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The Scottish Government places great importance on community sports and leisure facilities, such as swimming pools. They are crucial to the wellbeing of all our country and most importantly, for our children and young people to be healthy and active.

sportscotland are working with local and national partners to help them assess the impact of any potential facility closures and these discussions will continue over the coming weeks and months.

In addition, sportscotland are supporting Scottish Swimming to undertake the Scottish Swimming Facilities Project. This is a detailed piece of work to accurately understand the current pool provision and life cycle, and to predict the landscape in the short, medium, and long term. This important piece of work can help inform future investment decisions both nationally and locally to ensure sustainable facilities, in the right places, to serve their local communities’ needs.

We are fully aware that local authorities are facing challenging financial circumstances, particularly in the maintenance and operating of facilities such as swimming pools, largely due to energy costs and other cost of living pressures.

The 2023-24 Local Government settlement of £13.5 billion provides a cash increase in day to day spending of over £793 million, a real terms increase of £376 million. As confirmed in the Autumn Budget Revision on 28 September 2023, all consequentials available from the UK Spring Budget have now been allocated, with the Local Government Settlement increasing by £254 million accordingly. It is for democratically elected Councils to manage their own budgets and to make decisions on the priorities in their local communities.

Applications for onshore wind development with a capacity in excess of 50 megawatts (including applications to extend and vary wind farms in excess of 50 megawatts where an application was made to Scottish Ministers) that have been withdrawn by the applicant in the last 10 years are presented per planning authority area, for each year from 2013 - to date, in the following table.

Withdrawn applications - 2013 - to date

Through the Scottish Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (SIETF), to date, The Scottish Government has awarded the following proportion of the SIETF; (a) micro 3%, (b) small 12% , (c) medium-sized 17% and (d) large 68%.

In January 2023 we published the draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan for consultation, after a delay to ensure wide stakeholder engagement and to allow for the finalisation of the technical evidence base.

The consultation closed on 9 May 2023 and received a very high level of responses. We published an independent consultation analysis report in September 2023. It is critical that we respond to the views expressed in the consultation and continue to engage with stakeholders as we work towards the final publication by Summer 2024, including the Just Transition Commission.

We recognise the important role the third sector can play in supporting people to access support they are entitled to and are committed to working in partnership to develop our devolved approach to employability.

Both Scottish and Local Government have been clear that No One Left Behind will deliver a mixed economy of provision at a local level, meaning organisations including those in the third sector can continue to have a role in providing support based on local demand.

At a local level, Local Employability Partnerships (LEPs) bring together a range of partners including the third sector to build local capacity and take a collective leadership approach to decision making within their local areas to meet service user and labour market needs.

Data collected is recorded as a collective for 16–24-year-olds and not broken down by funding stream. Therefore, we are not able to provide a breakdown of training opportunities that are funded through Young Person’s Guarantee. Our Devolved Employment Services: statistical summaries, which included data on‎ 16–24-year-olds, are published quarterly and are available on our gov.scot website.

Regarding applications for onshore wind development with a capacity in excess of 50 megawatts (including applications to extend and vary wind farms in excess of 50 megawatts where an application was made to Scottish Ministers) that have been granted contrary to a planning authority objection in the past 10 years are presented in the following table.

Consented with planning authority objection – 2013 – to date.

ScotRail officials advise that, independently from ScotRail Peak Fares Removal pilot, it is working to reduce the number of current vacancies by introducing a new recruitment method to advertise externally with more general adverts now being used rather than advertising for specific roles. This will enable ScotRail to recruit for various roles simultaneously to speed up the process of filling vacancies.

ScotRail has also secured additional external support to work alongside its internal recruitment team, which is now in place.

By the end of 2023, we intend to confirm the future scope of SIETF applications, taking into account the needs of Scotland's industrial base and the remaining allocated funding at that time. The decision will be informed by liaison with the UK Government regarding responses to the IETF consultation and consideration of options to extend the fund.

Awareness and promotion of the Young Person’s Guarantee among employability staff was achieved using existing networks and communication channels.