Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government is committed to protecting freshwater habitats from diffuse agricultural pollution.

Responsibility for regulation of agricultural diffuse pollution lies with SEPA. Since 2009, through River Basin Management Planning SEPA has identified 57 priority catchment areas where additional intervention is needed to tackle agricultural pollution.

This priority catchment approach, involving catchment-based farm visits, has been successful in building a strong working relationship between the agricultural sectors and SEPA. To date, SEPA has completed over 6000 initial farm visits and 3500 revisits to non-compliant operators in 38 of these priority catchments with six now regarded by SEPA as reaching full compliance. SEPA will continue to complete ongoing diffuse pollution compliance work in the other 32 catchments by 2027.

Phased work in the remaining 19 priority catchments began in October with initial visits by SEPA in two new catchments – Wick and Thurso - and as of 1 November initial farm visits have commenced in the River Leven catchment.

Following the high level assessment of unmet need raised in the Independent Review of Adult Social Care, the Scottish Government considered unmet need in its consultation for the National Care Service.

Unmet need in adult social care is continually monitored as Scottish Government analysts are considering options for increasing our understanding of the nature and level of unmet need in adult social care. We will continue to engage with external partners and those with lived experience of unmet need in social care services as we develop the National Care Service.

Decisions to prioritise one population group over another for vaccination are not taken lightly, nor are they straightforward. That is why our prioritisation decisions have been, and will continue to be, guided by the independent expert advice provided by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) and senior Clinicians.

As with previous campaigns, vaccinations will be offered first to frontline health and social care workers and those most vulnerable to the effects of the virus. Information on the Winter Vaccines programme including eligible groups can he found here .

Full information on the considerations made by the JCVI with regards to which groups have been offered a COVID-19 booster vaccine can be found here .

Short Breaks

The Financial Memorandum estimate for the cost of personalised short breaks for adult carers under the Carers Act, as amended by the National Care Service Bill, is based on the following assumptions:

1) The number of adult carers accessing personalised breaks is based on a future steady state in which 34% of all adult carers will have an adult carer support plan (ACSP). This assumption is carried over from the Carers Act Financial Memorandum.

2) The proportion of carers that have an ACSP will vary depending on the intensity of caring.

3) The proportion of carers with an ACSP that access short breaks will also vary depending on the intensity of caring.

Assumptions were also required for how the proportions in 2) and 3) vary across the carer intensity bands.

Table 1 shows the assumed profile for the proportion of carers with an ACSP across the intensity groupings; and table 2 shows the assumed profile for those with an ACSP that will access personalised breaks support under the Carers Act.

Scottish Government officials have met with European Commission officials regarding sharing knowledge and expertise on the operational elements of the Erasmus+ programme’s mobility and exchange, pertaining to the development of a Scottish Education Exchange Programme.

Neither SEPA nor the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service hold any central statistics that would indicate the number of fires caused in waste or recycling facilities by lithium contained within disposable vaping products being crushed.

Scottish Government is aware of this issue, and through our regular sector forum with stakeholders across the Scottish resources and waste sector, discussions are ongoing to look at what more can be done to build understanding and tackle this issue in partnership with the sector.

Following a consultation process, which ended in June 2022 officials have been working on analysis of responses, and redrafting the guidance. It is hoped that the guidance, and associated guides and toolkits will be published by the end of the year.

Recruitment, training and deployment of firefighters are Operational decisions for the SFRS board and chief officer. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) has provided assurance that at no point was there ever no firefighter cover for any area in Scotland. SFRS ensure that at any time a fire appliance is not available the nearest available appliance is mobilised to ensure every emergency is attended to.

In common with all parts of the UK and beyond, there are challenges with recruitment and retention of on-call firefighters in remote and rural areas in Scotland. SFRS has established a National On Call Leadership Forum which is identifying and driving improvements in recruitment.

The Iterative Plan Review Process (IPR) is ongoing and officials have completed an initial review of the assessments conducted for the Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy (SMP-OWE) adopted in 2020. This initial review identified which aspects of the assessments are likely to be affected by the ScotWind and clearing process results. The full review is estimated to take around 12 months and a final programme for the review process will be fixed in the coming weeks, taking into account the findings of the initial review. Officials at Marine Scotland Directorate will hold a series of stakeholder engagement events and statutory consultation as part of the re-assessment process.

The Scottish Government is aware of the environmental impact of single-use disposable vapes. Along with the other UK administrations, we are working on reforms to the extended producer responsibility system for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), including vapes, to make it easier for consumers to dispose of WEEE more responsibly.

We have not carried out any specific assessment of the environmental impact of single-use disposable vapes.