Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02513 on 21 September 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

In 2021-22 the Scottish Government allocated £11.7 billion to authorities and it is the responsibility of individual councils to manage their own budgets and to allocate the financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities.

The resourcing and performance of the planning system remain key priorities, and we are aware that authorities across the country are under financial pressure, and that this has impacted on planning departments. That is why in 2019 we published a consultation which proposed making changes to the planning fee regime to increase the financial resources available to authorities. That work was paused during the pandemic but has recently been recommenced and we will work with the High Level Group on Planning Performance to take it forward.

The performance of the system is not the sole responsibility of planning authorities and everyone involved in planning must play their part in ensuring that the system functions effectively and efficiently.

Some planning applications will have longer decision times due to their scale and complexity. Planning decision timescales have also inevitably been affected by the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020-21, despite these impacts, authorities determined 4,293 planning applications for housing.

The Green Jobs Fund is not a skills or training fund. Over the next 5 years, the £100m Fund will provide businesses with capital investment towards improved green products and services and related research and development. All individual funding applications are subject to a detailed appraisal process that includes an equality impact assessment and evaluation of fair work practices. We will also ensure that future larger consortia projects produce plans which help diversify their sectors and will use appropriate monitoring and evaluation frameworks to ensure successful companies and their net zero supply chains provide positive economic and employment impacts that raise skill levels and close skills gaps.

This year, we have also established a Green Jobs Workforce Academy which will help people to get the skills they need to move into new, greener jobs. Training opportunities will be supported by our investment in apprenticeships, our Young Person’s Guarantee, the National Transition Training Fund and £15m North East Economic Recovery Fund which will all take account, in their delivery, of how they can support people from protected and underrepresented groups.

We are developing an approval process for medical exemptions. It is important to say that the number of people for whom vaccination cannot be safely completed with the right support will be very small. Reasons for exemptions would be medical contraindications that might include severe anaphylactic reaction across the range of vaccines and those receiving end of life care. The detail of how this will work will be finalised and published before implementation.

The Scottish Government is carrying out an extensive mapping of good practices relating to climate change and islands both from within the UK and overseas.

Certification provides a targeted and proportionate means to reduce risk while maximising our ability to keep open certain settings and events where transmission is a higher risk. If the choice is between sectors and settings being closed and a limited certification scheme being used to keep them open, we believe that it is right to make a choice in favour of a limited certification scheme. We are working closely and at pace with sectors to finalise a proportionate, effective and robust scheme for each setting before implementation. There are a number of operational and logistical issues which we are working through together. All software, apps and paper copies of certificates will be free to use. Businesses will be able to use an app free of charge to scan the codes used on all certificates and there will be options for venues to integrate the verifier functionality into their own systems, as the source code is open source. Relevant impact assessments, including a BRIA (Business & Regulatory Impact Assessment), will be published when we lay the regulations.

The Scottish Government continues to follow the World Health Organization and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control Covid-19 contact tracing guidance as well as recent evidence on the impact of vaccination in protecting the population from harm and latest evidence on infection and transmission in children and young people. Contact tracing continues to include all contacts in school with public health advice provided on the basis of whether a contact is ‘high-risk’ or ‘low-risk’ with low-risk contacts being identified by schools and receiving targeted ‘Information’ letters. People identified as asymptomatic high-risk exposure contacts, regardless of age, continue to be advised to isolate and to take a PCR test.

The changes made to contact tracing and isolation policy from 9 August continue to deliver an effective public health intervention whilst balancing the risk of health harms across the population with the harms caused by prolonged self-isolation of children and young people.

We will work collaboratively with partners, communities and other stakeholders to take forward the ten-year £500m Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray. The delivery of the Fund will exemplify our co-design and co-delivery approach that will be supported by a programme of broad engagement in the area. This Fund is a new commitment which will require detailed policy design work and implementation planning. We will provide further information on the process in due course.

The Just Transition Fund will support and accelerate energy transition, create good, green jobs and maximise the region’s future economic potential. We are determined to tackle climate emergency and mitigate the impacts of the transition on communities across Scotland, and we will work at pace to deliver our sectoral plans for a just transition.

Under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, it is the duty of NatureScot and local authorities and National Park Authorities to publicise the Scottish Outdoor Access Code. The Scottish Government’s public agencies are running promotional campaigns, such as the Sustainable and Responsible Tourism in Scotland initiative (VisitScotland) or the Responsible Access campaign (Cairngorms National Park). These campaigns promote responsible enjoyment of the countryside, as part of the wider national visitor management strategy co-ordinated by VisitScotland.

Figures show there has been widespread public engagement with these campaigns over the spring and summer period. For example, 12.8 million impressions across social media have been received by NatureScot since March 2021.

£2.75 million has been allocated by Scottish Ministers this year for the Better Places Green Recovery Fund, administered by NatureScot, which partly provides for additional seasonal rangers to promote responsible behaviour in line with the access code. We are also providing our National Parks with an extra £3.6 million in 2021 which will also include additional support for seasonal rangers.

With specific regard to water safety, which is an important issue in urban as well as rural areas, the Scottish Government works closely with Water Safety Scotland and other key partners to implement and support initiatives that can help raise awareness of the hazards around water and reduce deaths from accidental drowning. They run a series of campaigns annually, including ‘Drowning Prevention Week’, ‘Don’t Drink and Drown’ and ‘Inflatable Safety’. The Scottish Government also provides annual grant funding to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to deliver its annual home and water safety programme, which includes providing a secretariat to Water Safety Scotland.

Messaging is performed by a number of public agencies in a number of formats, and cumulative figures on spend are not available.

The North Berwick to Edinburgh rail route is electrified, and therefore is already providing zero emission transport. The services have been upgraded by making use of this government’s significant investment in the new, green electric Class 385 trains for Scotland.