Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Bathing Waters (Scotland) Regulations 2008 enable Scottish Ministers to designate a bathing season in a period where they expect a large number of people to bathe at a designated bathing water. The definition of bathers, in this instance, is exclusive to paddlers and swimmers and does not cover other water users.

For all 87 designated bathing waters in Scotland the bathing season runs from 1 June to 15 September each year, in accordance with the traditional period of peak usage. In comparison with the 3.5 month bathing season in Scotland across Europe the season length varies from 2 months in Sweden to 6 months in Cypress.

The aim of the Bathing Waters Regulations is to minimise the risks to human health to swimmers and paddlers from bacteriological impacts whilst bathing. It would be disproportionately costly to monitor bathing waters outwith the current bathing water season when they are not regularly used by large numbers of bathers. General health advice on wild swimming is available from the UK Health Security Agency at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/swim-healthy-leaflet/swim-healthy , which is also applicable to Scotland

The number of bathing waters in Scotland has increased since last year and now stands at 87, with 98% achieving the bathing water quality standards and more rated excellent than ever before.

The Scottish Government aims to answer all ministerial correspondence within 20 working days and regularly reviews and monitors its performance against this target.

Correspondence from MSPs; councillors; third sector organisations and other key stakeholders; or the wider public is not categorised separately, therefore, calculating the percentage of responses sent within 20 working days to MSPs specifically could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost. Between December 2021 and December 2022, the response rate for all ministerial correspondence was approximately 77% (of 43,091 items of ministerial correspondence, 33,173 were responded to within 20 working days).

On Scotland’s national forests and land, Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) constructs roads for use on a multi-purpose basis e.g. timber transport, tree planting, environmental improvement works, recreational access. FLS does not hold data that ascribes a particular use to sections of forest road, nor does it hold specific data as to what lengths of road have been constructed by windfarm developers. Over the past ten years, levels of forest road construction by FLS have been as follows:

2012: 46 Miles

2013: 52 Miles

2014: 43 Miles

2015: 34 Miles

2016: 37 Miles

2017: 37 Miles

2018: 44 Miles

2019: 32 Miles

2020: 27 Miles

2021: 24 Miles

2022: 22 Miles

This data is not centrally available; aggregated data for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) Waiting Times is sent to PHS from each NHS Board. It does not contain any information specifically on the number of young people removed from waiting lists, it reports on the number of referrals for young people to services, numbers waiting to start treatment and total waiting, and then numbers for those who started treatment and those who’s referral was rejected / not accepted (with both outcomes resulting in them being removed from the waiting list).

Table 1 shows the number of young people that started treatment – i.e. resulting in them being removed from waiting lists - and Table 2 shows the number that were not accepted for treatment therefore removed from waiting lists. The figures are presented by NHS Board of Treatment and relate to the financial years 2014-15 to 2021-22.

Data from 2012 has been published on the Information Services Division website, but data prior to 2014 is from a period when the aggregate dataset in development and is not regarded as reliable compared to more recently collected data. All data presented in Tables 1 and 2 has been previously published, however the data presented has been newly extracted and analysed to take account of subsequent data resubmissions to provide the most accurate figures. Therefore figures below may differ slightly to previously published figures for some years.

Table 1: People who started treatment in CAMHS from April 2014 to September 2022, by NHS Board of Treatment.

The Scottish Government aims to answer all ministerial correspondence within 20 working days and regularly reviews and monitors its performance against this target.

Within the last year (December 2021 to December 2022), the longest response time was 272 days. This correspondence related to the donation of baby boxes to refugees from Ukraine and the delay was due to a processing error caused by a high volume of correspondence on refugees from Ukraine.

Table 1 presents the expected gross income from the Intermediate Property Rate (IPR), after the application of the revaluation Transitional Relief (TR), in 2023-24. This is broken down by property class, as the Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

This table is based on an imputed Valuation Roll based on an incomplete draft Valuation Roll, as used by the Scottish Fiscal Commission in Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts December 2022, and figures are therefore subject to change.

Figures in this table are rounded to the nearest £1,000.

Table 1: Estimated gross income from IPR after revaluation transitional relief in 2023-24 by property class

Table 1 presents the number of properties expected to be removed from the higher property rate (HPR) due to the increase of the rateable value threshold to £100,000, before any reliefs are applied. This is broken down by property class, as the Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

This table based on an imputed Valuation Roll based on an incomplete draft Valuation Roll, as used by the Scottish Fiscal Commission in Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts December 2022, and figures are therefore subject to change.

Figures in this table are rounded to the nearest 10, with values greater than zero but lower than five displayed as ‘[low]’.

Table 1: Number of properties removed from HPR in 2023-24 due to the threshold increase, by property class

The Scottish Government’s ambition, shared with COSLA, is for a trauma-informed and trauma-responsive workforce and services across Scotland. We want anyone who has been affected by trauma in Scotland to be supported by trauma-informed services that are built on safe and trusted relationships, which support recovery and do not cause any further harm or re-traumatisation.

Over £6million has been invested in a National Trauma Training Programme since 2018, including £3.2 million which has been distributed to all local areas to further develop and embed trauma informed approaches. Support for training and implementation, across all sectors of the workforce, is provided by a team of Transforming Psychological Trauma Implementation Co-Ordinators (TPTICs). In 2021, a network of ‘Trauma Champions’ was also established, this includes senior leaders from across local authorities, health boards and key community planning partners who work collaboratively to influence change across local areas. The Trauma Champions network is supported by the Improvement Service.

The Scottish Government do not make any specific assessment about the training of staff in trauma-informed practice before awarding funding to an organisation. Work is currently underway to develop a Quality Improvement Framework, due for publication in Spring 2023, which will further support any organisation to track their own progress in developing and embedding trauma-informed approaches.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13189 on
‎ 5 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/questions-and-answers

In August 2022, NatureScot launched the Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (IRNS) scheme, which provides projects that offer nature-based solutions with technical assistance grants to address investment barriers and develop replicable and scalable business models. Through this work, IRNS aims to build capacity for environmental projects to attract financial investment. The scheme aligns to the Scottish Government’s Interim Principles for Responsible Investment in Natural Capital, which sets out our expectations for a values-led, high-integrity market. Successful applications were announced in November 2022, with £580k of funding awarded to projects across a range of environmental contexts and locations.