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The Scottish Government is increasing funding to the culture sector by £15.8m this financial year to £196.6m. This is the first step on the route to investing at least £100m more annually in culture and the arts by the financial year 2028-29. In 2025-2026 we aim to provide an additional £25m to the culture sector.

I appreciate the need for clarity within the culture sector regarding the £100m and I hope to set out the trajectory of spend for the remainder of this Parliament in due course.

In line with normal budgetary procedure the Scottish Government will publish a draft budget for 2025-26 later this year.

The Chief Nursing Officer post is a valuable and integral part of the leadership team within the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates and across the health and care system. In the coming years against a backdrop of continuing financial pressures, the post holder will focus on the reform agenda for health and care services, leading the work required to meet the Nursing Vision 2030, whilst also contributing to wider Scottish Government objectives in relation to reducing child poverty, improving the economy and addressing climate change.

With that in mind, my officials have been considering how to ensure we attract the right calibre of candidate to this post whilst also providing them with the time necessary to achieve those goals. The Civil Service Commission has recently confirmed that it has granted an exception for this post which allows it to be advertised as a five year secondment opportunity instead of the usual two years.

Officials are now finalising the recruitment process arrangements with the Commission to ensure fair and open competition, and expect to be in a position to advertise the post by the end of August.

This is a matter for local authorities. The information requested is not held centrally.

This information is not currently held centrally. Students applying to the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) for the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) for the first time are referred for an assessment of their needs before a decision can be made. SAAS does not set the timing of this process, as it is undertaken by an external party. A new DSA Online system is currently in development.

This is a matter for local authorities. The information requested is not held centrally.

We are aware of the following five local authorities overseeing and being actively involved in deer management:

• East Dunbartonshire
• West Lothian
• Aberdeen City
• Highland Council
• Perth & Kinross

Five local authorities have supplied NatureScot with cull return information in the past five years.

The single building assessment technical specification was published on the 21st of June 2024 and provides detailed guidance to competent persons on how they should conduct a single building assessment (SBA) in Scotland. The SBA makes clear that the relevant benchmark guidance includes the PAS 9980, PAS 79-2 and the Benchmark criteria from the Scottish Domestic Technical Handbook. The competent person should have due regard to all of this guidance in undertaking the SBA report. The SBA sets out the need to conduct a Fire Risk Assessment (FRA) and Fire Risk Appraisal of external walls (FRAEW). It also sets out templates and an approach that is relevant in Scotland. We engaged extensively with stakeholders across Scotland through the Task and Finish Group to develop the SBA technical specification and adopted the PAS 9980 standard as there is evidence that it is known and understood widely across the industry in Scotland. The objective of the assessment it to bring the building to a tolerable level of risk.

The Scottish Government will review and respond to the evidence and recommendations presented within the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 report once it is published.

The single building assessment technical specification sets out the specific and limited criteria in which BS 8414 test data can be used by a competent person as a benchmark for determining whether a wall cladding system is tolerable. This is set out in 3.1.4 of the SBA specification. It should be recalled however, that the single building assessment is a holistic assessment of the building that does not simply consider cladding combustibility, but also other relevant fire safety risks and provides an overall assessment of the measures required to bring a building to a tolerable level of risk.