Seòmar agus comataidhean

Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) is well placed to assist with the implementation of the Scottish Government policy to expand the range and size of the beaver population within Scotland over the next 10 years.

It is working closely with colleagues in Scottish Government land agencies, partners, and landowners/managers with an interest in actively expanding the beaver population into new areas within Scotland.

FLS is an active member of the newly formed Beaver Advisory Group, which has replaced the Scottish Beaver Forum.

The Offers of Accommodation scheme set out to replace the previous two-stage Expression of Interest process which enabled potential hosts to submit information about their properties, with a streamlined, single-stage online form, designed on user-centred principles and built by the Scottish Government’s Digital teams. The new Offer to Host form can be found at Offer to host - Start page (ukrainehostoffers.service.gov.scot) The form went live, initially for a limited trial, on 22 November and was promoted through a news announcement, social media and a distribution of a partner toolkit. Since the form went live, it has had 442 completed submissions as of 14 February, which are now being checked by Local Authorities and fed back to Matching teams.

The Offers of Accommodation form now feeds in directly to the Warm Scottish Welcome Matching Tool used by the National Matching Service since September 2022. This digital tool was designed by Scottish Government Digital teams, in collaboration with COSLA and Scottish Government operational officials, to facilitate the matching of Ukrainian Displaced People in Welcome Hub accommodation to longer term hosting and social housing opportunities across Scotland.

The Matching Tool is currently being rolled out to a small selection of Local Authorities, with the ambition of all 32 Local Authorities being invited to have access to the platform over the course of the coming months. Ahead of the wider roll-out, staff at all Scottish Local Authorities have been invited to begin necessary background checks on 17 February.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14804 on 22 February 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

As noted in my answer to question S6W-14449, work on the two-year report on the activities of the National Performing Companies was suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

I will consider whether this work should be restarted given the National Performing Companies all publish their own annual reports on their individual websites including information relating to their community and education programmes, financial figures and key artistic achievements.

Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) have identified eight sites on Scotland’s national forests and land where within range translocations of beavers are considered to be ecologically feasible. We anticipate beavers to be moved to these sites after the kit dependency period in 2023.

A further three projects for range expansion translocations are at early stages of investigation and the number of suitable sites is as yet undetermined. It is expected these sites to be ready to accept beavers from 2024 onwards.

Skills Development Scotland deliver careers services to all 358 publicly funded secondary schools in Scotland.

The following details the number of people employed by the requested organisations in each period asked for:

We are jointly funding a £250,000 endometriosis research project with Wellbeing of Women and the recipient of the grant will be announced in March. The funding for the research will cover a period of 3 years, from financial year 2022/23, after which the findings will be published.

Additionally, in January 2023 our Chief Scientist Office announced funding for the ENDOCAN project, led by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, that will investigate whether a large scale, UK-wide trial to determine whether a cannabinoid can reduce endometriosis-associated pain. Funding of £299,509 has been committed to this 30 month project.

Applications for warrants of entry are dealt with by the courts. The information requested is not held centrally. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service have established a working group to review the process for dealing with utility warrants, including the data recorded, with a view to improving the information currently available.

The Cost of Living National Performance indicator is disaggregated by disability on the National Performance Framework Data Explorer. It was last updated on 3 Feb 2023 with the 2018-21 data, showing that disabled people spent 34% of their income on housing, fuel and food compared to 23% of income among non-disabled people. As this data precedes the cost of living crisis, Scottish Government published an analytical report on the available cost of living evidence on 2 November 2022. The report includes a summary of available evidence on disabled people’s costs. We know that disabled people often incur additional living costs and are disproportionally affected by the cost crisis, with evidence of higher prices for energy bills, food, and fuel costs. The Scottish Government provides a range of disability benefits to help disabled people and those with long-term conditions. Disability benefits are designed to provide financial support to disabled people to mitigate the additional costs of living with a disability or health condition. The Scottish Government is uprating disability assistance by 10.1% in April 2023, in line with the September CPI inflation rate. We are currently working with Disabled People’s Organisations and their members to develop a new Disability Equality Strategy in 2023. The cost crisis and disability poverty have been identified as key areas of focus in this strategy.