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The Scottish Government has prepared a draft Voluntary Code of Practice on dismissing and replacing land-owning land maintenance companies.

To ensure that the draft Code is fair and workable for all users we will seek views from consumer facing bodies and land owning land maintenance companies before we progress to publication.

Plans for engaging are underway.

The replacement (planned and unplanned) of train services with bus replacement services remains an operational matter for ScotRail. Planned buses replace train services that have been impacted as a result of planned works on Scotland’s railway i.e. planned engineering works. ScotRail advise that 515 buses were booked during April 2022. This figure is particularly high with bus replacement services planned every day in April as a result of the Anderston works.

Unplanned buses replace train services that have been impacted as a result of driver shortages, trespassing onto the tracks, fleet issues, signalling issues, points failures and other track faults. ScotRail advise they were supplied with a total of 143 bus replacement services to cover unplanned train service disruption during April 2022.

The breakdown for each day during April 2022 for unplanned and planned bus replacement is as follows:-

Deposit Return Scheme applications for exemptions and voluntary return points have been open since 1 January 2021. The following table provides a breakdown of applications received so far.

Susan Davies FRSB, Chief Executive of The Scottish Seabird Centre was appointed to lead the taskforce on 15 June 2022.

Susan will work with representatives from Police Scotland, Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service and Scottish Government policy officials. The taskforce will consider whether the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (the Scottish SPCA) should be given additional powers to investigate wildlife crime. We expect to receive the report from the taskforce in time to take forward any recommendations that require legislation in a bill during the course of this Parliament.

It has been heart-warming to see the groundswell of support from our communities, pubic services, third sector and partners for people fleeing Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. We have worked closely and collaboratively with partners to stand up our Warm Scots Welcome response, ensuring that all those arriving from Ukraine are accommodated and supported as soon as they arrive in Scotland.

In collaboration with the Scottish Refugee Council, we have delivered three public webinar sessions for hosts. Scottish Government officials regularly engage with community groups working to support people fleeing the war in Ukraine, and those who have volunteered to host displaced people in their homes.

We are working alongside local authorities and partners to help displaced people from Ukraine integrate into communities and support them to settle here. Local authority caseworkers are in place to enable access to services including healthcare, education, employment and benefits advice.

Our New Scots strategy provides a clear framework for integration and it assists partners to make the best use of resources and expertise by promoting partnership approaches, joined-up working and early intervention.

We have also provided £1.4 million to the Scottish Refugee Council for the expansion of its Refugee Integration Service, funding to JustRight Scotland to enable them to provide free and confidential legal advice to Ukrainians seeking safety in Scotland and providing a funding uplift for Edinburgh Third Sector Interface organisations; EVOC and Volunteer Edinburgh, to ensure the continued provision of volunteers to give a warm Scots welcome to tired and often traumatised people as soon as they arrive in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has continued its work with Public Health Scotland to develop an online platform for members of the public to access information on the average waiting times for a range of specialties within their health board area.

It is expected that the specialities included will be in line with the National Statistics currently published, which can be found here: https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/13252/ipdc_may22.xlsx in Table 2.1.

A date is still to be confirmed for the publication of the online platform so we are unable to provide any further details at this time. We would be happy to provide the member with further updates on progress as these become available.

Contract negotiations with Dr Veronikis are a matter for NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) and, are subject to commercial confidentiality. NSS met with Dr Veronikis most recently on 21 June and the Government hopes that negotiations will be positively concluded imminently.

The Scottish Government has no plans to update the published Resource Planning Assumptions at this time.

The spending review sets out the financial framework to support delivery of our commitments. It sets out high-level multi-year spending plans for the Scottish Government and does not replace the annual budget process.

Annual budgets will continue to be set through the annual parliamentary budget Bill process and the annual budget will be based on the latest fiscal information.

Evacuation alert systems for high rise domestic buildings with a storey more than 18 metres above ground level was introduced in the 2019 building standards technical handbooks (domestic and non-domestic) published on 12 July 2019.

The government also published Practical Fire Safety Guidance for Existing High Rise Domestic Buildings. The guidance promotes using a risk based approach to determine the fire safety measures required. Therefore, upgrading existing high rise domestic buildings with evacuation alert systems may be implemented where the level of fire risk is justified, taking into account the time, cost and disruption to building occupants involved.