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The Scottish Government is currently carrying out a review of PDR in Scotland. This is being taken forward in phases, with each phase focussing on new/extended PDR for specific development types. We have committed to consider updated PDR for renewable energy apparatus – including non-domestic solar – as part of the review programme and we will consult on proposals for change in due course.

Infection Prevention control (IPC) measures remain important in care homes but with high levels of vaccination and new treatments, the risk of serious illness from COVID-19 has decreased and the protective measures in adult social care including care homes have reduced in response to this.

IPC measures to prevent spread and manage a range of infections are common practice in care homes and will remain of upmost importance during COVID-19 outbreaks, in the same way as they do for other infectious pathogens such as influenza outbreaks. Care home staff have worked incredibly hard to adopt IPC guidance throughout the pandemic.

We are currently reviewing the guidance on the extended use of face coverings by staff in adult social care including care homes. The review is in partnership with ARHAI Scotland, SG Clinicians and Public Health Scotland and is considering the risk of Covid-19 transmission, the current rates within the community and the impact of removing this final layer of protection could have on transmission to vulnerable people, and staffing resources, alongside the human rights and wider harms to individuals in receipt of care or support including individuals whom live in care homes. It is anticipated that this review will be completed by the end of July. As it has been throughout the pandemic, guidance will be updated in line with the results of the review.

COVID-19 Financial Support for Adult Social Care Providers has been in place since the outset of the pandemic and was intended as time-limited financial support as services navigated and responded to COVID-19.

In both 2020-21 and 2021-22, the Scottish Government provided additional funding for COVID-19 costs in full. In 2022-23, the Health and Social Care Portfolio is required to accommodate all further COVID-19 activity, including additional Test & Protect and Vaccinations costs, without any further UK Government consequentials.

Recognising that flexibility is still required for responding to pandemic pressures, we have committed to continuing elements of financial support beyond 30 June 2022, this includes: the Social Care Staff Support Fund until 30 September 2022; and financial support arrangements for testing and vaccinations until the 31 March 2023. In addition, the current local PPE Hub arrangements will continue until 30 September 2022.

The Scottish education system is set up in such a way that decision making is devolved to the most appropriate level, enabling local education authorities to make choices that meet their local circumstances and needs. It is for this reason that the Scottish Government does not prescribe the specific resources to be used in schools. Head teachers are empowered to make these decisions for themselves in liaison with their local authority.

As a result, it was Scottish Ministers' view that Scottish schools should be given the choice on whether their pupils should receive this book and have therefore advised UK Ministers that an ‘opt-in’ process for Scottish schools should be implemented. This is consistent with the approach being taken in Wales.

The second Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing (EESSH2) does not prescribe what measures a landlord should install.

The Scottish Housing Regulator does not currently publish data on the value of investment on complying with EESSH2 nor on the individual measures installed in order to comply with EESSH2 milestones.

Between 2018 and 2021, £7 million was made available by the Scottish Government to Local Authority and Housing Association landlords through the Energy Efficient Scotland Transition Programme’s Decarbonisation Fund to assist in compliance with EESSH and EESSH2. The funding was for energy efficiency measures, such as insulation and internal works, within projects that included decarbonisation activity (e.g. ground source heat pumps, air source heat pumps, biomass, solar PV and storage) and the conversion of off-gas grid properties to these technologies. The Scottish Government did not provide direct funding for heating in these properties.

Since 2020, the Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund has committed £14.33 million of grant funding to 20 social housing decarbonisation retrofit projects across Scotland. This includes the installation of zero emissions heating systems and “fabric first” energy efficiency upgrades. Non-zero-emissions solutions are not eligible for support under this fund. The Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme (LCITP) has provided a further £6.1 million of grant funding to two projects involving the installation of zero emissions heating.

The various review strands are continuing to make progress. The review work will be proportionate and will be led by what is being found in the initial phases.

Review of Open Cases

Users of the system were asked to review their caseload of open cases, to look at prevalence of the risk scoring/level issue or the alcohol/drugs scoring issue. The Scottish Government have now completed that user led review of the nearly 12,000 cases that social work recognise as their open caseload on the system. Based on the responses by social work practitioners, they did not identify any immediate public protection risks related to these two scoring issues. The open cases review did substantiate that there are cases where the risk scoring levels have not matched. All the cases with the risk scoring error are also being reviewed by the Risk Management Authority (the RMA) as part of their determination of whether there was any material impact on the management of the case as a result of the scoring error.

The open cases review was also an opportunity for social work to identify any wider prevalence of the errors or any new system issues in respect of system functionality. There were not any new errors related to scoring identified through this route.

The open cases review identified some practice issues, around cases not being timeously closed on the system. Therefore, we are undertaking a further phase of this exercise to ensure that closed cases or cases in the process of being closed are indeed closed off on the system, and returns are completed for us on those. That work is likely to conclude in mid-August. Once that phase of work has been completed we will be able to provide a final picture of cases where either the risk scoring or the drugs/alcohol scoring issue (or both) were present. Those details will be cross checked against the RMA lists of affected cases, to consider if these need to be added into the RMA review of any material impact on the management of the case. Our expectation at the moment is that the open case review findings will largely tally with the RMA lists, but we cannot confirm that until the open case review process fully concludes for those cases needing closed off on the system.

