Chamber and committees

Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) have identified eight sites on Scotland’s national forests and land where within range translocations of beavers are considered to be ecologically feasible. We anticipate beavers to be moved to these sites after the kit dependency period in 2023.

A further three projects for range expansion translocations are at early stages of investigation and the number of suitable sites is as yet undetermined. It is expected these sites to be ready to accept beavers from 2024 onwards.

National Security, which includes the Prevent strategy, is reserved to the UK Government but delivered through devolved functions in Scotland. Prevent has been a statutory duty on Policing, Healthcare, Education, Local Authorities and Prisons in the UK as a whole, Scotland included since 2015.

The collective focus of Prevent in Scotland is always on identifying the earliest opportunity to offer support to individuals who may be vulnerable to being drawn into or supporting terrorism, or who are exposed to divisive extremist narratives.

There is no fixed profile for someone who may benefit from support in this context. However, as exposure to radicalisation and a range of extremist narratives has grown in the online space in particular, referrals to Prevent across the UK have indicated an increase in individuals being exposed to such harms at a younger age.

Scottish Government works closely with Police Scotland and other key partners including the education sector to ensure proportionate responses to such challenges across a broad spectrum of threat.

Our alignment of Prevent to existing safeguarding processes such as the Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC), seeks to ensure Prevent works in a supportive, multi-agency way in line with other strategies designed to prevent harm and safeguard children from exposure to such issues as drug use, criminal gangs, physical abuse and sexual exploitation.

A Prevent referral allows for a multi-agency safeguarding assessment to be conducted where appropriate, and all referrals are carefully assessed based on the specific details of the case.

Where a referral is deemed appropriate for Prevent case management, the type of support available is wide-ranging, and can include help with education, parental or carer support or child social care involvement. The ongoing provision of training and online guidance aims to ensure that when a Prevent referral is made, it is robust and appropriately informed, and that the response is considered and proportionate.

The publication of Prevent referral statistics on an annual basis is reflective of efforts to ensure as much transparency as possible in respect of the Prevent programme, within the confines of what is appropriate in line with the protection of individuals’ data.

As noted in my answer to question S6W-14449, work on the two-year report on the activities of the National Performing Companies was suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

I will consider whether this work should be restarted given the National Performing Companies all publish their own annual reports on their individual websites including information relating to their community and education programmes, financial figures and key artistic achievements.

We are taking all the action we can to help students overcome the issues they face through the cost of living crisis, including food insecurity.

No one should have to compromise on food or other essentials. We are supporting students directly by providing £16.8m in hardship funding for the current academic year to support Higher Education students experiencing financial hardship, in addition to tuition fees and a range of living cost support.

We have also provided £135m in student support for Further Education students attending college in the current academic year. Colleges can use these funds flexibly to meet demand across Further Education student bursaries, childcare and hardship funding.

The Scottish Government recently provided an additional £2.4 million funding for groups that can get vital support to people quickly – and with an emphasis on cash grants so that people can access food with dignity and choice.

We encourage anyone who is struggling financially to get advice through their local authority, a local advice service, or Social Security Scotland as well as visiting our cost of living website - www.gov.scot/news/accessing-help-for-cost-of-living

Yes, the felling of trees is regulated through the issuing of Felling Permissions, under the Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018. Permission must be granted before felling, thinning or deforesting an area of woodland; the sale and transfer of land has no impact on this requirement. The potential effects on flood risk would be taken into account when assessing applications to fell trees.

The Offers of Accommodation scheme set out to replace the previous two-stage Expression of Interest process which enabled potential hosts to submit information about their properties, with a streamlined, single-stage online form, designed on user-centred principles and built by the Scottish Government’s Digital teams. The new Offer to Host form can be found at Offer to host - Start page (ukrainehostoffers.service.gov.scot) The form went live, initially for a limited trial, on 22 November and was promoted through a news announcement, social media and a distribution of a partner toolkit. Since the form went live, it has had 442 completed submissions as of 14 February, which are now being checked by Local Authorities and fed back to Matching teams.

The Offers of Accommodation form now feeds in directly to the Warm Scottish Welcome Matching Tool used by the National Matching Service since September 2022. This digital tool was designed by Scottish Government Digital teams, in collaboration with COSLA and Scottish Government operational officials, to facilitate the matching of Ukrainian Displaced People in Welcome Hub accommodation to longer term hosting and social housing opportunities across Scotland.

The Matching Tool is currently being rolled out to a small selection of Local Authorities, with the ambition of all 32 Local Authorities being invited to have access to the platform over the course of the coming months. Ahead of the wider roll-out, staff at all Scottish Local Authorities have been invited to begin necessary background checks on 17 February.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14804 on 22 February 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

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the number of knives confiscated in schools, though information is available on the number of recorded crimes of having in a school an article with a blade or point. This is provided in the following table. At least part of the reduction in cases during 2020-21 (and subsequent increase in 2021-22) will likely reflect the closure of the school estate during the pandemic related lockdowns.

Possession of articles with a blade or point in schools

Scotland has led the way in the delivery of affordable housing across the UK with 115,558 affordable homes having been delivered since 2007, over 81,000 of which were for social rent, including 20,250 council homes. The Scottish Government's per capita spending on affordable housing is more than three times higher than the UK Government's.

In addition, our Review of Purpose Built Student Accommodation, which is looking at a number of accommodation issues including supply and affordability, will soon be concluded. I look forward to receiving the recommendations of the expert group who have overseen the review in due course.

The Endometriosis Advisory Group (EAG) was established to support the action in the Women’s Health Plan to strengthen collaborative working between regional specialist endometriosis centres, territorial and special NHS boards and primary care providers, to drive improvement in patient pathways and achieve equitable access to care and treatment.

The EAG first met in April 2022 and have since been involved in communications on an ad hoc basis to assist in the understanding of the systems currently in place for endometriosis, from education to current practice and pathways.

As per previous years, in order to lessen the burden on NHS teams over the winter period from November 2022 to the end of February 2023 we commenced a light touch process to help monitor and prioritise communications. After this period of time we will reinstate communication and meetings with the EAG.

The EAG offer their expert advice and knowledge to help inform and guide policy processes and as such there is no formal findings or report which the EAG has produced.