Seòmar agus comataidhean

Moray Council attended a series of A96 Corridor Review stakeholder sessions and provided feedback to the public consultation survey undertaken as part of the review during 2022. We will continue to engage with stakeholders including Moray Council as we progress the review.

From 16 August 2023 SEPA will become the enforcement authority for the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland and as part of this will carry out audits, inspections and enforcement activity in relation to the obligations and offences contained within the regulations. Staff have been allocated accordingly.

SEPA is not empowered to investigate and report instances of fraud, but they have a close working relationship with Police Scotland who are the competent authority for this sort of criminality.

The transparent, evidence-based review of the A96 corridor has included a public consultation which received an unprecedented level of engagement, with approximately 4,600 responses, generating more than 11,000 suggestions and potential opportunities for the route.

Given the sheer volume of responses received and the high level of options generated, it has rightly taken Transport Scotland more time than originally anticipated to examine and appraise all these options. However, we have now reported on the Public Consultation and the Initial Appraisal, which were published on 22 December 2022.

Transport Scotland is now pushing forward with the next phase of further detailed work to inform the remaining stages of the Review. These include a robust appraisal of the retained options alongside a Climate Compatibility Assessment, with outcomes expected to be announced in the first half of 2023 for final public consultation, before a final decision on the route can be reached.

National Procurement (NP), part of NHS National Services Scotland (NSS), with representation from Health Boards, have regular performance management meetings with homecare providers to review key performance metrics and to agree and track progress against recovery plans.

Where a particular provider is experiencing service disruption, Health Boards will seek to register patients, where feasible, with alternative providers to help reduce demand on the affected provider. A challenge over the past year has been that multiple providers have experienced staffing issues which has created market-wide capacity constraints.

There have been no compulsory purchases of a building or land under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 since 2003.

The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 originally contained two rights to buy.

The Community Right to Buy (Part 2) which is a right for a compliant community body to register an interest in land. If granted, this right means that if and when an owner of such land should decide to sell, then the community body is given the first option to buy at market value. This is not a compulsory purchase power.

The Crofting Community Right to Buy (Part 3) is a right that applies only to crofting areas and which, if granted, gives a compliant crofting community body the right to force the compulsory sale of the crofting land identified in their application. Only two Part 3 applications have ever been approved, but these were not taken forward as the owners in both cases agreed to a negotiated transfer.

The Community Empowerment (Scotland) 2015 inserted a third right to buy to the 2003 Act. This third right was the Community Right to Buy Abandoned, Neglected or Detrimental Land. This right, if granted, gives a compliant community body the right to force a compulsory sale of land which is either abandoned, neglected or detrimental to the wellbeing of the community. To date, there have been three applications under this part of the Act and none of these have been approved by Scottish Ministers.

Scottish Water does not maintain information by parliamentary region, however it is able to provide information for the closest equivalent area. There were 151 reports in December 2022 in this large geographical region ( Argyll Islands, Argyll Mainland, Caithness, Fort William, Orkney, Ness, Shetland, Skye, West Coast & Western Isles ), compared to 185 reports in December 2021. This would include both leaks reported by customers as well as those identified separately by Scottish Water as part of its active leakage management.

The current plan is to fully dual the A96 route between Inverness and Aberdeen; however, we are conducting a transparent, evidence-based review of the programme which is underway and the first part of the review, a report on the Public Consultation and the Initial Appraisal: The Case for Change was published on 22 December 2022. This is sensible good governance for major investment of this kind.

Transport Scotland is now pushing forward with the next phase of further detailed work to inform the remaining stages of the Review. These include a robust appraisal of the remaining options alongside a Climate Compatibility Assessment, with outcomes expected to be announced in the first half of 2023 for final public consultation, before a final decision can be reached.

Death registration data collated by National Records of Scotland contains information on the occupation of the deceased. Public Health Scotland (PHS) include this information in the Scottish Suicide Information Database.

In 2021, PHS published a thematic analysis of probable suicides by occupation group, which includes students. This can be accessed here: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/media/8047/2021-scotsid-report.pdf

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13547 on 16 January 2023. 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

Advertising for Winter Heating Payment was initially planned for January 2023 to allow for the associated regulations to have completed the parliamentary process. Due to the low temperatures experienced across Scotland during the early part of December 2022, some of the planned advertising for Winter Heating Payment was brought forward to raise awareness of the changes and to allow people to plan accordingly.

This included:

• National radio campaign - total cost including VAT £10,456.98.
• National print advertising campaign - total cost including VAT £8,743.30.

Information was also shared through a media release and through Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland social media channels including Twitter and Facebook and with stakeholders.

The priority for this recently paid for advertising push, was reaching digitally excluded prospective clients that we are not able to reach through messages shared through Social Security Scotland, Scottish Government and stakeholder social media channels.

Further advertising is planned for this year and Social Security Scotland will select channels based on insight, taking advice from its media buying agency.