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Caledonian Sleeper services are funded through a combination of passenger revenue and Scottish Government subsidy. This was true when operated by Serco and remains true under public ownership. There are no plans to change that funding model.

Please see the following table with breakdown of costs by financial year for work undertaken on the A96 Corridor Review:

An individual business case, including socio-economic analysis, is prepared for each route being considered for decarbonisation. These business cases include technical and economic examinations of the case for of different types of rail traction including bi-mode diesel-electric, battery-electric and hydrogen.

In line with data protection legislation the personal data processed by the SPCB is minimised to only that which is necessary, and there is no business reason to hold spousal information of those who work for MSPs in an unpaid capacity.  The average annual licencing cost to provide email and productivity applications to Parliament network users is approximately £280 per user.

The total cost of maintaining the Parliament’s bees on-site for the last five years in total is £20,219.68. This includes the installation and maintenance of 15 beehives since March 2020.

The costs per year are given in the table below:

In the last 5 years, from January 2020 – January 2025, 144 jars of honey have been received and sold in the Parliament shop, each weighing 227g. The shop was completely closed from March 2020 – April 2022 and no honey was received or sold in that period. No honey was received in 2023.

The beeswax isn’t harvested by the Parliament, it remains the property of our beekeepers, and therefore, we do not have the cost information.  The beeswax is harvested by the beekeepers who provide the wax for the Great Seal of Scotland under a separate contract.

Building maintenance of the site is carried out through two separate contracts. Noted below is both the planned and reactive/repair maintenance costs for the last 5 years for each contract. Overall total for both contracts being £8,117,010.95 excluding VAT.

Building Maintenance

Planned                                                                                                                           Reactive/Repair

High Level Maintenance

Planned                                                                                                                           Reactive/Repair

The works referred to in your question is part of an existing project to upgrade the Parliament’s Building and Energy Management System (BEMS). The BEMS is a business-critical tool which provides visibility and control of building services, principally the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and domestic hot water systems in all areas of the Holyrood site.  The new BEMS replaces an existing system which was installed 20 years ago and at end of life.  

The estimated total value for the BEMS project is £3,900,000. This information is published on the Scottish Parliaments Contracts Register under the contract reference NIC-SER-486 at the following link - Contract register | Scottish Parliament Website.

This question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court and Tribunals Service (SCTS) corporate body. The question has been passed to the Chief Executive of the SCTS who reply in writing within 20 days.