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All funding for Community Engagement was distributed in the form of small grants for refugee assisting communities and groups, to enable their engagement in the development of the New Scots Strategy held between Q4 2023-2024. As published in the New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy 2024: Engagement Analysis Report, 72 groups were funded and 81 events were held.

The Scottish Government provided £1.9 million (1,957,987.36) in associated costs to the New Scots refugee integration strategy intermediary/strategic funding through Equality, Connected Communities and Mainstreaming and Inclusion Budgets between July 2019 and March 2024. We do not currently plan to publish a further breakdown in costs.

The Scottish Government have committed £6,000 to Scottish Refugee Council for Lived Experience on New Scots Core Group. We do not intend to publish a further breakdown of cost.

The Office of the Chief Statistician published guidance for public bodies in Scotland on the collection of data on sex and gender in 2021. This guidance recommends that statistics producers should collect data that best serves the needs of users in their specific context, an approach with aligns with the guidance published by the Office for Statistics Regulation in 2024.

The Office of the Chief Statistician published guidance for public bodies in Scotland on the collection of data on sex and gender in 2021. This guidance recommends that statistics producers should collect data that best serves the needs of users in their specific context, an approach with aligns with the guidance published by the Office for Statistics Regulation in 2024.

COPFS holds records of all concluded Fatal Accident Inquiries dating back to 1 April 2013.

For that period, the longest duration from the date of death to the conclusion of the Fatal Accident Inquiry was in relation to the FAI into the death of Boguslaw Kopec. The date of Mr Kopec’s death was 13 March 2011. A First Notice commencing the FAI process was issued on 24 August 2020 and the Inquiry commenced on 9 November 2020. Evidence was concluded on 3 December 2020 and the Sheriff’s Determination was published on 11 March 2021.

The investigation into Mr Kopec’s death was hampered by difficulties tracing and obtaining the evidence of essential witnesses. In addition, Inquiry proceedings could only be commenced after criminal proceedings had been ruled out. Nevertheless, the Crown at that time acknowledged that the time taken to conduct its death investigation in this case had been far too long and apologised for the fact that its investigation and the Inquiry proceedings were not concluded sooner.

COPFS has significantly reformed its processes in recent years to improve the quality of death investigations and reduce the time taken to investigate deaths and bring FAIs to court. However, in some cases FAIs have taken too long to commence and we understand the impact that waiting for investigations to conclude has on families.

Statistics on pupil teacher ratio at local authority and sector level are published annually the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/

Statistics prior to 2004 are not available.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) have provided some of the information requested. According to SFRS data since 2009-2010 there have been a total of 39 lithium-ion battery related fires and incidents in purpose-built flats, converted flats and tenement buildings.

SFRS aims to capture additional data, via their Incident Recording System on any fires, suspected or confirmed, relating to rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. There is ongoing work being undertaken by the SFRS led Electrical Infrastructure Working Group to better understand the risks to communities from fires linked with lithium-ion batteries.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-36103 on 15 April 2025. 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

Our Teaching Bursary Scheme provides £20,000 bursaries for career changers wishing to undertake a one year Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) in the hardest to fill teaching subjects. These subjects include: Physics, Maths, Technical Education, Computing Science, Chemistry and Home Economics.

Statistics on the employment of probationer teachers by subject and employment type are published in the post-probationer teacher employment dashboard, available through the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/post-probationer-teacher-employment-dashboard/