Seòmar agus comataidhean

For audiology services provided in hospital settings, information on provision of delivery is held within Boards and not by the Scottish Government.

While the Scottish Government remains committed to its vision for an integrated and community-based hearing service in Scotland, re-phasing of funding has meant that not all the challenges we are facing will be addressed in a single budget.

Total spend with media agencies over the last five years (2019-2024) was £50,729,800.33, as published here Marketing spend - Marketing spend - gov.scot

Media planning and buying is placed by call-off from the Media Planning, Buying and Associated Services framework (Ref: SP-23-05). The work is competed through the Framework and tenders are evaluated for value and quality. Framework suppliers when bidding are required to provide full detailed costs against indicative volumes, using the price guarantees set under the Framework.

Where appropriate media spend is audited for value against the Framework pricing as well as quality by an independent media auditor on a six monthly basis.

The Scottish Government is committed to modernising deer management to tackle high deer numbers, specifically in order to help us to achieve our biodiversity and carbon objectives. We continue to pursue a range of actions to deliver this commitment.

The Scottish Government’s future legislative programme has been set out as part of the 2024-25 Programme for Government. The Natural Environment Bill was introduced to parliament on 20 February 2025 and will bring forward significant reforms to the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996.

In addition to this we are working on the Deer Working Group recommendations that do not require primary legislation through the Strategic Deer Board.

Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS), is the executive agency which manages Scotland’s national forests and land. The majority of deer management on land owned by the Scottish Government on behalf of the nation is undertaken by FLS. Alongside land owned by the Scottish Government, public bodies also manage deer on public land they are responsible for. A number of these bodies are represented on the Strategic Deer Board.

The primary reasons for the deer management activities on Scottish government-owned land is as follows.

Forestry and Land Scotland

FLS culls deer primarily in order to protect, enhance and restore a wide range of woodland across the 640,000 hectares of public forests and land which it manages which can be damaged by deer overgrazing and trampling vulnerable habitats, preventing young trees from growing. The proportion of the cull carried out for ‘environmental protection’ purposes is 96%-100%. FLS also cull deer to protect grazings and crops as and when required. The proportion of the cull carried out for agricultural purposes is 0%-4%. They do not carry out culling for population control purposes.

NatureScot

The primary reason for deer culling on NatureScot-owned land is environmental protection. This information is not broken down proportionally.

Scottish Water  

The primary reasons for deer culling on Scottish Water land include for population control, environmental protection and agricultural purposes. This information is not broken down proportionately.

2020 £22244.75

2021 £17596.71

2022 £18675.86

2023 £34395.19

2024 £35329.33

Scottish Government does not directly use any electricity generated by wind turbines on land it owns. We do not hold information on the amount of electricity supplied to the grid.

Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) is the executive agency which manages Scotland’s national forests and land. The majority of deer management on land owned by the Scottish Government is undertaken by FLS. Alongside land owned by the Scottish Government, public bodies also manage deer on public land they are responsible for. This includes NatureScot and Scottish Water. Further detail on the revenue these organisations have received from deer management activities is as follows.

Forestry and Land Scotland

FLS income from deer carcasses, the associated bye-products and fees from leases/permissions for recreational stalking, has amounted to:

All deer culled on Scottish Government land are culled by shooting, which is undertaken by appropriately trained staff to ensure the highest standards of public safety and deer welfare and who adhere to the code of practice set by the Wild Deer Best Practice group.

The Scottish Government own 126 bulls to operate the crofting cattle improvement scheme, however for the majority of the year these bulls are kept on crofters own holdings.

We do not hold information on the numbers of livestock owned and managed by our farm and croft tenants.

The Scottish Government has been actively working to increase the number of wind turbines on land it owns. The vast majority of the land owned by Scottish Government is occupied by croft tenants. Third party lease negotiations require the support of the crofting tenants and approval by the Scottish Land Court before the development can proceed.