Chamber and committees

The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 places statutory responsibility for local roads on local authorities. It would not be for the Scottish Government to comment specifically on a local authority’s liability for damages to vehicles.

However, in general a local authority may compensate for damages to vehicles caused by road defects if the road defect is deemed as a hazard that would create a significant risk of an accident to a careful road user and it can be shown that the local authority was a fault for failing to deal with the road defect in line with its procedures.

There are no opt-out clauses included in the R100 Contracts. These are grant funding agreements which subsidise the supplier (Openreach) to deliver its own network to specific contracted premises.

The Scottish Government continues to support other providers to extend their broadband networks via the Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme but this is focused on premises that will not be connected commercially or via the R100 contracts.

No NHS Lanarkshire buildings have been assessed as containing reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. The NHS Scotland Assure survey programme has identified eighteen buildings in the NHS Lanarkshire estate with two or more characteristics consistent with the presence of RAAC. These buildings were included in the list of NHS Scotland buildings which was provided in the response to answer S6W-19366 on 21 July 2023. This list has also been made available on the NHS Scotland Assure website: RAAC -List of Properties v1 Jul 23 (nhs.scot). This list forms the NHS Scotland Assure RAAC survey programme, which commenced in July 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/written-questions-and-answers

We are working to increase the number of publicly funded placements so that by 2026, at least 1000 people are publicly funded to go to rehab every year - a 300% increase on the number prior to the launch of the National Mission.

Public Health Scotland have been monitoring the number of publicly funded residential rehabilitation placements in Scotland. Publications are available for 2021-2022 and 2022-2023: Public Health Scotland Publications . The latest report, published 27 June 2023, reports a steady increase in the number of placements approved and that there were 812 placements for residential rehabilitation approved in 2022-2023.

Alongside this, we are investing in capacity to increase the number of residential rehabilitation beds by 50% which is an increase from 425 beds to 650 beds by 2026.

The Scottish Government’s Fair Work Action Plan sets out actions to promote fair and inclusive workplaces across Scotland. We are committed to using all levers at our disposal to extend Fair Work conditionality with clear standards and minimum requirements to cover all forms of Scottish Government support within the limits of devolved competence. The action to consider including the use of reliefs and licensing powers is an investigatory action, and not a definitive position on if and how these can be used. Officials will continue to monitor implementation of Fair Work conditions to ensure the approach remains fair and proportionate.

Non-domestic rates are levied on the private, public and charitable sectors and on a very diverse array of properties, from shops and offices to telephone masts, railways lines, harbours, bothies and advertising boards. Certain properties may have no employees linked with them, or properties may be operated by individuals rather than businesses, and therefore may not have any employees, and we will therefore need to consider carefully the potential role of fair work conditionality in the non-domestic rates system, within the limits of devolved competence.

Scottish Government Ministers and officials regularly meet with local politicians, council Chief Executives and Directors of Finance to discuss national priorities and local issues. In those meetings, in parallel with ongoing engagement with COSLA Leaders and Spokespeople, Councils routinely identify policy challenges and financial pressures locally.

Despite a decade of UK Government austerity measures, the Accounts Commission, who are responsible for holding councils and other local government bodies in Scotland to account, have confirmed that local government revenue funding is 2.6% higher in real terms than it was in 2013-14.

Scottish councils have therefore been treated fairly throughout UK imposed austerity but we recognise the challenging environment they face, alongside the rest of the public sector, and that is why we are committed to a Fiscal Framework as part of our New Deal with Local Government in order to ensure the sustainability of local services.

11 out of 14 territorial NHS Scotland Boards have long COVID pathways in operation. The following table outlines anticipated commencement date of the remainder, where applicable.

Rail accessibility in Scotland is a reserved matter for the UK Government. In June 2022, the Department for Transport (DfT) confirmed, in writing, to Transport Scotland that nominated stations will be assessed primarily against similar criteria to those used in previous Control Periods. This criteria includes:

• Footfall, using figures published by the Office of Rail and Road.
• Stations where there is a particularly high incidence of disability in the area, based on Census data.
• A particular local circumstance such as the proximity of hospitals, a school for disabled children or a military rehabilitation centre for example, or stations with relatively high numbers of interchange passengers.
• The availability of third-party funding.
• Stations that would help to fill “gaps” in accessibility on the network such as in an area where there are no accessible stations.
• Letter of support from the constituency Member of Parliament (MP).

Transport Scotland work closely with Network Rail and ScotRail to agree the Scottish Government nominations, taking account of the criteria against which these will be evaluated by the DfT. The finalised submissions are approved by Scottish Ministers prior to submitting to the Department for Transport.

We are making available at least £60 million for the National Acquisition Programme. Spend will be reliant on suitable properties being available to purchase that align with local authorities’ strategic housing priorities. We are working closely with partners to identify and support projects to be brought forward.

We are grateful to all those who responded to the Government’s consultation on electoral reform. We are considering the responses to the consultation and the analysis and will publish a formal response in due course. The responses were independently analysed, and the analysis of the consultation can be found on the Scottish Government website.

As noted, a Bill on electoral reform was announced in the Programme for Government 2023-24. We anticipate that this will be introduced to Parliament by spring 2024.