Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of penalties issued for drink or drug driving offences committed specifically on trunk roads. The Criminal Proceedings database does not contain this level of detail - we are unable to break down the data by 'trunk road'.

The Fairer Funding pilot consists of grants to the third sector in Scotland totalling £61.7 million in 2025-26 and £63.2 million in 2026-27. The challenging financial position means that the total volume of multi-year funding agreements is balanced against other priorities and our ability to take a measured financial risk within each portfolio area. However, the sums involved are substantial and have been welcomed by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and by the third sector organisations involved. The Pilot is an important first step to move forward with multi-year funding.

Work is underway to improve our visibility of grants issued by the Scottish Government to the third sector. The previous electronic accounting system did not reliably classify whether or not grant spend is allocated to the third sector. This therefore means that collating grant information remains a manual exercise across all portfolios whilst the reporting framework associated with the new system (Oracle Cloud) is fully developed. Oracle Cloud was adopted in October 2024 and is being used to make payments made to grant recipients. However, for effective analysis, a data set of an entire financial year or more is likely to be required to produce meaningful insights.

The estimated non-domestic rates revenue from energy transmission infrastructure from 2022-2023 to 2024-2025 is presented in Table 1. This includes overhead transmission lines and pylons, underground lines, and sub-stations, operating at or above 132kV. We are unable to separately estimate the amounts related to pylon infrastructure only.

There are no Scottish Government levies charged on the basis of pylon height or size. We are not aware of any other levies charged on this basis.

Table 1: Estimated non-domestic rates income from electricity transmission infrastructure

In 2015, FSS took the decision to establish the Scottish National Database (SND). as part of its strategic commitment to address recommendations of the Scudamore Expert Advisory Group, which was established by Scottish Ministers in February 2013, to review the lessons learned from the Horsemeat incident.

The report recommended that:

“The New Food Body should ensure that integrated IT systems are in place for recording data relating to official controls and other interventions at food businesses. These systems should be mandated for use by all competent authorities in Scotland”.

Following successful pilot of SND the system was rolled out across all 32 Scottish Local Authorities with completion in January 2018.

SND allows the real time collection of food law intervention data direct from the Local Authority Management Information Systems via a secure portal.

This technology allows:

• Data information can be used in a more strategic way, to enable datasets to be linked and give new insights and analysis.
• Significant reduction in the administrative burden placed on LAs in preparing and sending data to FSS.
• LAs in Scotland already have well established MIS systems and procedures, the approach was implemented without impacting on the day to day operations of their systems.
• A toolset for reporting has been introduced. This provides the means for FSS and LAs to co-create a comprehensive suite of dashboards and reports to serve across all of the enforcement community.
• The Food Law enforcement community in Scotland should be more robust and adaptable to future changes in the regulatory landscape, by having a flexible means to collect expanded datasets and a more effective means of horizon scanning.

FSS is currently working with Scottish Government Digital teams under the CivTech Programme to explore a digital system that will be open to businesses and Local Authorities to provide effective means to enhance our digital systems.

Food Standards Scotland (FSS) advocate the UK wide reformulation programme, managed by the Office of Health Improvement and Disparities, which has voluntary targets for industry to reduce levels of sugar, salt and calories in commonly consumed foods. They regularly report on progress, with the most recent publication in 2024.

In Scotland, Scottish Government funds the Reformulation for Health Programme which is managed by Food and Drink Federation Scotland. Since 2019, the programme has support SMEs operating in Scotland to take steps to improve the nutritional content of their food, including reductions in fat, sugar and salt. Examples of the success of the programme can be found via this link. Food Standards Scotland supports the Reformulation for Health Programme, including as a Reformul8 Partner, and through provision of grant funding to support businesses to undertake reformulation.

It is not possible to separately identify which charges and prosecutions for assault were specifically for assaults on doctors

The Scottish Government Resilience Room (SGORR) is the Scottish Government’s central co-ordination mechanism for responding to civil contingencies emergencies. SGORR activates when and for as long as the severity and complexity of an emergency is such that urgent co-ordination, support or strategic direction from or within the Scottish Government is required and cannot be provided effectively through business-as-usual structures or other Scottish Government response mechanisms. Incidents which may meet this threshold include but are not restricted to severe weather events; terrorist attacks; pandemics; significant disruption to the supply of essential services/utilities or large-scale public disorder.

The Scottish Government Resilience Room (SGORR) provides Scottish Ministers and senior officials with situational awareness, enabling them to make informed strategic decisions on the Scottish Government’s response to civil contingencies emergencies. SGORR provides this situational awareness, using relevant facilities, by supplying written and verbal briefings, organising meetings at official or ministerial level and making connections across and outside the Scottish Government, with SGORR working closely with responders at all levels in Scotland and with the UK Government where relevant to the response.

Membership of the Strategic Wildlife and Species Land Managers Forum (SWSLM Forum) is made up of representatives from the main public and private organisations that have a role in managing wildlife. However the constitution of the group may change on a meeting-by-meeting basis to reflect the subjects on the agenda. The initial membership of the SWSLM Forum consists of the following organisations:

• Scottish Government
• British Association for Shooting and Conservation
• National Farmers Union Scotland
• National Trust for Scotland
• NatureScot
• Royal Society for the Protection for Birds
• Scottish Gamekeepers Association
• Scottish Land and Estates
• Scottish Countryside Alliance
• Scottish Wildlife Trust
• Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust

The next meeting of the SWSLM Forum is scheduled to take place on Thursday 3 April 2025. The intention is that the Forum will then meet every three months.