Chamber and committees

The 8,000 homes figure attached to 2025-2026 funding is an estimate of the equivalent homes that could be supported by the budget in 2025-2026. The 2025-2026 budget will fund the completion of existing project commitments as well as new project approvals, including voids and acquisitions, and new build starts. We do not therefore have a breakdown of the 8,000 homes figure.

Spectrum allocation and management, as with all aspects of telecommunications policy, is a reserved matter and one in which the Scottish Government has no formal role.

Scottish Government has regular engagement with UK Government and Ofcom on spectrum issues, focusing in particular on how this impacts the availability of mobile and wireless services across Scotland.

Incidents relating to unexploded ordnance are Police operational matters. Unless unexploded ordnance causes a civil contingencies emergency in Scotland that requires co-ordination on a national level, such incidents are not handled through any Scottish or UK Government mechanisms. In the highly unlikely event of this threshold being met, the Scottish Government Resilience Room (SGORR) would activate to co-ordinate the Scottish Government’s response to the incident, including by liaising closely with the Ministry of Defence and any other relevant UK Government departments.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33028 on 22 January 2025. 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

Trainee educational psychologists enrol as students and do not have an employment contract. Students are allocated a placement in Local Authorities to gain experience and to gather evidence so that they can complete their coursework. The grant for educational psychologist trainees, in addition to tuition fee funding, is not income assessed and is provided to help towards living costs associated with studying.

In Scotland trainee clinical psychologists are recruited through a UK clearing house system to NHS employment on nationally evaluated NHS Agenda for Change band 6 job roles in common with their peers across the UK. NHS Education for Scotland provides funding for salaries to NHS Scotland Boards via service level agreements and funding for fees to university programme providers. The training is a three year postgraduate doctoral programme and Clinical Psychology trainees provide clinical services during training as part of supervised and assessed practice, including contributing to the NHS Scotland Psychological Therapies waiting time standards.

In partnership, the Scottish Government and COSLA provide £2m investment per year to deliver the training programme for educational psychologists.

Data generated from the day-to-day running of the Thistle Service will be recorded and collated by Glasgow HSCP alongside a range of routine data from other Health and Social Care services to enable a comprehensive evaluation. This includes data to assess:

1.Extent to which people use the service,

2.Interventions provided within the service (such as reviews of injecting practice, peer support and referrals into drug treatment); and

3.Public Health outcomes such as incidence of drug overdose, Accident and Emergency attendances and drug deaths, uptake of testing for HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C and engagement in addictions treatment and care.

Data collated for evaluation will be published in due course in aggregate form. The format and timeline for these publications has not been set but likely to consist a full evaluation report which will be published in a few years’ time as well as an interim report which will be produced in the nearer term.

Road safety is of paramount importance to the Scottish Government. The safety performance of the trunk road network is assessed on an annual basis by screening all locations where three or more personal injury accidents have occurred in a three year period. Alongside accident clusters, accident patterns and rates in the form of Route Accident Reduction Plans (RARP) are also looked at. This ensures that full consideration is given to accidents that may be spread along a corridor. Further investigations are then carried out and, where appropriate, mitigationmeasures are prioritised for delivery. This robust, evidence-based approach ensures that the funding available is prioritised for those locations with the potential to deliver the greatest casualty accident savings. It is essential that we use the evidence is used in this way to support the delivery of the casualty reduction targets set out in Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030.

From this process the following schemes have been constructed on the A90:

• In 2021, new lining was introduced on the central reservation gap at Lochlands

junction by Forfar, to assist driver prioritisation.

• In 2024, safety barriers and signage were upgraded between Kirriemuir Junction

and the B9127 off-slip.

• In 2024, road markings and studs were implemented between the B9128 junction

and the St Ann's interchange. Further safety barrier and road signs improvements

are programmed for delivery in 2025.

Transport Scotland’s Operating Company are currently taking forward signing, lining and safety barrier design work for the A90 section from Emmock Roundabout to A928 Petterden junction, as well as design work for a junction improvement on the A90 at Fowlis to assist drivers in safely exiting the A90.

There has been approximately 175 flooding incidents recorded on the A90 between 1 Jan 2020 and 1 Jan 2025. Each flooding incident is assessed and appropriate action taken where required.

Transport Scotland’s Approach to Climate Change Adaptation & Resilience was published in August 2023 setting out a strategic framework to secure a well-adapted future for Scotland’s transport system. It includes an ambitious Vision for “A transport system which is well adapted and prepared for current and future impacts of climate change, is safe for all users, reliable for everyday journeys, and resilient to weather related disruption.

A key deliverable of this work is the development of a Trunk Road Adaptation Plan, based on a climate vulnerability and risk assessment using the latest UK climate projections. The Trunk Road Adaptation Plan will be published in early 2025. It includes key interventions and recommendations for further adapting the Trunk Road Network. There will be a focus on risks associated with increased surface water flooding, river flooding, river scour and landslides.

The Trunk Road Adaptation Plan will complement the work of our roads Vulnerable Locations Operational Group, which was established in 2021. This group has delivered a number of drainage improvement schemes across the Trunk Road Network and will continue to investigate, design and deliver improvements to support our wider Approach to Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience.

All potential schemes and projects on the trunk road network, including those intended for the A90 trunk road, are screened for environmental effects by environmental specialists. A record of the assessment is prepared which includes the mitigations to be implemented that will remove or minimise the environmental impact.

The assessment process ensures that legislative requirements are met, and best practice implemented to keep environmental effects to an absolute minimum.

During the construction phase, monitoring of environmental mitigations is undertaken. This will include on-site surveys, inspections, and audits.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33160 on 22 January 2025. 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