Seòmar agus comataidhean

Scottish Government officials continue to work with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to ensure that policy proposals for Split Payments are deliverable within the technical constraints of the DWP’s Universal Credit system. We have also carried out work with other external organisations and people with lived experience of Universal Credit to ensure the policy proposal is robust and meets the policy intent, which is to provide everyone in Scotland with access to an independent income and create barriers to potential domestic abuse or financial coercion.

The Scottish Government accepts that this statistic needs revising and we have already committed to undertake further work to quantify Scotland’s offshore wind potential. In response to the issues raised in the UK Statistics Authority’s letter, dated 7 December 2022, the Scottish Government has engaged directly with the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) setting out the steps that have been taken to ensure the statistic is not used further, and provided an update on the analytical work that is underway to produce a replacement statistic.

This publication’s Supporting Documents include a spreadsheet file titled ‘General Practice recorded diagnoses’. Table 4 in this spreadsheet shows GP recorded diagnoses of neurological conditions, by sex and age. For each neurological condition shown, it gives the number of GP recorded diagnoses by sex in the following age bands: 0-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-19. This data is shown in the following table. In some cases small numbers have been suppressed to help maintain patient confidentiality. We do not have data apportioned to the exact age bands in the question.

Number of people diagnosed with ME/CFS by sex and age group

Reducing emissions from our homes and buildings is one of the most important things we can do to help end Scotland’s contribution to climate change, and communities have a key role to play within this.

The Scottish Government’s £300 million Heat Network Fund offers capital grant funding for the rollout of new zero emission heat networks and communal heating systems, as well as the expansion and decarbonisation of existing heat networks across Scotland.

At the start of December, our Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) launched the Community Heat Development Programme. This programme will work with eligible community organisations and groups of householders to help develop their ideas for locally-generated, low and zero carbon heat project ideas.

The following table details the number of full-time equivalent staff, broken down by grade, who have worked on tobacco policy within Health Improvement Division since 2017-18.

Please note the following:

• numbers do not equate to head count within Health Improvement Division.
• vacancies have not been included.
• numbers have been compiled using historic Scottish Government HR records
• during 2020/21 some staff would have focused on COVID pandemic response work

Scottish Government officials had discussions with the Existing Homes Alliance during 2022 as part of the Alliance’s work to develop a Rural Homes Just Transition Package .

ScotWind is at the very early stages, with Option Agreements setting out a potential development of 27.6GW. We are also awaiting the results of Crown Estate Scotland’s evaluation of the INTOG applications, which could deliver a further 5.7GW of targeted oil and gas decarbonisation projects. The need for future offshore wind planning and leasing rounds will be subject to ongoing evaluation of the current programme and the outcome of supporting assessments, such as the Iterative Plan Review, that take into account the further development of a just transition, new and emerging technology and our net zero commitments.

The Green Heat Finance Taskforce meets on a bi-monthly basis with the last meeting taking place on 2 November 2022. All meeting summaries and action points of the Green Heat Finance Taskforce are published on the Green Heat Finance Taskforce webpage following confirmation of Member's approval at the following meeting. Therefore, the action points of the November meeting will be made available on the website in January 2023.

This is a matter for Public Health Scotland. The information requested is not held centrally.

Scottish Ministers take decisions on wind farm applications that are made to them under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989. There are two sites for which two or more applications, under section 36 or section 36c of the Electricity Act 1989, have been submitted in the last 5 years. Site is defined ordinarily as an area delineated in red on an application site map, within which the wind farm development will take place.

These applications have been made to vary the proposed wind farm developments which had previously been granted section 36 consent in the last 5 years. These applications are made to Scottish Ministers under section 36c of the Electricity Act 1989. If the variation is approved, it is the varied development that will be built and operated i.e. it cannot be constructed and operated in addition to the originally consented wind farm.

In the last 5 years there have also been four applications made to Scottish Ministers under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 to extend wind farms, which had previous applications submitted and consented in the last 5 years, by adding additional wind turbines. Some of these applications will use part of a site already consented as the wind farm they are extending.

More detail on these applications can be found by using the search options/fields at Scottish Government - Energy Consents Unit

Wind farms that generate less than 50 megawatts of electricity do not require section 36 consent from Scottish Ministers but are instead determined by the local planning authority. Detailed information on wind farm applications which have been made to local planning authorities over the last five years is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

The right to appeal certain decisions made by local planning authorities is an important part of the planning system. The vast majority of appeals are decided by an independent reporter from the Planning and Environmental Appeals Division (DPEA) of the Scottish Government. In the last five years there have been four wind farm appeals on sites for which there had been an earlier appeal on the same site. In two appeals the later appeal related to a smaller scheme and in the other two appeals the later appeal related to appeals against conditions imposed on the earlier decisions.