Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have assumed the chair of the Grangemouth Future Industry Board’s Industrial Just Transition Forum following its meeting on 18 January.

As outlined in the recently published ‘Culture Strategy for Scotland: Action Plan’, we will continue to work with Creative Scotland, and stakeholders from across the sector, to scope the youth arts strategy which will follow ‘Time to Shine’.

This strategy will be centred on embedding children and young people’s rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) principles, including the voices of children and young people at its core.

The development and implementation of improvements to the data landscape, including the creation of a central repository for culture sector research and data, is a long-term strategic action which will be delivered in close collaboration with sector and expert partners and is currently in the early co-design stage.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water, and the Scottish Government does not hold this information, I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

The following table gives the leakage levels as a proportion of the water put into supply since 2007. All values are expressed as Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) except for 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10; Scottish Water switched to MLE reporting in AR11 - AR08, AR09, and AR10 were top down estimates.

SEPA are responsible for prioritising actions to reduce flood risk in Scotland as part of the Flood Risk Management Planning process set out in the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009. The Scottish Government provides funding to local authorities through the general capital grant to support the implementation of these actions. The distribution of this funding is agreed by Ministers and COSLA Leaders based on the recommendations of a joint Scottish Government/COSLA Flood Risk Management Working Group.

This group is currently considering funding and governance arrangements for future programmes taking on board lessons learned from the first programme and current best practice. These arrangements will apply to measures put forward across Scotland including those put forward for Dundee. Recommendations will be put to Ministers and COSLA Leaders via the joint Scottish Government/COSLA officers’ Settlement Distribution Group throughout 2024.

We will continue to work with local authorities and COSLA to ensure value for money and that the schemes taken forward provide the maximum benefit for local communities.

We are committed to bringing people back into towns and encouraging local footfall as we continue to implement the Town Centre First Principle and deliver the Town Centre Action Plan.

In collaboration with Scotland’s Towns Partnership, we continue to support the Scotland Loves Local programme, which encourages people to think local first, increase footfall in town centres and ultimately support local shops and businesses. This package of support includes the Scotland Loves Local week, highlighting good practice, and continued promotion of the physical and digital Gift Card.

Local Development Plan regulations, which came into force last year, require planning authorities to have regard to any Local Housing Strategy when preparing their plans. This includes their outcomes and actions to address housing need and demand.

National Planning Framework 4 forms part of the statutory development plan and sits alongside Local Development Plans. It contains a general expectation of at least 25% affordable housing provision on development sites, but allows some flexibility to reflect local circumstances. The NPF4 definition of affordable housing explicitly includes ‘housing sold at discount’.

The Scottish Government has not provided any funding directly to Family Mediation West from 2019.

Relationships Scotland operate a network of 21 Member Services across Scotland, including Family Mediation West.

Since 2016, the Scottish Government has provided Relationships Scotland with core funding via the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning & Empowering Communities third sector fund, which will continue until March 2025.

Since 2020, the Scottish Government has provided Relationships Scotland with grant funding to provide child contact services.

Within the Scottish Government, funding of Health and Care Research comes under the remit of the Chief Scientist Office (CSO).

The CSO's Translational Clinical Studies (TCS) Committee and the Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research (HIPS) Committee each meet twice per year to consider funding applications. Details of the application process are published on the CSO website.

https://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/grant-funding/response-mode-funding-schemes/

Research funding is not allocated to any particular condition. The TCS and HIPS committees receive applications from across the clinical spectrum. All applications go through a process of independent expert review to allow funding decisions to be made. Applications on brain tumours are welcomed and go through the independent review process outlined above.

This is an operational matter for ScotRail. The member may wish to contact ScotRail directly for this information.