Chamber and committees

I refer the member to my answer to question S6W-15957 on 27 March 2023. 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/questions-and-answers .

The research on Women and Girls’ safety on Public Transport Scotland makes 10 recommendations Transport Scotland will continue to work with stakeholders and operators to identify actions in the recommendations and work towards progressing those. As part of this work a Summit is being organised to bring together stakeholders and experts to discuss the recommendations and identify any specific policy actions for Transport Scotland, as well as any actions for operators, police authorities and local authorities.

A number of partner organisations are working to specifically challenging men’s behaviour through a number of education and training programmes. Transport Scotland continue to support other policy areas on the systemic issue of gender based violence. The outcomes of this research have been shared with colleagues in the Scottish Government Violence Against Women and Girls Team who are working to deliver the Government’s Equally Safe Strategy.

Spending data on additional support for learning (ASL) is provided below. This data is collected from local authorities via the Local Financial Returns (LFR). In addition to 2021-22 expenditure data, figures for 2020-21 have also been provided due to revisions in LFR statistics since the response to S6W-08040 in April 2022. These revisions reflect an upward revision in ASL spending reported by Clackmannanshire Council, and an upward revision in total education expenditure reported by Renfrewshire Council.

Local authorities are asked to provide this data in line with guidance to ensure returns are completed on a consistent basis to allow for a reasonable degree of comparability. However, these figures may be affected by variations in local accounting practices and education strategies. It is important to bear this in mind when making comparisons between local authorities and years.

Local authorities are asked to record all centrally funded ASL expenditure under Special Education, irrespective of where it is delivered. Decisions about prioritisation and budgets, including those for the provision of services for pupils with additional support needs, are a matter for individual councils. We recognise the challenges facing authorities in balancing their need to meet a wide range of statutory duties, local priorities and local circumstances.

Tables 1 and 2 show gross revenue expenditure on additional support for learning (ASL) education from 2021-22 and 2020-21 respectively, split by Pre-Primary, Primary, Secondary and Special Education.

Table 1 – 2021-22 ASL expenditure by Local Authority (£000)

As at Friday 24 March, Social Security Scotland had concluded the final processing of client data and expect all automatic payments to be made by 31 March.

This means that throughout February and March almost 400,000 low income households will have automatically received £50 financial support towards their energy bills for this winter.

In line with our policy, every eligible household in Scotland will have received reliable support, regardless of the weather or where they live. At a time when energy bills are increasing, this investment of over £20 million will have provided an important financial contribution to many low income households, including those with disabled people, young children and older people, many of whom would not have received a £25 Cold Weather Payment in previous years.

Even though there is no statutory requirement to do so, I have already made the decision to uprate Winter Heating Payment in April 2023 by 10.1%, to £55.05, recognising the difficulties people are facing and will be facing going forward.

There are a very small number of payments requiring manual intervention prior to being processed, for example where we are awaiting further information from the eligible person, and Social Security Scotland is taking all measures to ensure that those final payments are made as soon as possible.

A first release of Official Statistics on Winter Heating Payment will be published on
‎ 6 June 2023 and then on an annual basis in future. These will be available on Social Security Scotland’s statistics publication page at:

https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/about/statistics/social-security-scotland-statistics-publications .

I am pleased to inform Parliament that Scottish Government has today published its improvement plan for air quality.

The improvement plan confirms that the Scottish Government welcomes and accepts all six of ESS’s recommendations.

https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781805256229

The potential carbon footprint of the vehicles used in Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme was factored into the modelling work carried out during the scheme’s development and the work concluded that scheme will reduce CO2 emissions by 4 million tonnes over 25 years – the equivalent to taking 83,000 cars off the road.

More information is contained in the Strategic Environmental Assessment Addendum published on 22 December 2021, which you can read here .

The Scottish Government has reviewed the article Night shift work and risk of aggressive prostate cancer in the Norwegian Offshore Petroleum Workers (NOPW) cohort and notes its findings.

We strongly encourage all employers to adopt Fair Work practices and apply a flexible approach regarding continuous and prolonged night shift working to protect the health and wellbeing of the workforce.

Producers who want to sell scheme articles to consumers in Scotland on or after 16 August 2023 must be registered with SEPA.

The DRS scheme administrator, Circularity Scotland Ltd (CSL) estimates that the registration process takes approximately six weeks to complete. This is similar to schemes operating elsewhere in Europe.

If producers have questions about registration, or other DRS-related matters, they should contact CSL as soon as possible.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-16208 on‎ 27 March 2023, which provided an update on Winter Heating Payment. 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 Scottish Government has committed to designating at least one new National Park in Scotland during this parliamentary session provided relevant legal conditions can be met. In the Spring we will publish a draft evaluation framework with proposed selection criteria before opening the nominations process for new National Parks later this year.

We are aware of several areas which are interested in National Park status, including some which have well established campaigns. Through the nominations process, we will ask interested parties to register their interest and submit a nomination. We intend to make support available to local groups and organisations wishing to submit a nomination, for example to help arrange and host local discussions and workshops.

All proposals for New National Parks that are received will be assessed against the criteria set out in the evaluation framework and a report will be prepared. A panel of experts will then review the evaluation report and will provide advice to Scottish Ministers on which nomination or nominations should be considered for National Park designation. In theory it would be possible for the panel to recommend that overlapping or contiguous areas are considered.