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The resource budget for SFRS is set each year in the Budget Act and the SFRS Board has responsibility for taking decisions on how that budget should be spent. There are no savings targets set out in the annual budget process and the SFRS Accountable Officer is responsible for ensuring that SFRS delivers a balanced budget and does not overspend. SFRS has achieved that each year since it was established in 2013.

We welcome NatureScot’s Avian Influenza Report on the H5N1 outbreak in wild birds and agree that our priority both now and in the future should be on continued disease surveillance, demographic monitoring and research to inform the long-term management of our wild bird populations in light of HPAI and other pressures.

The Scottish Government will continue working with the Scottish Avian Influenza Task Force to monitor and respond to HPAI in wild birds.

The Scottish Government, Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) published the Shared Outcomes Framework (SOF) in March 2022, which set out our intent to develop a skilled workforce for Scotland. It includes a series of projects, including on apprenticeships and wider skills planning to help meet that intent.

The Shared Outcomes Assurance Group meets eight weekly during the Parliamentary year to review progress. Minutes of these meetings can be viewed at this weblink .

My predecessor in role, Mr Hepburn, wrote to the Public Audit Committee on 1 February 2023 to provide a progress update . Since that time, project implementation has continued and projects remain on track as set out in the published SOAG minutes.

In March 2022, the Scottish Government also published our National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET ). The work on the SOF aligns with the Skilled Workforce programme in the NSET.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of good governance, and takes this issue seriously. We undertake regular reviews of our corporate governance system and will consider the matter of a Good Governance Champion as part of this work.

In December 2022, we published our Hydrogen Action Plan setting out the actions necessary to support the development of the hydrogen economy in Scotland. These actions, include providing funding through the Scottish Government's £180m Emerging Energy Technologies Fund to support renewable hydrogen production. In addition to this we will publish our Hydrogen Export Plan later this year and we continue to assist development of a strong domestic supply chain by working with our agency partners to attract and support companies. To that end the Scottish Government hosted a Hydrogen Supply Chain Event in September 2022, which brought together over 200 stakeholders to promote and build opportunities across the value chain.

Scottish Government officials meet regularly with food banks and other food aid organisations, including the Trussell Trust and Independent Food Aid Network to discuss overall demand for their services and any specific issues arising.

As set out in our Programme for Government, we will soon publish a plan, grounded in human rights, that sets out what we will do to improve the response to financial hardship so as to reduce the need for food banks. We are committed to improving access to emergency payments and wider supports for households facing crisis, and the Trussell Trust and the Independent Food Aid Network agree that cash-first is the best approach.

Officials recently convened a roundtable of stakeholders, including food banks and other charities, to discuss infant food insecurity and support provided to families with infants under 1 facing a crisis. The next steps for this work will be to identify good practice in emergency pathways and ensure that such mechanisms are in place locally across Scotland so that families receive timely and coordinated support in an emergency.

The final stages of preparation for the Pathfinder phase for Bairns’ Hoose are underway. Applications for prospective pathfinders partnerships will open in Summer 2023 with pathfinders commencing in Autumn 2023. Further information on this phase will be included in the Project Plan Progress Report and Pathfinder Development Plan to be published this Spring.

The independent review into UK Government welfare services for veterans is focused on the effectiveness and efficiency of reserved welfare services for Armed Forces veterans that are largely owned or funded by the Ministry of Defence. However, the Scottish Government would assist the review if requested to by the review team.

The most recent estimate of the number of veterans of the UK Armed Forces resident in Scotland is 220,000, which was taken from the annual population survey conducted by the Office for National Statistics in 2017. Scotland's Census 2022 included for the first time a question on previous service in the UK Armed Forces. Census data will help to support a better understanding of the veterans community in Scotland, including numbers.