Chamber and committees

The Post-School Education and Skills Reform Programme, developed in light of the recommendations of James Withers’ Independent Review of the Skills Delivery Landscape and the Scottish Government’s own report on the Purpose and Principles for Post-School Education, Research and Skills, is progressing well.

I provided the latest update on the progress made by the projects within this programme in the annex to my letter of 20 December 2024 to the Public Audit Committee.
Response to Public Audit Committee from Minister for Higher and Further Education; and Minister for Veterans.

Additionally, on 22 January 2025 I announced, as the next step in delivering our plans for post-school education reform, that we will consolidate all post-school provision funding within the Scottish Funding Council and all student support funding. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-33842.

I will update the Parliament in due course on plans for the Bill announced in the Programme for Government 2024-25.

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

In the five calendar years from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2024 134 mobile phones were reported lost or stolen. The Scottish Government has robust processes and procedures in place when mobile phones are reported lost or stolen. This includes removing access to corporate data and suspending or cancelling the mobile number.

The Scottish Government engages regularly with the college sector on a range of issues, including the 2025-26 budget, via Colleges Scotland.

Myself and the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity have met formally with the Orkney Fisheries Association on two occasions since we were appointed to our roles in May 2024.

We are aware of concerns about the current capacity within planning authorities. The skills and capacity challenges faced by planning authorities are not unique to Scotland and are not restricted to minerals development. The Scottish Government is taking forward a programme of actions to boost planning capacity across Scotland.

Our Investing in Planning consultation last year identified a range of interventions to increase the capacity within planning authorities. In September 2024 we published a blog outlining the proposals we were intending to take forward, those which required further consideration and those which we did not intend to take forward at this time.

The Scottish Government has established the Hydrogen Planning Hub and the Housing Emergency Hub in response to concerns about capacity and skills. We are currently considering the further role that Hubs can play in supporting planning authorities to address the skills and capacity issues they are facing.

The National Planning Improvement Champion (NPIC) is working with individual planning authorities to pilot a new National Planning Improvement Framework. Planning authorities will carry out a self-assessment and work with the NPIC and others to identify areas for improvement and develop an action plan. We expect the first reports will be published shortly.

We also continue to engage with Heads of Planning Scotland to understand the pressures facing planning authorities in Scotland and how they can best be addressed.

We are continuing to seek further information from the UK Government about consumer protections in respect of the ECO4 and GBIS schemes.

The UK Minister for Energy Consumers made an oral announcement in the Westminster Parliament on 23 January 2025 stating that 39 companies had been suspended as installers for solid wall insulation as part of these schemes.

We have been assured by the UK Government that these issues are particular to solid wall insulation installed under the Energy Company Obligation 4 and Great British Insulation Scheme. However we have asked them to advise Scottish Ministers further about any concerns raised about the quality of retrofit work undertaken in Scotland as part of these schemes.

As part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to reducing single use plastics, the use of plastic straws was discontinued in Scottish Government buildings in February 2018.

Since August 2022, there has only been one purchase of 1,500 paper straws in 2023 at a cost of £17.21.

Due to a change of catering contractor following a contract re-let, information is not available prior to August 2022.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes statistics on the length of time patients wait to be seen as a new outpatient or admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case in the Stage of Treatment (SoT) publication. The latest publication release contains data up to quarter ending 30 September 2024.

Statistics relating to the total number of ongoing waits and the number of waits with a wait length over 52 weeks by specialty from 31 December 2019 can be found in the ‘Waits over 52 weeks’ data table in sheets ‘Table 3.1.1’ for new outpatient appointments, and ‘Table 3.2.1’ for inpatient or day case admissions.

https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/30453/waits_over_52_weeks_nov24.xlsx

Longer trend information can be found in the following tables:

New outpatient appointments (‘1.6 Table’): https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/30080/newop_nov24.xlsx

Inpatient or day case admission (‘2.6 Table’): https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/30452/ipdc_nov24.xlsx

The Scottish Government supports participation in recreational fishing in several ways.

The Scottish Government has committed through its 2024 Programme for Government to review the way the culture sector is supported, which includes exploring alternative and additional funding mechanisms to grow the overall funding pot for culture in Scotland. A Percentage for the Arts scheme is one of the mechanisms that will be considered as part of this review.