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We will continue the use of existing and new and emerging testing and surveillance procedures to support early identification of future variants, including whole genome sequencing, wastewater surveillance.

Where agricultural expertise is required in Ministerial appointees to Government agencies, the sponsor team for the agency may choose to integrate that into criteria for the role. The sponsor team should work with the public body and the Board Chair on this, to represent Ministers' aims and requirements for the roles.

Government agencies will of course also ensure that they engage with their relevant stakeholders, including agricultural representatives, as appropriate.

As the Roads Authority, local authorities are responsible for the drainage of local roads and public highways under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 - including maintenance of road gullies. The Scottish Government does not hold information on how many local authorities prioritise high risk areas in their drain clearance schedules. Local Authorities are responsible for and best placed to respond to, need in their area.

The 2022-23 Local Government Finance Settlement of almost £12.7 billion represents a cash increase of almost £1.1 billion or 9.2 per cent which is the equivalent of a real terms increase of 6.3 per cent.

However, the Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities.

Local authorities are independent corporate bodies with their own powers and responsibilities. It is up to each local authority how it manages its day-to-day business and decision making processes.

The Scottish Government does not take into account the length of roads for which a local authority is responsible when allocating funding to local authorities for flood risk management.

The Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 provides the framework for effective management of flood risk.

As part of our civil contingencies risk assessment work, the Scottish Government’s Resilience Division works closely with resilience partners, including the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the Met Office, to assess climate change risk. This work includes the development of the Scottish Risk Assessment (SRA), which is designed to supplement UK Government’s National Security Risk Assessment. Together these documents assist Scottish responders and policy makers in understanding the most significant civil contingencies emergencies which Scotland may face over the next two to five years. The current SRA includes six new risk assessments themed around major impacts from climate change, as well as a dedicated climate change overview chapter.

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places 7 duties on local authorities including duties to assess the risk of an emergency occurring, and to plan for such emergencies, and maintain those plans accordingly. Further guidance and best practice for categorised responders, including local authorities, on planning and preparing for emergencies is set out in our Preparing Scotland guidance.

Data on the investigation of suspected lung cancer by computerised tomography (CT) scan or use of CT as part of treatment is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government monitors the size of the challenge ahead by consideration of climate projections, flood mapping, modelling and analysis carried out by a number of key, expert partners such as the Met Office, SEPA and Scottish Water.

We recognise that our urban areas in particular face mounting challenges with surface water drainage and related flooding. This is why we must ensure that communities and places are water resilient and set-up for the climate challenges ahead. This will require a concerted effort across all sectors to ensure that new development is appropriately sited and designed and that existing buildings can transition to managing rainwater through blue green infrastructure instead of sewers reducing the pressure on our drainage systems.

The Communications Sector, which includes resilience of the telecoms network, is reserved and the responsibility of the UK Government.

There are no specific obligations on telecoms operators to disclose assets that are at risk of flooding or a single point of failure to the Scottish Government.

However there is a broad requirement for telecoms operators to mitigate and minimise, in accordance with good industry practice, the number of single points of failure within the Network.

The Scottish Government works closely with the UK Government, telecoms operators and owners to ensure Scotland’s telecoms networks are resilient to a variety of risks, including flooding and other climate change related factors.

In 2020, we published the ‘Keeping Scotland Running’ Guidance Suite, which seeks to support the delivery of Scotland’s Critical Infrastructure Resilience (CIR) Strategy. This Guidance Suite comprises seven separate guidance documents designed to equip and enable CIR stakeholders to work together to build resilience across the critical infrastructure sectors in Scotland. Two of these guides specifically look at Building Resilience to Natural Hazards and Building Resilience to Climate Change (Adaption).

Our approach to building resilience to the impacts of climate change more widely is set out in the statutory Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme 2019-2024. One of the high level outcomes the Programme is structured around is that “Our society’s supporting systems are resilient to climate change”.

The Ready Scotland website – ready.scot – is a core part of our public-facing communications work to help make Scotland more resilient to emergencies. It provides up to date, accessible and comprehensive information on a range of threats and risks, including flooding, to help people in Scotland to prepare for and respond in ways that keep themselves safe and help others in their communities to stay safe.

The Scottish Government works closely with resilience partners to respond to and also prepare for significant incidents, providing information regularly through its own website and social media channels, and also working with resilience partners to disseminate information more widely.

This includes working with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scotland's national flood forecasting and warning authority which runs Floodline Scotland and works closely with local communities to strengthen resilience, prepare for and reduce the impacts of increased flooding.