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The following table shows how many school-aged children are in each local authority (as at September 2020) and how many devices have been distributed by councils using the £25m digital inclusion funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21.

Local authorities across Scotland have a range of approaches to provision of technology in schools, including some councils who have undertaken to provide cohorts of their school population with devices using their own budgets. We do not hold information centrally on those approaches, therefore, the following table only shows devices distributed through the funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all school-aged children and young people in Scotland have access to a digital device by the end of this parliament.

The Islands Connectivity Plan (ICP) will replace the Ferries Plan and will consider island connectivity more broadly, including having regard to connecting and onward travel. The ICP will develop objectives based on supporting delivery of the National Transport Strategy 2 and the National Islands Plan, and develop proposals to meet those objectives which represent public value.

The ICP will also include a long-term investment programme for new ferries and development at ports, that will aim to improve resilience, reliability, capacity and accessibility, while increasing standardisation, cutting emissions and meeting the needs of island communities whilst providing value for money.

In addition, the ICP will explore pathways to zero/low emission ferry transport and undertake a ferry fares policy review.

The four-nations arts councils and agencies are working alongside each other to share information and collaborate on more activity and projects, including international work.

This includes Arts Infopoint UK, led by Wales Arts International in collaboration with Arts Council England, Creative Scotland and Arts Council Northern Ireland, which is a pilot initiative aiming to provide clear information and support to artists seeking to travel to the UK.

The pilot Four Nations International Fund, led by Creative Scotland, was launched in October 2021, with 38 projects across many art forms receiving funding. Each project requires a partner in at least one other of the four nations of the UK, in addition to an international partner. Projects include partnerships between Scotland and Wales based organisations.

Other activity undertaken together with Northern Ireland, England and Wales includes conversations around bilateral funds such as the Cultural Bridge Pilot Programme with German partners Fonds SozioKultur and looking towards further collaboration on FLUXUS, a Franco-British programme for contemporary art run by the Institut Français. Creative Scotland’s Cultural Bridge programme supports organisations in the UK and Germany to both deliver programmes of activity in partnership with an organisation in at least one other country, and to develop partnerships as a network across the five countries involved, with the organisations and their communities.

The Scottish Government is represented on the Indigenous Minority and Lesser Used Languages Work Stream where we promote and support the links between our languages and language bodies. In recent times the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and Scots Language Centre have both worked to ensure there are better links with the Scots and Ulster Scots Communities.

Through Colmcille 1500, there has been a partnership between Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland to celebrate St Columba’s legacy and 1500 years since his birth. There have also been many projects supported through a Creative Scotland funding stream set up to encourage activity linking Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic language and culture projects.

Scottish Government supports creating a sustainable quality culture across construction sector and protection of consumers is important. Although mandatory licensing is a reserved matter this is an issue we will raise with the construction sector to understand what the options in this area may be. We have also taken forward actions where we can to help consumers avoid rogue traders.

Although the regulation of consumer protection is the responsibility of the UK Government, under the Scotland Act 2016 the Scottish Government has acquired responsibility for consumer advice and advocacy. We are determined to do all we can to reduce impact from rogue traders on people living in Scotland, within the scope of our devolved powers. The Scottish Government has provided funding to the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland (SCOTSS) to develop and promote an Approved Trader Directory which allows consumers anywhere in Scotland to find if there are any local authority vetted or checked traders in their area.

We understand the threat of rogue traders within the industry and would also point you towards the Strategic Framework within Scotland’s Scams Prevention, Awareness and Enforcement Strategy, published in 19 March 2021, which focusses on prevention, disruption, awareness, education and enforcement. This is intended to help all consumers with practical steps they can take to recognise common scam tactics and avoid the risk posed by this criminal activity.

Further advice can be obtained from consumeradvice.scot which is a free consumer helpline funded by the Scottish Government.

In addition, through the work of the Construction Leadership Forum, Scottish Government is also keen to see renewed focus on construction quality, including regulatory compliance, which will improve life-cycle value to clients and productivity of the industry.

The Scottish Government’s primary sources of data on prostitution offences within the criminal justice system are the annual National Statistics publications on Recorded Crime in Scotland and Criminal Proceedings in Scotland .

Recorded Crime in Scotland is based on a count of these crimes, reported to Police Scotland, and broken down by local authority. The most recent publication covers the 2020-21 financial year.

The Criminal Proceedings in Scotland publication provides statistics on individuals proceeded against in court (specifically their age and gender). Statistics are also available on the result of these proceedings and the subsequent disposal given if the individual was found to be guilty. The most recent publication covers the 2019-20 financial year.

For these statistical collections, prostitution offences fall under the category “Crimes associated with prostitution”, which is included in Sexual crimes. This category includes six specific crime types:

? Brothel keeping;

? Immoral traffic;

? Offences related to prostitution;

? Procuration (excluding homosexual acts);

? Procuration of homosexual acts; and

? Soliciting services of a person engaged in prostitution

Offences related to prostitution is defined in the Scottish Crime Recording Standard as, “A prostitute (whether male or female) who for the purposes of prostitution loiters in a public place; solicits in a public place or in any other place so as to be seen from a public place; or importunes any person who is in a public place.”

The publications described above provide statistics on the Crimes associated with prostitution group but do not routinely include separate figures on the six crime types listed above. However, this information is available on request.

As an example, below we show data from the last available five years for recorded crime (Table 1) and criminal proceedings (Tables 2-4, covering proceedings, convictions and conviction rates, respectively). Note: criminal proceedings data is only available up to 2019-20, whereas recorded crime is up to 2020-21.

Care should be taken when comparing these different data sources. For example, recorded crime statistics count crimes and offences at the time that they came to the attention of Police Scotland while criminal proceedings statistics report on cases which have concluded in court. This means that a crime may be recorded by the police in one year and court proceedings concluded in a subsequent year. In addition, a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime, or a set of crimes with more than one victim, in a proceeding, but only the main charge is counted in these court proceedings statistics. There is also the possibility that the crime recorded by the police may be altered in the course of judicial proceedings.

Table 1. Police recorded crimes associated with prostitution, Scotland, 2016-17 to 2020-21

The Improvement Service (IS), who manage the application process, have informed us at close of business on 1 March 2022 there had been a total of 201,306 online applications submitted. The breakdown by local authority has not been provided by IS at this stage, however I have asked my officials to pursue this matter to give a more granular breakdown of applicants.

The Improvement Service (IS), who manage the application process, do not have the statistics on applications started available. Some online applications were submitted in advance of the 10 January 2022 application open date. At close of business on 1 March 2022, there had been a total of 201,306 online applications submitted.

The IS are able to report on the online rejection numbers only. At close of business on 1 March 2022, 47,251 applications had been rejected. Among the most common reasons for rejection were:

? Abbreviated birth certificate supplied which contains insufficient information necessary to prove that a parent is authorised to act on behalf of a child.

? Documents supplied cannot be read

? Parental ID not supplied

? Mismatch on address

? Data mismatch

? Non-compliant photo

? Documents do not pass security features checks

? Wrong date of birth

? Duplicate application

? Failed ID verification checks

Up to 930,000 young people aged between 5 and 21 will be eligible for the Young Persons' Free Bus Travel Scheme. This is in addition to almost 60,000 young people in this age group who already hold National Entitlement Cards providing access to the existing Free Bus Travel Scheme for Older and Disabled Persons. The following table provides population estimates calculated by Transport Scotland on the basis of data published by National Records of Scotland.

The Improvement Service (IS), who manage the application process, have informed us that at close of business on 1 March 2022 a total of 144,377 cards had been produced and despatched.

The latest figures that IS have provided broken down to a local council level are from close of business on 14 February 2022 and can be found in the following table.