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The Scottish Government routinely publishes the latest data and information on the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland, including the number of people temporarily housed on the MS Ambition. As published on 23 February, there were around 995 guests onboard the MS Ambition as at 14 February 2023, occupying 475 cabins. The next update is expected to be published in late March.

The data are provisional management information from live operational systems and are subject to change. The number of displaced people from Ukraine in welcome accommodation on M/S Ambition is reported directly by operational teams.

The published tables and accompanying methodology notes for the February publication can be found here: Supporting documents - Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland: statistics - February 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Business Principles Agreement, jointly developed with business, was published in December 2021 to cover the current five year Parliamentary term. The Agreement applies across all Scottish Government policy areas and provides a framework to enable more effective joint working between the Scottish Government and business though greater co-development, collaborative delivery and collective assessment of policies impacting business.

During 2022 Ministers had almost 1,250 engagements with business, an average monthly increase of 5% on the COP26 boosted average from May to December 2021. In addition business experience informed development of our National Strategy for Economic Transformation Delivery Plans, while a number of Industry Leadership Groups (ILGs) were set-up or refreshed during 2022 to deepen our sectoral connections, and I established an ILG Chairs group to foster cross-sectoral collaboration and sharing of experience.

The establishment of the Joint Taskforce on Business Regulation provides a further best practice application of the Principles approach with the majority of Agreement signatories being Taskforce members. The Joint Taskforce is co-chaired by myself and CoSLA Spokesperson for Environment and Economy Cllr Gail Macgregor and has so far met in December 2022 and February 2023.

Business organisations and regulatory stakeholders have set out what they would like the group to look at and this will be reflected in the Terms of Reference, with members acknowledging that there is ongoing work in many areas to address the concerns they have raised around specific regulations. The Joint Taskforce will look to identify the existing mechanisms for discussing these regulations before considering and suggesting what interventions might be most appropriate. We will publish minutes and papers on the Scottish Government Website.

The Taskforce has also agreed to look at ways of identifying and demonstrating the cumulative burden of regulation on businesses and members have been asked to consider and provide feedback on the Business Regulatory Impact Assessment approach to help improve the process for developing new regulations in future.

The Scottish Government has published analysis relating to the overall Disability Employment Gap in Scotland in Fairer Scotland for disabled people - employment action plan: progress report - year 2 . The most recent data on the Disability Employment Gap for Scotland were published in Scotland's Labour Market: People, Places and Regions – Protected Characteristics . In 2021, the disability employment gap was 31.2 percentages points, down from 37.4 percentage points in 2016.

In 2021, the Scottish Government published key statistics relating to the economic status of disabled people in the labour market in Scotland . This publication contains information from the Annual Population Survey (APS) January to December 2019 on employment rates for disabled people by main condition including those whose main condition was a mental health condition (Table 16).

A similar analysis will be updated and published by the Scottish Government in 2023 showing employment rate gaps by health problem or disability for January to December 2022.

Scottish Government’s recently published Fair Work Action Plan takes forward the next phase of actions to drive forward Fair Work. The plan includes actions aimed at reducing the Disability Employment Gap.

The Fair Work Action Plan will be supported by an evidence plan to be published in late 2023, along with an accompanying measurement framework. It will monitor the fair work context and progress we are making over time to ensure our actions respond to change and measure the impact of our current actions, including drawing lessons from actions we will deliver as part of this plan.

Maintenance of its estate and the allocation of its capital budget is a matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. The safety of its staff is paramount and SFRS are continuing to monitor the measures put in place to rectify the defects and support staff to deliver its service safely.

In 2019 an urgent issue was identified in relation to an obsolete method of roof construction (Reinforced Aerated Autoclaved Concrete (RAAC). As soon as the defects were discovered (from May 2019 to 2020) action was immediately taken with temporary support (acrow props) to reinforce identified weak points and scaffolded out crash decks to catch roof collapses and minimise the risk of injury to occupants. All roofs are subject to quarterly inspections by building surveyors to monitor the condition/identify any deterioration. There has been no negative impact on SFRS operations from these sites.

Skills Development Scotland published quarterly statistics on the Employability Fund. The information you have requested can be found at the following website. Employability Fund | Skills Development Scotland

The Scottish Government plans to gather further information on the impact of non-native gamebird releases. Part of this work will be to consider whether further data on numbers of birds released and on location of release sites should be collected.

The Scottish Government committed up to £20M in funding to the Social Security Independent Advocacy Service over four years from September 2021.

After extensive engagement with advocacy stakeholders, it was concluded that this service should be delivered under contract by a single national provider or consortium of providers. The Invitation to Tender was open to all third sector bodies that deliver advocacy services – and a Contract Notice was published on 12 May 2021 in the usual way via Public Contracts Scotland. Following the conclusion of the regulated procurement exercise VoiceAbility were appointed the first national provider of the service in September 2021. This initial contract runs until August 2023 with the opportunity to extend by a further two one-year periods.

The amendment to Section 9 of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 provided for offences of 'upskirting' to be prosecuted under subsections (4A) and (4B). The Scottish Government does not hold information on investigations (question (a)). The answer to questions (b) and (c) is provided in the following table.

Please note that the latest available data is for the financial year 2020-21. Data for 2021-22 are expected in Summer 2023 following publication of the 'Criminal Proceedings in Scotland 2021-22' statistical bulletin.

Table 1. People prosecuted and convicted in Scottish courts under Section 9(4A) and (4B) of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009, where main charge, 2011-12 to 2020-21.

The Scottish Government are not responsible for the staffing of the National Wellbeing Hub website. Funding is provided to NHS Lothian who are responsible for managing the website and the resourcing required.

We are committed to supporting our prisons to be health promoting opportunities where the healthcare provided is at least equal to that offered in the community.

We have been working with the Scottish Prison Service and NHS Boards, through the National Prison Care Network (NPrCN), to address the issues highlighted by the recommendations of the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland’s review. This work is also taking into account the studies into the health needs of prisoners commissioned by the Scottish Government that were published in September 2022.

As part of this, we are bringing together senior leaders from across the Scottish Government health and justice portfolios, the Scottish Prison Service, and NHS Boards to provide additional collaborative and strategic oversight, to support the delivery of priority improvements.

We will continue to support delivery partners in the consideration and implementation of these recommendations. This includes ongoing engagement with the Scottish Prison Service on the development of its Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy.