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I have asked Alison Byrne OBE, Chief Executive of National Records of Scotland (NRS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

A programme of audit and other service based assurance reviews (including Digital Major Programme, Procurement, Cyber, Information management and archive assurance) are undertaken on a rolling basis across NRS services and functions with recommendations implemented to ensure efficient and effective delivery operations. The organisation also receives independent challenge through an Audit and Risk Committee comprised of Non-Executive Directors.

Please see below for a breakdown of the collective advertising spend given to community radio stations over the past five financial years, as the 2024-25 financial year is not yet complete the information is not included. This breakdown includes a list of the stations that received advertising spend within each year. Information on individual spend per radio station is not available to us as this is deemed commercially sensitive.

I have asked Alison Byrne OBE, Chief Executive of National Records of Scotland (NRS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Registration service fees are set by the Registrar General for Scotland with the approval of the Scottish Ministers under The Registration Services (Fees, etc.) (Scotland) Regulations 2006.

Fees contained within the schedules were last amended in 2010 and 2022. These regulations provide instruction for the charges associated with accessing records through the Scotland’s People website.

The fees for inspecting, searching and issuing copies of any records transmitted to the Keeper of the Records of Scotland are set by the Court of Session with consent of Scottish Ministers under the Act of Sederunt (Fees in the National Archives of Scotland) 2005.

In 2022, the Registrar General for Scotland, with the approval of the Scottish Ministers, increased the fees payable for submission of a marriage notice and submission of a notice of a proposed civil partnership from £30 to £45 per party to the intended marriage or civil partnership.

All other statutory fees have remained unchanged since 2020.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33014 on 21 January 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

The Scottish Government promotes community engagement with local radio stations through a number of ways.

We recognise the importance of ensuring people across Scotland have access to important information and radio of course provides a vital service. That is why we continue to use local radio operators as part of our public health marketing campaigns across Scotland.

The Scottish Government speaks regularly with Ofcom, the regulator for communications services who allocate the Community Radio Fund throughout Scotland to promote Scottish interests in community radio.

I have asked Alison Byrne OBE, Chief Executive of National Records of Scotland (NRS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

NRS’ function is to collect, preserve and produce information about Scotland's people and history and make it available to inform current and future generations. Our services including holding Scotland’s National Archives, one of 5 National Collections in Scotland, the registration of vital events (births, deaths, marriages etc) and the production of population and demographic statistics, including taking the decennial Census of Scotland’s people.

NRS is committed to improving its services and putting the needs of our customers at the heart of everything we do. Recent improvements include:

In 2024, NRS launched our refreshed and modernised Scotland’s People website and recently refreshed the corporate website. This improves online access to public records, archives and statistics, together with a modernised Digital Archive Search Room to provide a dedicated space for researchers to access digitised archival records.

An increasing number of birth and death registrations are now carried out remotely following implementation of the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022.

NRS has launched a new and innovative interactive online mapping tool and Flexible Table Builder tool allowing users to access detailed Census 2022 data and combine information from different topics like religion, health or education down to neighbourhood level. This allows all users to utilise the information for their defined analysis alongside our continued delivery of all of our high quality demographic statistics in line with UK standards and through enhancement of our statistical services.

As records are increasingly created and held in digital form, NRS is scaling up its capability in order to ensure that it can continue to preserve and make available future additions to the national archive in ‘born-digital’ form.

NRS has for some years, provided a web continuity and web archiving service. This takes regular snapshots of key public authority websites, supporting business continuity for public bodies as well as providing valuable historical information for public transparency and research purposes.

I have asked Alison Byrne OBE, Chief Executive of National Records of Scotland (NRS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

As a Non-Ministerial Department in the Scottish Administration, NRS receives its funding from the Scottish Government and its annual budget is approved and published each year, as part of the Scottish Government’s budget, by the Scottish Parliament.

Scottish Government marketing teams do not specify inclusion of any specific media outlets to media agencies who prepare the media strategy and schedules based on audience to ensure advertising is as effective as possible and delivers high levels of reach for the investment. Therefore campaign budget is also a critical factor in media agencies determining whether smaller outlets, which deliver lower levels of reach in general, will be added to a media schedule.

Scottish Government marketing and advertising spend is published each year and can be found at https://www.gov.scot/collections/marketing-spend/ including a breakdown by media type.

Registers of Scotland is a non-Ministerial Public Body answerable to the Scottish Parliament.

The following operating costs figures are provided from RoS annual report and accounts (which can be accessed via the RoS website www.ros.gov.uk)