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Over the last 12 months Marine Scotland Directorate has recruited a significant number of new staff across Marine Scotland Licensing Operations Team, Marine Scotland Planning and Policy Division and the science function within Marine Scotland to address increased demands expected from processing ScotWind applications. Resources will be kept under review in light of the number of lease options awarded for ScotWind and applicants’ proposed timelines. In addition, the Marine Scotland Directorate has established a streamlining team to identify and implement efficiencies in consenting processes.

The Scottish Government works closely with local partners to monitor delivery of the affordable housing programme on the ground and to overcome delivery issues where they may arise.

We will continue to work with local authorities in ensuring there is an effective pipeline of potential projects, through their annual Strategic Housing Investment Plans, which look five years ahead. We will also consider options for off the shelf purchases where local authorities identify these as a priority.

The potential impact on affordable housing supply of developer contributions, including through Section 75 agreements, is also reviewed regularly.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14615 on 6 March 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 .

The Scottish Government welcomed Audit Scotland’s report, which provided useful lessons which we are already implementing through successor schemes to the NPD and hub models which the report considered. These schemes allowed us to deliver much needed new schools, new NHS facilities, new colleges and other key infrastructure that would otherwise not have been possible. They also provided a significant boost to the Scottish economy at a time of constrained private sector investment.

The eleven main recommendations in the Audit Scotland report are in included within the following tables along with accompanying Scottish Government comments.

The Scottish Government should:

There is no licensing scheme regulating the shooting of woodcock in Scotland. Resident and migratory woodcock can only be shot during the open season, which is between 1 September and 31 January, as set out in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Outwith these dates, woodcock cannot be taken or killed.

Over the last 5 years, there have been 781 large outdoor fires, 243 of which were deliberate (31%). Th Scottish Fire and Rescue Service does not routinely gather information on the number of wildfires that happen as a result of Muirburn. However, a 2019 sample of the available evidence for the most severe wildfire incidents concluded that out of control burning was a relatively rare cause of these incidents.

Although UCAS has confirmed that at the end of the January equal consideration date there has been a reduction in applications compared to this time last year, our higher education institutions will continue to accept, and consider, applications until the end of June and thereafter through any clearing process. Therefore, we expect application numbers to continue to increase. Scotland’s higher education institutions are working hard to recruit applicants to their nursing programmes and it is worth noting that not all funded places are applied for via UCAS(for example our Open University funded places), and these applications will also contribute to final numbers.

Alongside this, we continue to explore alternative pipelines into the nursing profession such as earn as you learn routes and apprenticeships. In addition to that work we will also address current challenges to the nursing profession in relation to workforce supply, retention and professional development as part of the new Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce. This will ensure our nurses, already the best paid in the UK, will have the best conditions and career opportunities.

We realise that recruitment to initial teacher education is challenging for various reasons and this is being seen across the UK. However, as in previous years, Scottish universities will keep their application processes open until they have met their targets in both primary and secondary by subject. We will continue to work with universities to monitor applications to all initial teacher education programmes. Typically, we have seen teacher training applicants increase by around 17% by the end of the application cycle.

SEPA’s grant in aid funding from Scottish Government has increased over the last five-year period from £34,936,000 to £41,406,000. SEPA determine the amount of resources allocated to meeting their statutory obligations through their Annual Operating Plan in each year in agreement with the Scottish Government.

SEPA Grant in Aid Funding:

£34,963,000 in 2018-19

£34,425,000 in 2019-20

£37,098,000 in 2020-21

£44,449,000 in 2021/22

£41,406,000 in 2022/23 [figures subject to year end audit]

SEPA operate under statutory frameworks to recover the costs associated with their role as the environmental regulator. The annual income recovered across all charging schemes and other incomes as notified to the Scottish Government was as follows:

Charging scheme & other income:

£47,282,000 in 2018-19

£47,807,000 in 2019-20

£44,901,000 in 2020-21

£46,010,000 in 2022-23 [figures subject to year end audit]

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) does not have a wildfire investigation capability as it is an extremely rare discipline in UK Fire and Rescue Services. As such, no official investigations were carried out into the large fires in Flow Country or Ballindalloch in 2019.

Official statistics for Fair Start Scotland (FSS) are published quarterly by the Scottish Government. The most recent publication was on 22 February 2023 ( Scotland's Devolved Employment Services: statistical summary February 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ) and includes demographic breakdowns such as for participants with learning disabilities. The latest official statistics show:

Start and job outcomes for FSS participants with a learning disability, by start year