Chamber and committees

sportscotland, our national agency for sport, continues to engage strategically with local authorities and island communities to identify opportunities to deliver improved local facility provision for sport and physical activity.

The Scottish Government recognises the commitment required from young athletes to develop and pursue their sporting ambitions, appreciating that this can place additional demands on athletes and families, such as time and money. Sportscotland’s Athlete Travel Award Scheme (ATAS), run in partnership with Shetland, Orkney, Western Isles and Highland local authorities, is a key programme that helps to support athletes with those specific challenges. Successful applicants to the ATAS scheme benefit from up to £1,500 to support travel and accommodation costs, gaining better access to competitive and developmental opportunities.

The Scottish Government has also made significant investment to ensure that ferry fares are affordable, including the introduction of Road Equivalent Tariff (RET), a 50% discount on school bus fares, and, from 23 June 2025, an extension to the existing 4 free journeys per year scheme to include 16 to 21 year olds.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

There are currently no plans at present to update The Prison and Young Offenders Institutions (Scotland) Rules 2011.

SPS focus remains on addressing the current population pressures across our estate as we will continue to work with the Scottish Government to achieve a sustainable long-term position concerning the management of the rising prison population in Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-37086 on 6 May 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

The Scottish Government is working with COSLA to explore possible options for removing non-residential social care charges within the current budget settlement as part of ongoing social care improvement and reform activity.

The Official Statistics on Recorded Crime in Scotland provide data on shoplifting and offences recorded under the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021. The statistics include the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police, and the proportion cleared up (i.e. where there exists a sufficiency of evidence under Scots law to justify consideration of criminal proceedings against the suspected perpetrator). Information is not held centrally by the 8 Scottish Parliamentary regions, as these do not fully align with local authority boundaries (which form the basis of how data is received from Police Scotland).

Data on recorded shoplifting and the proportion of cases cleared up is available in the Recorded Crime in Scotland 2023-24 publication. The number of crimes recorded is available in Table 1 with the percentage of recorded crimes cleared up by the police in Table 3. Both of these tables include the latest 10 years of data.

The following tables show both the number of crimes and offences recorded and the proportion cleared up under the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021 Data is available from 24 August 2021 (the point from which the Act came into force).

Crimes of assault or threaten a retail worker recorded in 2021-22 to 2023-24

The scope of the digital dermatology pathway is for new referrals from primary care into secondary care dermatology services. The Scottish Government’s NHS Operational Improvement plan has set out that no one is waiting longer than a year new outpatient appointments and committed an additional £100 million in 2025-26 to target long waits for procedures that include diagnostic tests, resulting in an extra 150,000 appointments. The Scottish Government has been working closely with NHS health boards to target this investment and coordinate effective delivery to identify and address their own waiting lists.

The University of Dundee is an invaluable component of the economic, social and cultural success of the city and region. The Scottish Government continues to work with external partners and internal analysts to better understand the economic impact the University has, locally and nationally. Universities are autonomous institutions, and whilst Ministers cannot compel a commitment to no compulsory redundancies, the university is expected to work with staff to make every effort to protect jobs. We will continue, alongside the Scottish Funding Council, to work closely with the sector on its sustainability into the future. A Strategic Advisory Taskforce has been established, bringing together expertise to support the development of a sustainable future for the University, the region, and the wider economy. The first meeting of that Taskforce was held on 24 April. Membership includes a range of stakeholders including skills and enterprise agencies as well as representatives of the business community.

The first table shows instances where local authorities are not able to fulfil their legal duties in offering temporary accommodation to households who make a homelessness application, annually for 2019-20 to 2023-24, and for the most recent six months April to September 2024.

A national public energy company that is involved in large-scale energy generation would only be possible in an independent Scotland where we had full powers over the energy market and full access to borrowing. The Green Industrial Strategy sets out how the people of Scotland will see maximum benefits from Scotland’s energy transition, including identifying Scotland’s wind economy as one of the five opportunity areas.

We are investing up to £500m over five years to anchor our offshore wind supply chain in Scotland and are almost tripling our capital funding to £150 million in 2025-26.

There are twenty-five operational windfarms on Scotland’s national forests and land, managed by Forestry and Land Scotland. None of the windfarms are community owned in whole or part.