measures performance; monitors effectiveness and ensures they are achieving their strategic objectives.

Additionally, from December 2023 onwards, we will publish an Annual Report explaining how our international offices work to promote our values, objectives and priorities across the globe.

Whilst we intend to open a new office in Warsaw during this Parliamentary Term, there are currently no plans to open any further Scottish Government international offices during this time.

We intend to publish our first Annual Report setting out the contribution of our international offices by the end of December 2023. This will allow time to gather the information required from the business plans of each office for 2023-24 as well as the monitoring and evaluation reports covering 2022-23.