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I have recently written to local authority Housing Conveners and Chief Executives to remind them of their duty to establish short-term let licensing schemes by 1 October 2022, and we continue to work with local authorities on implementation matters as they prepare to open licence schemes in their areas by this date.

The Island Communities Impact Assessment did not require ministerial sign off however, it formed part of the 2020 Short-term Let Consultation Report which was signed off by Kevin Stewart who was the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning.

As stated in the answer to S6W-10716 on 20 September 2022, work to develop an Islands Energy Strategy was delayed during the pandemic. In the interim period there have been significant changes to the policy landscape, including commitments to take forward an Energy Strategy Just Transition Plan for Scotland and the Carbon Neutral Islands Project. An Islands Energy Strategy will follow and build on these pieces of work in 2023 allowing alignment with Scotland's national plans. Stakeholder engagement on is ongoing. 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 .

Table 1 on Crimes recorded by the police, Scotland, 2012-13 to
‎ 2021-22, from the National statistics on Recorded crime in Scotland, includes the requested information on theft of a motor vehicle. This is available within the supporting document and the associated excel tables at: Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2021-2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

If useful, a rolling annual picture is also available in the shorter quarterly releases of National Statistics on recorded crime, based on the most recent 5 years. Figures for the years ending June 2018 to June 2022 are available at: Recorded Crime in Scotland: year ending June 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Information on the number of people convicted for ‘theft of a motor vehicle’ is available in the Main tables (table 4b) of the National Statistics on Criminal Proceedings in Scotland: 2020-21 statistical publication available at Supporting documents - Criminal proceedings in Scotland: 2020-2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . The latest available information is for the financial year 2020-21.

It should be noted that the national lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent court closures resulted in significant reduced activity in both the number of reports being referred to COPFS and the number of proceedings going through Scottish courts. Consequently the 2020-21 figures should not be considered indicative of any long-term trends.

Whilst the Scottish Government do publish data on both recorded crimes and criminal proceedings in Scotland, these are based on distinct and unlinked data sets. Care should be taken when comparing different data sources relating to the criminal justice system. Detailed information on why these two data sources are not directly comparable can be found in Annex C, paragraph 14 of the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland: 2020-21 bulletin.

For example recorded crime statistics count crimes and offences at the time that they came to the attention of Police Scotland while criminal proceedings statistics report on cases which have concluded in court. This means that a crime may be recorded by the police in one year, charges brought and court proceedings concluded in subsequent years. In addition, a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime, or a set of crimes with more than one victim, in a proceeding, but only the main charge is counted in these court proceedings statistics. There is also the possibility that the crime recorded by the police may be altered in the course of judicial proceedings.

The Scottish Government has no plans to produce an updated full business case addendum at this time.

Circularity Scotland Ltd is a private, not-for-profit business. As such, the Scottish Government does not have access to this information.

The allocation process is managed by the General Teaching Council of Scotland (GTCS). Probationer teachers are allocated to each of the 32 local authorities and to Jordanhill based on their preferences and need identified by the authorities.

As of 31 August 2022 the number and percentage of probationer teachers allocated to each local authority is indicated in the following table.

A total of 35 homes have been completed through the Rural and Islands Housing Fund since November 2021. The following table provides a breakdown by local authority area.

The Cancer Strategy for Children and Young People in Scotland is set to run until 2026. This strategy is delivered by the Managed Service Network for children and young people with cancer (MSN CYPC). A progress update to the strategy will be developed by the MSN as part of its annual reporting cycle.

In terms of recorded offences, the data received from Police Scotland for producing the National Statistics on Recorded Crime, is a simple count of the number of crimes and offences, for each local authority, which the police have recorded and cleared up.

The nature of this data is such that while some crime codes refer to a single act or section of legislation, others include a wider range of legislation. As such we are unable to separately identify crimes and offences recorded under either Section 2 or Section 36 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. We are able to separately identify crimes recorded under Section 3, which relates to careless and inconsiderate driving. This document has been placed with the Scottish Parliament, bib number 63591. 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 document provides figures for 2018-19 to 2021-22, along with data for the years of 2013-14 to 2017-18. Those earlier years were requested through a previous PQ S5W-22619 on 2 May 2019 and in preparing updated information for this PQ, statisticians identified a small coding error in the calculations made in 2019.

The error meant a small number of cases included in the earlier answer were for another part of the Road Traffic Act, beyond Section 3. This had a negligible impact on the implied magnitude of offences recorded under Section 3 (accounting for less than 0.5% difference for each year at the Scotland level). However we would like to use this PQ answer to highlight the amendment and issue the revised figures for 2013-14 to 2017-18.

In terms of (i) prosecutions and (ii) convictions: These are also included in the aforementioned document (placed with the Scottish Parliament, bib number 63591) – split into each of Sections 2, 3 and 36 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.

Care should be taken when comparing different data sources relating to the criminal justice system. For example recorded crime statistics count crimes and offences at the time that they came to the attention of Police Scotland, while criminal proceedings statistics report on cases which have concluded in court. This means that a crime may be recorded by the police in one year, with charges brought and court proceedings concluded in subsequent years. In addition, a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime, or a set of crimes with more than one victim, in a proceeding, but only the main charge is counted in these court proceedings statistics. There is also the possibility that the crime recorded by the police may be altered in the course of judicial proceedings.