Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government continues to support the development of our ports, and the potential for new direct freight and passenger ferry services linking Scotland to Europe.

I have personally engaged with parties interested in introducing new ferry services, and Transport Scotland officials communicate regularly with potential operators and Scotland’s main ports.

The Scottish Government and its agencies have supported a number of maritime initiatives across Scotland, including establishing a Green Freeport at Forth Ports, which includes Rosyth. This involves both seed capital funding, along with businesses locating within the ports being able to access a package of devolved and reserved tax incentives.

We will continue to engage with port operators and others to explore opportunities for new commercial ferry services, so that Scottish exporters and passengers have more direct routes to and from Europe. However, the Scottish Government cannot subsidise routes in ways which would be anti-competitive beyond considering the availability of limited start-up grant funding opportunities for freight initiatives.

I have raised concerns with the UK Treasury about the impact on public services if this reserved tax increase is not fully funded. The Scottish Government has published updated estimates of the impact of the increase in employer national insurance contributions on the public sector in Scotland. These estimates indicate the combined impact on the public sector and commissioned services is over £700 million. If the UK Government’s reported allocation is all that is provided, the Chancellor will be short-changing services the public depend on by over £400 million. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations estimates that the third sector in Scotland will face additional costs of £75 million per year, plus wider inflation.

The Scottish Government is investing £60 million to renew play parks in Scotland, so children have access to free, high-quality outdoor play in their own communities. We have already committed £35 million since May 2021. The funding is distributed to local authority partners to manage play park renewals based on local needs and priorities.

The allocation per year for South Lanarkshire is:

Figures are not kept in the form requested as FSS officials will work on a range of policy areas according to priorities and workloads. Four policy officials have the necessary expertise to deal with food labelling and allergen issues

Food Standards Scotland has a Food and Health Research Programme, which has a limited budget for procuring research across our entire food safety and dietary health remit; therefore our ability to fully explore the potential of AI in the delivery of our work has been restricted as a result of other priorities and lack of funding. However, through our Strategy and Corporate Plan we have committed to the delivery of a dedicated digital and data strategy, and plans for transforming food law delivery through our Scottish Authorities Food Enforcement Re-build (SAFER) programme, which intends to leverage data and intelligence to provide a greater focus on the enforcement of higher risk establishments. As part of the SAFER programme, we are currently in the process of building digital platforms that will strengthen the robustness of food law inspection data that we collect from the 32 Local Authorities in Scotland, with the aim of using this to develop AI tools that help us to design inspection regimes that are targeted to risk and optimise resources.

Alongside this work, our scientists engage with UK Research and Innovation, across Scottish and UK Governments, with international food regulators and the scientific community to keep abreast of developments in AI, and its potential applications in food law enforcement. We also collaborate with our counterparts in the Food Standards Agency (FSA) on the development of surveillance systems which help us to identify and prioritise risks at UK level (see: Horizon Scanning | Food Standards Scotland and Strategic surveillance and data | Food Standards Agency) and digital tools which support the detection and investigation of outbreaks of foodborne illness (Pathogen Surveillance in Agriculture, Food and Environment (PATH-SAFE) Programme | Food Standards Agency). To support our own work through SAFER, we are also keeping a watching brief on proof of concept work that FSA has been taking forward to explore the use of AI in the inspection of food businesses (FSA: Developing an AI-based Proof of Concept that prioritises businesses for food hygiene inspections while ensuring the ethical and responsible use of AI - GOV.UK), although these applications are still at the development stage.

FSS is a non ministerial office and is therefore directly accountable to Parliament and not to Ministers. FSS oversight - and any assessment of effectiveness -is provided by a non executive board. FSS published an Annual Report and Accounts to Parliament and a Joint Annual Report with Food Standards Agency on Food Safety in the UK. There is regular liaison between Ministers, FSS officials and the FSS chair and the Minister for Public Health and Sport and the FSS CEO have regular meetings to ensure Ministers are kept appraised of FSS activity. Parliament also has the ability to call FSS officials to give evidence with regards to FSS effectiveness.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-34203 on 27 February 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

Accountable Officers are in place to ensure that public money is used efficiently and effectively in line with guidance published in the Scottish Public Finance Manual (SPFM). The SPFM provides guidance on the proper handling and reporting of public funds.

The Scottish Government has spent the following amount in relation to judicial reviews. We are unable to provide a breakdown by case name due to GDPR considerations. Some case names will be in the public domain because the judgments have been published with the full name. However, some cases have been name anonymised and others will not be in the public domain due to being disposed of without a judgment.

As Scottish Government functions have increased and matured, the volume and complexity of outsourced work has also evolved. This work is procured and we are now utilising the third iteration of a framework providing Legal Services to the Scottish Government and the wider public sector. The figures provided in the table set out how much the Scottish Government has spent through those frameworks and the breakdown of costs to each legal firm. We do not centrally gather information on the department spend as there is no business requirement to do. We have interpreted the question as legal costs incurred for outsourced legal work.