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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 homelessness funding provided to local authorities in the annual local government finance settlements since 1999 has been included in the block grant and is therefore not separately identifiable. It is therefore not possible to determine how much of the local government finance settlement each year supports work to tackle homelessness in any year.

However, the unquantified amounts within the block grant have been supplemented in recent years through identifiable sums added to the block grant, which are enhanced or reduced by the overall annual changes in the local government finance settlement. The additional resource, set out in the table below, was allocated to local authorities for the development and implementation of rapid rehousing transition plans and for preventing and responding to homelessness.

CalMac Ferries Ltd and NorthLink Ferries Ltd, who operate public service ferry contracts on behalf of the Scottish Government, are required to comply with UK employment legislation. In addition, employment terms and conditions of staff reflect the principles set out under the Scottish Government’s Fair Work Framework.

The arrangements in place at other commercial and local authority ferry operators are a matter for the relevant employer and employees.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities

Severance arrangements and the scrutiny of severance cases follow the process set out in SPFM . This includes arrangements around voluntary exits and settlement agreements and use of confidentiality clauses.

• Data in relation to settlement and the number of confidentiality clauses in Scottish Government and Public bodies, NHSScotland and Scottish Funding Council overseen bodies is held from 2014 and, since then, has been provided to parliament annually – see links to previous reports . 2020-21 data will be published imminently.
• We do not hold information prior to 2014, nor do we hold information in respect of local authorities.

SG and public bodies, NHS and SFC Data. - CC = confidentiality clause.

The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 places the statutory responsibility for local roads with the local road authorities, including parking on local roads. They also have a duty under the Disabled Persons' Parking Places (Scotland) Act 2009, in particular circumstances, to exercise their power to make it an offence to park in a disabled parking place without displaying a blue badge.

Enforcement of these spaces is therefore the responsibility of traffic wardens, local authority parking attendants, civil enforcement officers and Police officers.

However, as part of the implementation of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 parking provisions, we will be undertaking a publicity campaign to highlight inconsiderate parking including the misuse of disabled parking bays.

Lockerbie railway station is serviced by Avanti West Coast and Transpennine Express, known as cross-border rail operators. These operators are managed by the Department for Transport.

Transport Scotland officials have frequent meetings with all cross-border rail operators to discuss Covid related issues and service delivery. We are aware of the issues that Transpennine Express face in delivering a reliable service at Lockerbie due to Covid and industrial action but continue to press for improvements to performance.

We welcome their intention to increase services in May 2022 and the arrangement reached by Transpennine Express for Avanti West Coast to make special stops, where possible, at Lockerbie in the event that Transpennine Express is unable to call.

The Scottish Government is not aware of reports that Greenbelt is selling off its land. Scottish Ministers have no powers to intervene to stop individuals or companies from selling land in private ownership.

We have put in place a process for individuals who have received their coronavirus vaccinations outwith Scotland which allows them to upload official proof of vaccination from an approved country to their Scottish Vaccination Record through NHS Inform . This will allow those who have been vaccinated within the UK or internationally to receive a combined fully vaccinated status to show for travel and domestic purposes. We are working to increase the number of countries that this applies to.

We have committed to a significant programme of investment an expansion in universal school meal provision, this programme will see universal free school lunches being made available for all children in primary and special schools during school term-time during the course of this parliamentary term.

As a part of this workstream, we have also committed to piloting approaches to the provision of free school meals in secondary schools during the course of this parliamentary term. We will provide updates on the progress of delivery around our work to establish pilots of universal free school meal provision in secondary schools as this progresses.

On 23 December 2021 we published a report on implementation of the actions set out in the Tackling Prejudice and Building Connected Communities Action Plan (2017). The report shows encouraging progress made in a number of key areas including raising awareness of hate crime and encouraging reporting.

Building on this progress we will publish a new hate crime strategy later this year. Development of a strategy of this nature will engender consideration of and engagement on a number of relevant initiatives to tackle hate crime and prejudice – including Islamophobia – in Scotland. It will therefore also naturally allow for further consideration of the need for the Scottish Government to adopt a formal definition of Islamophobia, such as the definition advanced by the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims.