Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04136 on 16 November. 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.

The manufacturing facility in Machrihanish is a major asset to the local Kintyre area and should be fully active and providing valuable local employment. The majority of the workforce was made redundant throughout late 2019/early 2020 following a significant gap in the company’s order book (c90 employees). PACE support was provided to employees at that time. Only one employee remained onsite to manage the upkeep of the facility throughout 2020 until the company entered into administration on 8 September 2021.

The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service received a response to 17 of the 18 recommendations (determinations) made by the Sheriff, within 8 weeks of publication of the determination, as per the statutory requirement.

The implementation of any recommendations made by the Sheriff is primarily the responsibility of the respective organisation at which the recommendation was aimed.

In 1 of the 18 determinations, no response was received by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service within the 8 week statutory period. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service published a notice under Section 28(7) of the 2016 Act to this end.

The dataset which was used to advise of the number of fatal accident inquiry recommendations is the Fatal Accident Inquiry Report 2020-2021. The statistics that inform the report are compiled by Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and confirmed with Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

The report was laid before the Scottish Parliament on 17 June 2021 and published on the Scottish Government website gov.scot.

Fatal Accident Inquiries (FAIs): statistics 2020-2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The published information is set out below.

The statistics for the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 for Fatal Accident Inquiries under the 2016 Act are as follows.

• Number of FAIs that ended during the year: 61
• Number in which recommendations requiring a response were made: 8
• Number of such recommendations made: 18
• Number of such recommendations in relation which a response was received by SCTS under section 28(1): 17
• Number of such recommendations in relation to which a notice was published by SCTS under section 28(7) (signalling that no response was received): 1

All 2016 Act determinations, recommendations and responses are accessible from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service web portal at: http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/the-courts/sheriff-court/fatal-accidents

The Scottish Government does not hold the requested data as the franchise agreement does not obligate the franchisee to provide this information.

The member may wish to contact ScotRail for the requested information.

Performance information for ScotRail is available on-line, at the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) Data Portal (Table 3.18). An on-line link to this table can be found via:

http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/displayreport/report/html/5b6fbf8a-7fab-469e-9855-6c6cb4ff67dc

It includes ScotRail’s Public Performance Measure (PPM) information by operating sector and overall, on both a by-period and a moving-annual-average basis.

Also, ScotRail publishes quite detailed information for each four week period on by-station and by-sector PPM. This information is published at stations, and is also available on-line, via: https://www.scotrail.co.uk/performance-and-reliability

As part of delivering the Neurological Care and Support – a National Framework for Action and meeting the National Health and Well-being Outcomes, we are working closely with health and social care services to contribute in reducing health inequalities. We will continue this work over the course of the Framework, ensuring the necessary resource is directed at addressing the underlying causes of health inequalities.

We anticipate that resources such as the Scottish Multiple Sclerosis Register will inform this work, through enhancing our understanding of the MS epidemiology and landscape in Scotland, and helping us to identify where we can focus work to further drive up standards of care.

Across the Scottish Government, and with COSLA and Public Health Scotland, work to drive improvement in health and wellbeing at a community level is being progressed. We will do this by developing a framework to support a coherent place-based approach to tackling health inequalities within communities.

The Scottish Government is commissioning an evaluation of the pilot approach to early learning and childcare (ELC) access for children who defer Primary 1. We anticipate that full evaluation findings covering year 1 and 2 pilots will be published in spring 2023, with interim results used to inform the implementation process. In addition, a Deferral Working Group has been established, to identify and share best practice and collect useful feedback throughout the pilot process. Membership of the working group includes all pilot authorities and representatives from all Regional Improvement Collaboratives, to ensure that non-pilot authorities will be included in those conversations. Meeting papers are published on the Scottish Government website.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04086 on 16 November 2021. 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

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The following tables detail the (a) Average Occupancy (b) Design Capacity and (c) the Occupancy Rate of each prison between March 2021 to September 2021.

The Occupancy Rate and the Design Capacity rate are the average for each calendar month.

MARCH 2021

The following table summarises the number of Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) applications received, applying specifically for Slurry Storage and of those how many were (a) were approved and (b) are awaiting a decision, in each year since 2015. The figures below exclude those applications that were submitted then subsequently withdrawn by the businesses concerned.

Please note that the 2015 round did not include a Slurry Store option and that the 2020 round was not open to new applications, rather a one year’s extension was offered to all Management options that were due to end in 2020. Not all businesses accepted the offer. Slurry Store is not a Management Option, it is capital only, and as such was not included in the round.

The 2021 round that closed at the beginning of July 2021 was also extended. These applications are still being assessed.

1Excludes those applications that were submitted then subsequently withdrawn by the businesses concerned.

* Application type not included in Round.