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The £100 million was fantastic and really did increase confidence, particularly after the events of last March, which shook us all—we had thought that we were going to get standstill funding and then we were asked to model cuts.
The members have not yet had that training, but it is under preparation and we are looking at having a whole-day session on that, probably in March. Likewise, Police Scotland is totally supportive of the principles of trauma-informed practice.
A lot of the decision making, however, is very short term, because we are waiting for local authorities to announce their budgets in March. You cannot have a long-term plan for how the DMO will make the region attractive from a marketing perspective, because it is literally going from budget season to budget season.
We are looking at losing 28 Rape Crisis workers across Scotland from next March, and it makes it quite difficult for us to support whole-heartedly the creation of a victims commissioner when front-line services are being decimated.
The latest poverty statistics, which we published in March, show that Scottish child poverty rates continue to be around 6 percentage points lower than the UK average, with the actions of this Government expected to increase that gap still further.
As committee members heard from witnesses on the first panel this morning, the Standing Committee on Structural Safety sent out its alert on RAAC in 2019, and the Institution of Structural Engineers published guidance on RAAC in March 2022, with a revision in April 2023.
—Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 9 March 2023; c 14. In the face of overwhelming evidence that there are problems, how can the Conservatives continue to be tone deaf to the issue?
Now led by Brian McLaughlin, the organisation has been operational since March 2013. It helps to create a healthier and safer region by working closely with key partners in the public and private sectors to create inclusive programmes that engage people of all ages and abilities.
It is probably worth mentioning the statistic that, in March, all-sector house-building completion was at its highest annual rate since 2008, which is an increase of 9 per cent.
A just transition matters to both those global crises and must be responsive and fair to local communities. On 14 March, as a member of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, I raised the concerns that fishers in the Western Isles have about highly protected marine areas.