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Since the establishment of Research Data Scotland (RDS) at the end of 2021 my officials have had ongoing engagement with RDS.

Scottish Government Ministers and officials meet regularly with David Lonsdale, the Director of the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC), through engagement with the SRC but also through other means such as the Scottish Government Retail Industry Leadership Group (ILG) - of which Mr Lonsdale is a member. The most recent engagement with the Director of the SRC was held on 22 March 2023. The Scottish Government greatly values regular updates, intelligence and input from the Scottish Retail Consortium which is informing rationale for it’s overall response to the cost crisis and challenges facing Scotland’s retail sector.

Freight works on a commercial basis so the decision to move products by rail is a decision for the customer and its logistics provider.

However, I can confirm that a dedicated express rail logistics service is currently running into Scotland. This service which runs between Birmingham and Mossend, started with a trial period on 17 October 2022 followed by a full operational service running five nights a week from 9 January 2023, is operated by Varamis Rail.

The Scottish Government is currently working with key stakeholders to finalise a new Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus (SHBBV) Strategy, which will supersede the SHBBV Framework published in 2015.

The new Strategy will be published in Spring 2023, and will outline key priorities for the sector for 2023-2026.

The Scottish Government spend on “maintenance and safety schemes" on each of Scotland's A roads in each year since 2007, also broken down by individual A road, is in SPICe at BIB 6412.

The Public Sector Geospatial Agreement, or PSGA, as its commonly known is a 10 year agreement between the Cabinet Office and the Ordnance Survey. The Agreement sets out Ordnance Survey’s public task and also provides the licence mechanism through which OS data is made available, and the basis on which the Scottish public sector may access the data.

In 2020 The Cabinet Office and the Scottish Ministers agreed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to extend the PSGA to cover Scottish Public Sector Bodies with a view to replacing the existing member licences under the One Scotland Mapping Agreement and the Greenspace Scotland Agreement with the Member Licences under the proposed PSGA. Scottish Public Sector Bodies played an extensive role in the development of the PSGA including defining the specification of the datasets that were captured and developed over the first 3 years of the PSGA as part of the National Geospatial Database. As such, the PSGA reflects the requirements of the public sector across Scotland, England and Wales.

The Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) provides access to premium geospatial data, and facilitates the free sharing of data and outputs between members, which will enable efficient evidence-based decision-making across the Public Sector. Over the 10 year contract period starting from May 2020, PSGA is likely to provide Scottish Public Sector organisations with £30 million in savings.

The transition from the One Scotland Mapping Agreement to the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement resulted in an initial cost saving of around 30% to all Scottish PSGA member organisations, with a prime example of this being NHS boards costs which dropped from £700K in 2019/2020 to £472,500 in 2020 / 2021. ?Further to this, Ordnance Survey costs have been front loaded for the first 5 years of the agreement. What this means in reality is that from years 6 through 10, members will have no Ordnance Survey (OS) data costs to pay and for those years and will only pay contribution towards other components of the PSGA agreement such as Aerial Photography, Web Service costs etc. In monetary terms this equates to a £15 million saving to Scottish Public Sector members over the final 5 years of the agreement.

A major part of the PSGA agreement is the ongoing Governance review process, this is where monthly meetings with the Devolved Administrations and the Geospatial Commission look at the key performance indicators (KPI’s) of the agreement ensuring Ordnance Survey continue to meet their obligations and commitments under the agreed contract. The Scottish Geospatial Management Board also meet quarterly to ensure the PSGA continues to represent value for money and continues to provide robust data to Scottish members to support policy and ongoing Public Sector business requirements. This is also an opportunity for Scottish members to address any future or priority data requirements with Ordnance Survey. There is also a quarterly Board of Commissioners meeting where Scotland along with the other devolved administration are represented, with a view to shaping the strategic direction of the agreement going forward at a UK level.

The PSGA also offer substantial operational benefits to Scottish members such as collaboration, meaning procurement is handled centrally thus releasing the resourcing burden on the 80 Scottish member organisations. In terms of Data Access the agreement provides new and easier ways to access data through premium web services such Europa and OS National Geographic Database (OS NGD) API, thus lessening the burden on Scottish member organisation to manage the data locally. The agreement also provides data access at full GB coverage as opposed to just Scotland, this is extremely useful when collaborating with other devolved administrations or any cross border initiatives. Data Sharing within the PSGA makes it easier to share robust definitive Ordnance Survey data or derived data products between Scottish members that support and underpin key policy and business initiatives. This was essential during the recent Covid pandemic and fundamental to how the Scottish Government, Public Health Scotland and the Scottish Public Sector delivered our National response to the pandemic. Key initiatives such as Lock Down mapping, Covid Testing centres , Health and Social initiatives and National Resilience all relied heavily on Data Sharing between the Scottish Public Sector. The PSGA also included Support in terms of interoperability between important National and Local Government datasets due to the consistent high quality base date being provided the Ordnance Survey. Scottish PSGA members can also access Technical Support through the agreement, with four dedicated technical Ordnance Survey staff available to assist and support Scottish members needs if required at no additional cost.

General guidance for local authorities to administer and manage the Private Landlord Registration scheme was issued in 2009: https://www.gov.scot/publications/registration-private-landlords-guidance-local-authorities/pages/1/ .

This was updated in 2017 to provide statutory guidance for local authorities regarding the effective regulation of landlord registration: https://www.gov.scot/publications/landlord-registration-statutory-guidance-local-authorities-2017-statutory-guidance-local/ .

We are preparing further guidance, in consultation with local authorities, that we expect to be issued later this year.

The Scottish Government welcomed the report of the Economy and Fair Work Committee and agrees with the recommendations to focus on coordination, partnership working and long term funding.

The Scottish Government is working with COSLA, local government and partners including Scotland’s Towns Partnership to deliver our joint Town Centre Action Plan (TCAP) to support transformation of our town centres and promote our Town Centres First approach. TCAP sets out a range of cross sectoral and cross policy actions under the priority themes of better planning, taxation, town centre living, enterprising communities, climate action, digital skills and support, funding and demonstrator towns.

We recently established with COSLA the Town Centre Action Plan Forum to bring together expertise from local government and public, private and third sector partners to help progress key actions.

The Scottish Government is co-operating fully with the work of the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry, this will include participating, as required, in public hearings. It is a matter for the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry as to who they call to give evidence.

The Scottish Government welcomes the Age Scotland 2022 Impact report and recognises the work Age Scotland undertakes to support and benefit Older People in Scotland.

We will meet with Age Scotland and other Older People Strategic Action Forum stakeholders later this month.