Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government and delivery partners such as Circularity Scotland, and Zero Waste Scotland have regularly engaged with businesses on the Deposit Return Scheme.

The new launch date of 1 st of March 2024 provides an additional six and a half months preparation time for businesses and the scheme administrator. This includes time for end to end testing.

Working with partners we have refreshed the system-wide governance for the implementation stage of the programme. This now includes a Ministerial Strategic Assurance Group which will meet for the first time during May 2023 and sectoral groups representing producers, retailers, hospitality and the public sector, most of which have already had their first meeting.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-17454 on 12 May 2023. 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 .

The Acorn storage project at St. Fergus is a vitally important part of a wider Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage opportunity in Scotland. Scottish Government economic scenario analysis shows CCUS would have a positive impact on the Scottish economy. In 2045 Scottish GDP could be 1.3-2.3% (£3.8Bn-£6.7Bn) higher in scenarios with CCUS, than without. By deploying CCUS, hydrogen and direct air capture technologies in Scotland, the Scottish Cluster believes it could support an average of 15,100 jobs between 2022-2050, with a peak of 20,600 jobs in 2031.

Whilst these significant benefits will undoubtedly positively impact the North-East, the Scottish Government’s ambitions for CCUS extend Scotland-wide, and the development of strategically located CCUS infrastructure in Scotland’s industrial clusters in Grangemouth and the North-East could protect and ensure the just transition for important domestic industries into a low-carbon future, protecting jobs and utilising existing skills.

I welcome the recent refurbishment of Glasgow Royal Concert Hall earlier this year. The refurbishment upgraded the Main Auditorium seats and the stage lifts and allowed for important accessibility improvements.

There have been no discussions between the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council and Glasgow Life regarding the future of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

Apprenticeships are a vital resource for employers to invest in their workforce and for people to develop their skills. Investing in skills across people’s lifetimes is critical to our future productivity and success, underlining our commitment to a skilled workforce set out within the National Strategy for Economic Transformation.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) is responsible for managing the modern apprenticeship programme in line with Ministerial expectations, and taking into account industry demand. The Modern Apprenticeship demand assessment includes consultation with industry to inform the contracting strategy .

It is standard practice for SDS to work with employers and review changing employer demand for apprenticeship starts in-year, and they adjust the number of starts allocated to respond as appropriate within their budget.

This month, SDS concluded a reallocation process and will issue updated contract awards for over 2,000 new Modern Apprenticeship starts to providers with strong evidence of employer demand and where there is a need to support critical skills in the economy. SDS will continue to follow this process this financial year.

Annual waste data will be submitted to SEPA who will also undertake verification inspections. It is our intention to ensure that DRS packaging data is identified in our waste data reporting.

a) In financial year 2021-2022, £1 million was allocated to organisations working to tackle social isolation and loneliness. This funding has supported work including helplines, befriending, and practical support.

Many of the 48 organisations funded through the Equality and Human Rights Fund also work on tackling social isolation. The Equality and Human Rights Fund will distribute up to £7 million annually for the three years from October 2021 to September 2024.

The Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults launched in October 2021 and has invested £21 million in supporting grass roots community groups in building resilience and tackling social isolation, loneliness and mental health inequalities made worse by the pandemic and, more recently, the cost crisis.

The Connecting Scotland digital inclusion programme delivered a Winter Support Package and two Fast Track schemes with a focus on social isolation in 2021-22. £6.8 million was spent on devices, connectivity and skills support across 32 local authorities in Scotland.

b) In 2022-23, over £1 million was provided to organisations working to tackle social isolation and loneliness and mitigate the impact of the cost crisis.

The Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund, for which social isolation and loneliness is one of the priority areas, was funded with a further £15 million in 2022-23.

In the first two years of the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund, approximately 3300 grants were made to local organisations across Scotland to a wide range of grassroots community projects including those based around peer support, physical activity, arts and crafts activities, social interaction and befriending, with a strong emphasis on the key themes of prevention and early intervention, suicide prevention and addressing social isolation.

Information on the number of lone parents receiving Scottish Government funded employability support in each year since 1999 is not held centrally.

Official statistics for Fair Start Scotland (launched April 2018), and experimental statistics for No One Left Behind, our strategic approach to employability delivery (launched April 2019), are published quarterly by the Scottish Government and include data on lone parents. The publication relates only to Scottish Government funded activity data and not the entirety of employability related activity in each local authority area.

The most recent publication was on 22 February 2023 (Scotland's Devolved Employment Services: statistical summary February 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)). Statistics available for lone parents supported are shown below.

Table 1: Number of lone parents joining Fair Start Scotland from year 1 (April 2018 to March 2019) to year 5 so far (April 2022 to December 2022)

Provisional data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that the Business Enterprise Research and Development (BERD) expenditure estimate for Scotland in 2021 was £3.12bn. Note that the ONS has recently changed their measurement of BERD. The BERD statistics methodology has been improved to better capture data from smaller businesses, which has led to significant uplift revisions to BERD expenditure estimates. More work is required to further quality assure the new methodology and we will continue to work with the ONS on that. The Scottish Government and its agencies invested an additional £45m to support the increase of BERD between 2018 and 2021.

Previous Governance models for Scottish Government chronic pain policy have involved people with lived experience in a variety of methods – including individual representation, a wider reference group of lived experience, elected representatives and members of chronic pain or associated other condition advocacy groups. Views from these groups had therefore already been solicited to help inform the development of the Framework.

Our Equality and Impact Assessment for the Framework identified the need to amplify the voices of groups of people who may be impacted by chronic pain but typically overlooked when it comes to engagement as they are not members of organised groups associated with a condition. Therefore there was a specific requirement for participants to be recruited independently of existing groups and structures to broaden the reach of engagement and ensure diversity of experience was included.