Seòmar agus comataidhean

The purpose of the meeting on 26 February 2025 was to update myself and the Minister for Climate Action on the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements, the reform options being considered by UK Government, and the potential impact of those options for Scotland.

The briefing paper for this meeting, and list of attendees, including ministers, have already been released under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA). It is standard procedure for names of officials to be redacted in all FOIs under Section 38(1)(b), due to protections around the sharing of Third Party Data, whereby personal data is exempt from disclosure if disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the UK GDPR and in section 34(1) of the DPA 2018.

Upon review of the FOI, section 29(1)(a) was not cited as a redaction used. Information has been redacted under 30(b)(i), however, was redacted due to it relating to the free and frank provision of advice. This exemption recognises the need for Ministers to have space within which to seek advice and views from officials before reaching a settled public position.

In line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by civil servants, including the number of hours spent on them, are not routinely recorded.

Supporting people with ME/CFS, long COVID and similar conditions is a priority for this government and this commitment is reiterated within the recent Programme for Government.

Funding has not yet been allocated to individual NHS health boards. We want this money to have maximum impact and are working closely and carefully with boards across Scotland to allocate it as quickly and effectively as possible.

The purpose of the meeting on 26 February 2025 was to update myself and the Minister for Climate Action on the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements, the reform options being considered by UK Government, and the potential impact of those options for Scotland.

The briefing paper for this meeting, and list of attendees, including ministers, have already been released under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA). It is standard procedure for names of officials to be redacted in all FOIs under Section 38(1)(b), due to protections around the sharing of Third Party Data, whereby personal data is exempt from disclosure if disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the UK GDPR and in section 34(1) of the DPA 2018.

Upon review of the FOI, section 29(1)(a) was not cited as a redaction used. Information has been redacted under 30(b)(i), however, was redacted due to it relating to the free and frank provision of advice. This exemption recognises the need for Ministers to have space within which to seek advice and views from officials before reaching a settled public position.

In line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by civil servants, including the number of hours spent on them, are not routinely recorded.

Through our regeneration investment programmes £294.55m has been delivered in the current Parliamentary term over the period 1 April 2021 until end March 2025 to support community-led regeneration and town centre revitalisation across Scotland. The 2025-26 Scottish Budget allocated £62.15m to deliver regeneration programmes over the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.

While the term National Challenge Competition is very broad, there are a range of policy initiatives which publicly seek new ideas and/or issue funding on a competitive basis. Funds and initiatives of this kind exist across the Scottish Government and it is therefore difficult to provide a comprehensive list without further clarification. However, examples of such initiatives include:

• The work of the Chief Scientist for Health, whose office periodically launches open innovation calls focussed on health challenges facing the Scottish population. Examples of such challenges include drugs deaths and mental health.
• The Civtech programme, which, on an ongoing basis, supports new, small and medium size companies to win public sector contracts by solving key innovation challenges.
• Other forms of pre-commercial procurement in which public bodies contract for services to develop new and innovative solutions.
• Entrepreneurship policy, where funding is regularly issued on a competitive basis. Examples include the recently launched Ecosystem Fund, focussed on backing organisations who support and mentor start-up founders and the Entrepreneurial Education Fund, which invests in projects focussed on embedding entrepreneurial thinking across the Scottish education system.

The Scottish Government is a key partner in the Save a Life for Scotland Partnership, which is working to ensure that all school aged children in Scotland will be given the opportunity to be equipped with CPR skills.

This has included delivery of Restart a Heart Day Live last year. This was a live stream CPR training event targeted at school-age children. The Scottish Government has committed to working with Save a Life for Scotland to deliver Restart a Heart Day Live again in 2025.

The Save a Life for Scotland partnership have a range of resources available on their website for both adults and children to safely learn how to perform CPR.

Prior to 1 September 2024, the Avian Influenza (Preventive Measures) (Scotland) Order 2007 required all keepers with 50 or more poultry at any single premises to notify the Scottish Ministers (in writing) in relation to those premises. The information required by the legislation was held on the GB Poultry Register, and processes to support the enforcement of this legislation, which is the responsibility of local authorities, were long established.

The amendment of this legislation ((by The Avian Influenza (Preventive Measures) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2024), which extended this legal requirement to all bird keepers (with exceptions) and the introduction of the Scottish Kept Bird Register, has merely meant an extension to the enforcement process already in place. Since 1 September 2024 local authorities have continued to seek information regarding the registration status of keepers, using this data to enforce this legal requirement.

To further support this, Scottish Government, in consultation with Local Authorities has developed draft Local Authority Bird Registration Enforcement Guidance for all Scottish Local Authorities, and this guidance is currently being reviewed by The Scottish Local Authority Animal Health and Welfare Strategy Group.

The draft guidelines are based primarily on an educational approach to enforcement of the Scottish Kept Bird Register, particularly whilst keepers grow familiar with the system. However, prosecution for persistent offenders remains an option.

We are working with the UK Government to consider options to potentially streamline Growth Deal governance whilst continuing to ensure a level of scrutiny appropriate to the £3.4 billion of public funding we are collectively investing in the programme. Any changes made to Growth Deal governance would require joint Government endorsement.

I refer the member to the answers to questions S6W-36304 on 9 April 2025 and S6W-37060 on 30 April 2025. The Scottish Government has concluded that, as the primary issue with the functioning of FMAC appears to lie with its current structure, the decision to split the FMAC group should make the group more effective and help address the issues raised within the stakeholder survey.

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 I have set out in my statement to Parliament in April, we intend to introduce a Heat in Buildings Bill in Year 5 of this Parliamentary Session. The final decision on the provisions of the Bill, to be introduced later this year, will be made collectively by Cabinet ahead of its introduction.