Chamber and committees

Scottish Government officials were in regular discussions with UK Government officials regarding the Internal Market Act (IMA) exclusion process for the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). Throughout these discussions officials made it clear that not providing a timely and complete exclusion would jeopardise the future of the DRS in Scotland and by extension the viability of Circularity Scotland. Scottish Ministers and officials wrote to UK Ministers a number of times throughout April and May highlighting the risk to the scheme and to Circularity Scotland due to the uncertainty around the IMA exclusion. This included letters from myself on 19 May and from the First Minister on 22 April and 3 May 2023.

We employ methodologies which align to the Scottish Public Finance Manual. These include processes, guidance and techniques for identifying, owning, assessing, reviewing and reporting risks, risk appetite and response.

The Scottish Government regularly discusses peatland restoration with private sector organisations mainly through the Peatland ACTION partnership.

For example, as part of our Peatland ACTION programme NatureScot works with land management representative organisations like Scottish Land & Estates (SLE), National Farmers Union, Scotland (NFUS) and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) to communicate the benefits of peatland restoration and financial support available to their members. Peatland ACTION delivery partners have also engaged with many Land Agents, Solicitors and Accountants/Green Finance specialists through demonstration days and attendance at national and local events.

The network of Peatland ACTION officers work with a range of private landowners and land managers to help them consider restoration projects. Peatland Action have also provided training and support for private sector companies who are contracted to design and deliver restoration on the ground including, but not limited to, a regular contractors forum where emerging opportunities and issues are considered and resolved collectively.

The Scottish Government have discussed peatland restoration with representatives of private investment funds as part of our commitment to develop a values-led high integrity market for responsible private investment in natural capital. This engagement has included discussion on the Peatland Code and on options to increase the rates of peatland restoration.

As part of wider improvements to General Practice (GP) IT, testing found that Scottish Primary Care Information Resource (SPIRE) could not continue to be fully supported without considerable redevelopment. This means that by the end of August 2023 SPIRE would be unable to provide a representative national data extract from GP systems.

A transition is underway in NHS Scotland from SPIRE to a new data extraction tool. This tool, recently procured by National Services Scotland (NSS), provides similar functionality to SPIRE but has greater national coverage. The tool is trusted and highly valued having successfully been used for vaccination data purposes during the pandemic, and subsequently in obtaining other GP data

Public Health Scotland (PHS) analysts are working closely with NSS to replicate local reports currently used by some practices, using the data provided by the new tool.

The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting all Boards to achieve the standard that 90% of patients start treatment within 18 weeks of referral. We allocated nearly £40m additional funding in 2021-22 to NHS Boards to improve CAMHS, which included £4.25m specifically for clearing backlogs. In 2022-23 we allocated a further £36.7m via the Mental Health Outcomes Framework to improve the quality and delivery of mental health and psychological services for all.

We recognise that performance varies across Health Boards and we continue to provide targeted, tailored support towards those Boards with the longest waits and poorest performance. We have asked Boards to submit trajectories up to March 2024 for performance against the CAMHS standard, and for clearing long waits.

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.

Identity theft is a form of fraud and prosecuted under the general offence of fraud. As such, specific information is not routinely collected on identity theft. However, in 2018-19, a one-off detailed analysis of crimes of dishonesty was carried out by the Scottish Government and this revealed that identity theft type cases accounted for about 6% of total fraud, with most cases of identity theft being cyber-enabled.

6. Tables - Recorded crime in Scotland: 2018-2019 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

In addition, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey found 1.1% of adults experienced identity theft in 2019/20. These are the most recently published statistics as the survey was suspended due to COVID, and resumed in November 2021 with next results due to be published later this year.

Identity theft can be a traumatic experience for those who experience it. It should be reported to Police Scotland as well as the relevant financial institutions that have been affected.

Police Scotland raise awareness of the importance of trying to reduce incidents of identity theft through comprehensive advice on their website. In particular, the website includes information about common ways in which criminals seek to acquire personal information about a person with a view to using this information fraudulently. This advice also includes signs to look for in case a person's identity has been stolen to be used for fraudulent purposes and what to do if a person considers they have been a victim of identity theft. We support the steps being taken by Police Scotland in helping advise people how best to protect themselves from identity theft.

Identity theft - Police Scotland

Financial institutions also provide helpful information to customers about how best to avoid falling foul of being a victim of identity theft with advice focused on what steps to take to help protect personal information as if criminals find it more difficult to access personal information, then this reduces the chances of identity theft taking place.

In response to the Just Transition Commission’s letter providing further advice on the Draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan published on 17 April 2023, the Scottish Government issued a reply on the 9 May 2023. The letter acknowledged the Commission’s extensive recommendations and committed to a more detailed response to these, alongside consideration of responses to the formal consultation.

The reply adhered to the 12-week timeframe as outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding and can now be found online here: Just Transition: letter to Just Transition Commission 9 May 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Through a combination of the R100 contracts, the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme and the commercial broadband market – including the emergence of technologies such as Low Earth Orbit satellite - every home and business across Scotland can access superfast broadband speeds of 30 Megabits per second (Mbps). The R100 contracts are continuing to deliver future-proofed, full fibre connections – capable of gigabit speeds; more than 30 times faster than our original superfast target.