Chamber and committees

In July 2023, in accordance with Regulation 17(1)(c) of the Deposit and Return Scheme Regulations 2020, Scottish Ministers decided to withdraw scheme administrator approval for Circularity Scotland Ltd (CSL) following notification that they had entered administration. If CSL's representatives do not ask for a review of this decision, the company ceases to be scheme administrator with effect from 17 August 2023.

The Scottish Government is committed to the creation of a Scottish Veterinary Service (SVS) to ensure there are highly trained staff to provide Scotland with good animal health and food safety to meet all our needs across the public and private sector for animal health issues.

A Programme has been established to manage the work required to create an SVS, which includes conducting a financial appraisal of the operational and investment costs of the Service.

The financial appraisal will assess how consolidation under a single body provides opportunities to enhance quality, efficiency, resilience and value for money

The Islands (Scotland) Act 2018 (“the Act”) includes the duty to have regard to island communities. This means that a relevant authority as listed in the Schedule of the Act must consider island communities when carrying out its functions.

There are 71 relevant authorities listed in the Schedule of the Act including funding bodies such as Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

A relevant authority can demonstrate compliance with the duty to have regard to island communities by making such arrangements as it considers appropriate to review any policy, strategy or service (as the case may be) which it develops or delivers in carrying out its functions, and either, in the case where the authority must prepare an island communities impact assessment under section 8(1) of the Act, by preparing that assessment, or in any other case, by making such an assessment or taking such other steps as the authority considers appropriate.

The Scottish Government has budgeted £1.1m for the Circular Textiles Fund for 2023-24. The fund is being administered by Zero Waste Scotland on the Scottish Government’s behalf.

Future budget allocations beyond 2023-24 will be confirmed through the annual budget setting process.

The Marine Directorate’s Science, Evidence, Data and Digital Portfolio published its first assessment of genetic introgression in wild salmon in 2021: A national assessment of the influence of farmed salmon escapes on the genetic integrity of wild Scottish Atlantic salmon populations | Marine Scotland Data Publications .

The research found evidence of introgression at 23% of the sites examined. Further, the patterns of introgression detected were not uniform across the country. Rather, signs of introgression were concentrated in areas of marine aquaculture production and freshwater smolt rearing. Outside these areas, little to no genetic changes were detected. The results highlighted how important it is to prevent farmed fish escapes, to protect the integrity of wild salmon populations in areas of aquaculture production.

This was the first report of the National Introgression Programme for Scotland (NIPS), sampling took place between 2018 and 2019. NIPS is an ongoing nationwide project that is researching the link between fish farm escapes and introgression in wild salmon populations. In 2021 a second NIPS survey was conducted across the country with samples and data from this currently being analysed. A further NIPS survey was also initiated in 2023 and sample collection is now underway. Analysis of the NIPS surveys from multiple sampling years will provide a picture of temporal changes in levels of introgression.

As stated in the answer to S6W-20375 on 16 August 2023, the national acquisition programme will be run as part of the Affordable Housing Supply Programme which aligns with the Scottish Government’s Principles for Programme and Project Management.

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

A series of meetings, both at a political and official level, are underway to engage with local authorities on the Scottish Government’s response to the recommendations of the Temporary Accommodation Task and Finish Group. We are aware that there are some areas of the country where this work is less urgent, such as local authorities where registered social landlords (RSLs) have a low supply of stock or the type of stock is not in demand.

We are working with the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and the Glasgow West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations and other partners to identify ways to target action on the local authorities with the greatest temporary accommodation pressures, including some stock transfer authorities. We will report on outcomes from these discussions in due course.

The Scottish Government is committed to the creation of a Scottish Veterinary Service (SVS) to ensure there are highly trained staff to provide Scotland with good animal health and food safety to meet all our needs across the public and private sector for animal health issues. For that purpose, a Programme has been established to manage the work required to create an SVS.

The Extension to the Review of Field Delivery of Animal Health Services in Scotland report, conducted by Professor Charles Milne, followed up on the earlier Field Delivery of Animal Health Services in Scotland, and was based on interviews with individual sand organisations involved in animal health services in Scotland and beyond.

The SVS Programme is assessing which functions the SVS should deliver, including border checks. APHA is only responsibility for border checks on live animals, with Scottish Local Authorities responsible for checks on animal products.

Scottish Government Officials liaise regularly with the Animal and Plant health Agency, as well as Defra, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive officials to ensure that suitable arrangements are in place, in due course, to mitigate against any risks to animal health and welfare as a result of different arrangement for the delivery of veterinary controls in Scotland. It is impossible, however, to make effective plans for the delivery of border checks while the UK Government continues to delay the publication of the awaited UK Target Operating Model for Borders.

The Scottish Government’s guidance ‘Included, Engaged and Involved Part 1: a positive approach to the promotion and management of attendance in Scottish schools’ makes clear the need for schools to follow up absence immediately, and to continue to follow up absence for those for whom there are welfare concerns.

Local authorities are expected to have robust processes and guidance for children who do not attend school from the first day they are absent until they are re-engaged with education. Where children are missing for extended periods of time, or are not on a school roll or being educated otherwise, the Children Missing from Education Guidance and Service can support local authorities in this.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on children persistently absent from school centrally. Information on rates of children persistently absent from school would be for local authorities to collect.

The £500 million Just Transition Fund for North East and Moray has allocated £75 million to date, including a multi-year capital programme supporting 24 projects. The open and competitive bidding round assessed projects against published criteria in line with public finance guidelines. Details of successful projects are published here: Just Transition Fund: year one projects - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . I have committed to regular updates on progress towards a just transition to net zero to Parliament and the Just Transition Commission.