The open cases review also provided an opportunity for social work to check and if necessary amend any entries that were not correct on the system. This work on amending individual cases was a key part of the work needed before the system can be brought back into operation. In the meantime, users of the system continue to make use of the paper based version of the process where LS/CMI is needed.

RMA led review work

The group continues to meet and will report on all phases. This will include recommendations and an action plan, to be communicated to Ministers and the Justice Committee. It is anticipated an update on the first phases of the review will be provided in August 2022 with all work now scheduled for completion by the end of October 2022. These timescales will be reviewed at each stage.

Phase 1

As previously reported to the Justice Committee by letter on 12 May 2022, phase one of the review is complete, which significantly reduced the number of cases that required further review.

Phase 2

Phase two commenced on 4 May 2022 and has involved Social Work, Scottish Prison Service, Parole Board for Scotland and MAPPA coordinators considering the material impact of how cases were handled. The timescale for this review was extended to allow for robust validation to be undertaken by agencies. There has been substantial collaboration by partners in order to provide returns and the RMA will be reviewing these in order that the LS/CMI review group can consider the outcome of the first two phases by August 2022. At this point the review group has agreed to review its terms of reference and provide interim findings.

Phase 3

The RMA, Care Inspectorate and HMIPS continue to develop the methodology and focus of the external validation which will provide assurance on each stage of the review. Subject to the outcome of phase two, this work is scheduled to commence in August 2022 and the review is expected to conclude in October 2022.

LS/CMI IT system

The Scottish Government appointed a third party provider to work alongside the managed service provider for the LS/CMI system. This was for the purpose of conducting an end-to-end review of the LS/CMI system prior to any re-introduction for use. The Discovery phase of that work is now largely complete, with areas of dysfunction within the system identified that we believe have led to the known scoring issues. This process has resulted in the production of a detailed functional specification of the system, along with updated user guides. It is likely that going forward, resuming use of the system will require some technical fixes, as well as some training and practice improvements. What will follow is a stage of triaging and remediation, to prioritise what will be done and applying the fixes.

The Scottish Government have also been in the process of tendering for a managed service provider for this system. This process pre-dated the discovery of the IT errors, and it was delayed as a result of the errors being found. Following announcement of the outcome of that process, it is likely that any triaging and remediation of the system will be conducted under the new contractual period, which, on current planning would likely begin in August.

While the review work has taken longer than originally envisaged, it is being conducted thoroughly, and with positive engagement from justice partners as these review demands are being managed on top of existing workloads.

Scotland’s export performance is published annually in the Export Statistics Scotland (ESS) report at the start of each year and provides the Scottish Government with estimates of Scotland’s international and domestic trade in both good and services, excluding oil and gas. The timing and content of the ESS publication is determined independently of ministers.

ESS relies heavily on company data collected through the Global Connections Survey (GCS). However, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic resulted in the postponement of that survey in 2020 and impacted the publishing the ESS in 2020 and 2021. However, data collection for the GGS 2020 and 2021 data is due to start imminently.

Our most reliable and up to date source of export data is provided by the ESS 2019 report - Export statistics Scotland: 2019 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . Based on ESS 2019, the USA is our top international export destination with an estimated value of just over £6bn in total exports.

The prior notification and approval process introduced in 2014 enables planning authorities to consider the impacts of agricultural and forestry private ways (sometimes referred to as hill tracks) on the environment and local amenity. Through this process, the planning authority can require changes to the design, manner of construction and route of a proposed private way to minimise potentially harmful impacts. It is for the relevant planning authority to consider each prior notification application on its individual merits.

It is open to the planning authority to refuse prior approval if they consider such impacts cannot be satisfactorily mitigated. Furthermore, if the proposed development would require an environmental impact assessment, the permitted development rights do not apply.

The Scottish Government is currently carrying out a review of permitted development rights in Scotland. We have committed to consider the permitted development rights for private ways as part of the review programme and we will consult on proposals for change in due course.

The Green Freeports bidding process closed on 20 June and five bids were submitted from: North East Scotland Green Freeport; Clyde Green Freeport; Forth Green Freeport; Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport; and Orkney Green Freeport. Neither P&O Ferries nor DP World are involved in any of these bids.

The Scottish Government has been clear that fair work practices sit at the heart of Green Freeports and any application which does not show a clear commitment to fair work practices will not be supported by the Scottish Government. We are determined to ensure that Green Freeports will create significant numbers of good, green jobs, and deliver positive benefits for Scotland’s businesses, workers and communities.

Through the ClimateXChange centre of expertise the Scottish Government has received expert advice on the use of animal feed additives which have the potential to reduce methane emissions. This advice has suggested that more data are needed to assess the full potential of feed additives and feed materials in reducing methane emissions from livestock.

FSS and FSA are responsible for assessing animal feed safety in GB. Any new innovative feed material would be considered through the feed risk analysis process. For feed additives these are products that require to be authorised by the GB regulated product process before they can be sold and used in animal feed in GB and may only be used for the purpose stated in the authorisation. The FSA and FSS carry out the risk analysis process for regulated products such as feed additives and provide advice to Ministers who decide whether the product can be placed on the market in England, Wales and Scotland. Feed additives intended to reduce methane production in ruminants are new and highly innovative feed additives and within the GB regulated products application process are being categorised and risk assessed as; zootechnical feed additives under the functional group ‘as substances which favourably affect the environment’.

The following table provides a breakdown by local authority area of all applications to the Vacant and Derelict Land Investment Programme received in Round 1, for funding in financial year 2021-22.