Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish wildcat and its breeding places are fully protected under the Conservation (Natural Habitats, &c.) Regulations 1994 .

All management activity on Scotland’s National Forests and Land is independently certified to international standards of best practice and all Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) forest operations adhere to the principles of sustainable forest management outlined in the United Kingdom Forestry Standard. All FLS work is planned and delivered according to these policies with significant consideration given to all protected species including Scottish wildcats.

At a site level, all operations are carried out in accordance with existing legislation and best practice. FLS directs particular care and attention to avoid deliberate and reckless actions that could impact negatively on wildcats. All work sites are subject to pre-operational surveys by FLS Environment staff and camera traps are routinely deployed for periods of two weeks or more. Where evidence of cats is found, mitigation is enacted. This includes rescheduling of works, such as harvesting, to avoid the wildcat breeding season as specified in FCS Guidance Note 35d: Forest operations and wildcats in Scotland.

Furthermore, FLS frequently seeks advice on mitigation from wildcat experts in NatureScot and Saving Wildcats, and has recently funded research on wildcat biology to inform forest management.

Scottish Ministers are still considering how the ScotWind revenues should be invested to maximise the benefits for the people of Scotland. As part of these considerations, Scottish Ministers will continue to evaluate whether these revenues should fall within the scope of the existing 9% agreement with Crown Estate Scotland.

At the time of publication of the Sturrock Report, all Health Boards were to consider the recommendations, review their internal assurance mechanisms and develop action plans.

The Scottish Government are now developing the Improving Wellbeing and Workforce Cultures Strategy alongside the new national leadership development programme called Leading to Change for health, social care and social work sectors to carry this work on. This will help foster an open and welcoming culture, where all staff are valued and treated with dignity and respect.

Leading to Change aims to recognise and support leadership at all levels. Ultimately, we want to equip current and future leaders with the skills and capabilities they will need to enable compassionate and collaborative working and deliver whole-system transformational change against any challenges they may face.

An update to Parliament, in the form of a Ministerial Statement, on the progress made in this space is planned for later this year.

The Scottish Government have purchased the following laptops since 1st March 2020 for use on the SCOTS network.

The breakdown of this information by Directorate is not held centrally and to collate this information would be at disproportionate costs. Computers have been defined as any device which has been configured for use on the SCOTS Network. The overall number for Scottish Government over the past 5 years are

I met with Orkney Islands Council on 8 th August during my visit to the Northern Isles, where we discussed a range of issues including inter-island connectivity.

The Scottish Government recognises the challenges for local authorities with responsibility for ferries and has provided more than £136m over the last 5 years through the Local Government settlement and Specific Grant. A total of £33.095m has been made available for local authorities in 2022-23, including £13.402m for Orkney, which fully funds the Council to operate inter-island ferry services.

The Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy(SMP-OWE) has already carried out a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Habitats Regulations Appraisal (HRA). The SEA and HRA assessed the potential for impact on nursery and spawning locations from the SMP-OWE and at an individual Plan Option scale.

All aspects of marine planning include engagement with the fishing sector representatives, not least of all, the planning process for offshore wind. The Scottish Government’s sectoral marine planning process, the basis for ScotWind leasing, included fisheries representatives on both plan steering groups and provided responses to the scoping and draft plan consultations. Almost all Plan options were modified based on feedback from the fishing community.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10967 on 23 September 2022. 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/written-questions-and-answers .

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the Building a new Scotland paper, ‘Renewing democracy through independence', are set out in the following table.