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As stated in the answer to S6W-20375 on 16 August 2023, the national acquisition programme will be run as part of the Affordable Housing Supply Programme which aligns with the Scottish Government’s Principles for Programme and Project Management.

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

A series of meetings, both at a political and official level, are underway to engage with local authorities on the Scottish Government’s response to the recommendations of the Temporary Accommodation Task and Finish Group. We are aware that there are some areas of the country where this work is less urgent, such as local authorities where registered social landlords (RSLs) have a low supply of stock or the type of stock is not in demand.

We are working with the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and the Glasgow West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations and other partners to identify ways to target action on the local authorities with the greatest temporary accommodation pressures, including some stock transfer authorities. We will report on outcomes from these discussions in due course.

The Scottish Government is committed to the creation of a Scottish Veterinary Service (SVS) to ensure there are highly trained staff to provide Scotland with good animal health and food safety to meet all our needs across the public and private sector for animal health issues. For that purpose, a Programme has been established to manage the work required to create an SVS.

The Extension to the Review of Field Delivery of Animal Health Services in Scotland report, conducted by Professor Charles Milne, followed up on the earlier Field Delivery of Animal Health Services in Scotland, and was based on interviews with individual sand organisations involved in animal health services in Scotland and beyond.

The SVS Programme is assessing which functions the SVS should deliver, including border checks. APHA is only responsibility for border checks on live animals, with Scottish Local Authorities responsible for checks on animal products.

Scottish Government Officials liaise regularly with the Animal and Plant health Agency, as well as Defra, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive officials to ensure that suitable arrangements are in place, in due course, to mitigate against any risks to animal health and welfare as a result of different arrangement for the delivery of veterinary controls in Scotland. It is impossible, however, to make effective plans for the delivery of border checks while the UK Government continues to delay the publication of the awaited UK Target Operating Model for Borders.

The Scottish Government’s guidance ‘Included, Engaged and Involved Part 1: a positive approach to the promotion and management of attendance in Scottish schools’ makes clear the need for schools to follow up absence immediately, and to continue to follow up absence for those for whom there are welfare concerns.

Local authorities are expected to have robust processes and guidance for children who do not attend school from the first day they are absent until they are re-engaged with education. Where children are missing for extended periods of time, or are not on a school roll or being educated otherwise, the Children Missing from Education Guidance and Service can support local authorities in this.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on children persistently absent from school centrally. Information on rates of children persistently absent from school would be for local authorities to collect.

The £500 million Just Transition Fund for North East and Moray has allocated £75 million to date, including a multi-year capital programme supporting 24 projects. The open and competitive bidding round assessed projects against published criteria in line with public finance guidelines. Details of successful projects are published here: Just Transition Fund: year one projects - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . I have committed to regular updates on progress towards a just transition to net zero to Parliament and the Just Transition Commission.

The pathfinder projects supported through the Green Growth Accelerator are still at the development stage and, as such, no private investment has been secured yet.

Building safety is a matter for the owner - who in this case would be individual local authorities - acting in accordance with the relevant health and safety legislation. Moreover, health and safety legislation is not devolved to the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on major rebuilding or refurbishment requirements. It is the statutory responsibility of local authorities to manage and maintain their school estate.

Since 2007 the quality of the school estate has improved from 61% to over 90% of schools reported in good or satisfactory condition.

Building safety is a matter for the owner - who in this case would be individual local authorities - acting in accordance with the relevant health and safety legislation. Moreover, health and safety legislation is not devolved to the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government does not routinely collect data on out-of-catchment applications and does not hold information about the number of applications that have been submitted for pupils in primary and secondary schools or what proportion of those were successful.

Local authorities are responsible for procedures for dealing with out-of-catchment applications for school places and will hold such data locally.