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Following the introduction of a new HR system, data on the number of civil servants dismissed due to poor performance is only available from 2008. Data available prior to this does not specify the reasons for dismissal.

The number of civil servants dismissed due to poor performance since 2008 is provided in the following table:

The first table shows instances where local authorities are not able to fulfil their legal duties in offering temporary accommodation to households who make a homelessness application, annually for 2019-20 to 2023-24, and for the most recent six months April to September 2024.

The 5-year Recycling Improvement Fund will conclude at the end of 2025-26, at which point the Scottish Government will review the overall Project.

Over the past five years, there have been four fires at a battery recycling centre, six at electronic recycling centres, and thirty nine at conventional recycling centres for a total of forty three fires overall.

The following table breaks down these incidents by centre type and year:

Zero Waste Scotland is currently conducting research on soft plastic recycling to understand collection and processing opportunities. The outputs of this research are expected to be available in the summer of 2025.

Rather than deploying permanent monitoring, which is the common approach for water companies in England, Scottish Water has taken an outcomes focussed approach by carrying out comprehensive Scotland-wide environmental modelling (in partnership with SEPA) to assess the impacts of its assets on water quality during the 2015 to 2021 investment period.

The models which Scottish Water developed allowed it to understand when CSOs will spill, under what rainfall conditions these spills occur and the impact these will have on the environment. This work has allowed Scottish Water and SEPA to prioritise environmental focus and Scottish Water to target its investments accordingly. Adopting this approach has seen consistent improvement in Scotland’s water quality with 87% of all waterbodies meeting Good Status or beyond and 97% of bathing waters meeting or exceeding minimum standards as assessed by SEPA.

In addition to the progress made in improving water quality, Scottish Water recognised the need for more transparency in overflow operation and set out the commitment to install more monitors and to publish the data from these in its Improving Urban Waters routemap.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is responsible for monitoring the water quality of Scotland’s rivers and designated bathing beaches and publishes its classification results annually.

87% of Scotland’s entire water environment is currently assessed by SEPA as having a high or good classification for water quality, up from 82% in 2014.

SEPA’s most recent Bathing Waters classification shows that 97% of Scotland’s bathing waters currently achieve the bathing water quality standards with 87% being rated good or excellent, up from 84% in 2023.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) currently licences and regulates 345 sewer networks operated by Scottish Water, carrying out inspections on a rolling basis under the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 (CAR).

SEPA is currently consulting on its proposals for a new Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme to improve overall levels of compliance, which is available at https://consultation.sepa.org.uk/compliance-and-beyond/epas/.

In 2025, the Scottish Government is incorporating CAR, along with the authorising regimes for industrial emissions, radioactive substances, and waste, into an integrated authorisation framework called the Environmental Authorisation (Scotland) Regulations 2018. One of the main benefits of an integrated authorisation framework for SEPA is more effective enforcement tools to better deal with non-compliant sites and protect the environment. Other benefits are improved efficiency and a more risk based, targeted approach to enforcement.

This is an operational matter for Skills Development Scotland. I have asked the Chief Executive of SDS, Damien Yeates to write to you with details on current budget allocated for the Green Jobs Workforce Academy.

Scotland is leading the way in the green jobs revolution. The PwC Green Jobs Barometer shows that 5.6% of all job adverts in Scotland in 2024 were for jobs that have a positive impact on the environment, meaning Scotland is once again first place among the 12 UK nations and regions in the overall Green Jobs Barometer.