Chamber and committees

Since 2017, the Scottish Government has commissioned COSLA’s Digital Office for Local Government to implement a national programme for the transition of analogue to digital telecare. This approach has ensured a Scotland wide approach, the efficient use of resources and sharing of best practice in managing its complexity.

The Scottish Government, alongside COSLA’s Digital Office, continue to hold regular discussions with key partners including the telecoms industry, the Telecare Services Association (TSA), Ofcom and Local Authorities. Scottish partners are also actively sharing best practice and guidance with the other devolved nations.

At this point in time, telecare services across Scotland are on track to meet the end of 2025 analogue switch off.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) leads the management and monitoring of the contract on behalf of Scottish Ministers as well as Justice partners and is working closely with GEOAmey to resolve the performance and service delivery issues.

Scheduled monitoring of the contract is undertaken by SPS which reports against a significant number of service level and performance indicators to assess contractual compliance. In addition, routine and ad-hoc audits are also carried out to ensure care, welfare and other legislative elements are maintained and delivered by GEOAmey.

As a result of the contractual audits and reviews completed since the onset of COVID-19 in early 2020, a contract recalibration was agreed in 2023 to support the changing demands of the Justice Sector.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested.

The data we receive from Police Scotland for production of the Recorded Crime in Scotland National Statistics is a simple count of the numbers of crimes and offences, for each local authority, which the police have recorded and cleared up. We do not receive further details on the characteristics and circumstances of individual crimes, therefore we are unable to identify how many crimes of vandalism were in relation to graffiti or the location of these crimes.

Time series information on the total number of crimes of vandalism recorded by the police is available from the Recorded Crime in Scotland Accredited Official Statistics.

Creative Scotland advertised 22 jobs in 2023. 20 roles were appointed, 1 closed without an offer and 1 closed with interviews taking place in January 2024. 18 were filled in Edinburgh, 2 in Glasgow and 0 outwith Edinburgh/Glasgow.

Whilst all roles have a contractual base location of either Edinburgh or Glasgow, since 2020 all roles at Creative Scotland have the ability of hybrid and remote working. Through this, Creative Scotland have benefitted from opening their talent pool to many regions across Scotland including the Highland and Islands, Perthshire and Ayrshire.

The Affordable Housing Supply Programme is fit for purpose. The UK Government did not inflation-proof their Capital Budget which has resulted in nearly a 10% real terms fall in our UK capital funding between 2023-24 and 2027-28. That means that we cannot deliver on all our capital projects. One of the most difficult choices we have taken is to reduce the funding for our Affordable Housing Supply Programme.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-24135 on 16 January 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 .

We have been supporting the Scottish Prison Service and other partners in delivering an improvement in the GEOAmey contract that has resulted in early positive signs, with a slowdown in staff attrition and improved staff numbers.

The Criminal Justice Board has been engaged with issues relating to the contract and, as Teresa Medhurst, the Scottish Prison Service Chief Executive, stated at the Criminal Justice Committee in November 2023, all options remain under consideration in relation to prisoner escort arrangements in Scotland.

The Scottish Prison Service will continue to monitor the performance of the contract carefully to ensure target thresholds are met, so we can have a level of service which meets the needs of our justice system.

VisitScotland has provided the following data.

We record data on energy efficiency measures installed as part of Scottish Government programmes, but do not monitor the measures installed by households acting independently. According to the 2019 Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS), 55% of households had an Energy Performance Certificate band of D or lower. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, fieldwork for the 2020 SHCS was suspended and the methodology for the 2021 SHCS was also impacted. Future SHCS publications will provide more information to measure progress.

The number of energy efficiency measures installed through SG funded delivery schemes are as follows:

Ongoing engagement with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency(MCA) is standard practice with all shipbuilders.

Officials notified ministers on 28 June 2023 that changes might be required to aspects of the original design of upper deck escape routes on vessel 801.

An official application from FPMG was made to the MCA on 22 September 2023, and was approved by the MCA on 7 November 2023.