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The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of cybercrime units within Police Scotland as this is an operational matter for the Chief Constable.

We recognise the crucial role that Police Scotland officers and staff play in keeping our communities safe, including from sexual abuse.

In 2025-26, we have increased police funding to £1.64 billion, an increase of £90 million on 2024-25, to support police capacity and capability.

The Scottish Government recognises the current pressures on housebuilding and the importance of building more homes. We are aware of opposition from industry to the Scottish Building Safety Levy (SBSL). However, no immediate alternative solutions are being offered to address the scale of the funding challenge associated with cladding remediation. With developers contributing to cladding remediation in England through a Building Safety Levy, the Scottish Government considers it fair and proportionate that they are asked to do the same in Scotland.

We are aware that Scottish Land and Estates have voiced concerns with the proposed measures in the Bill, whereas other stakeholders would like the measures to go further and faster. It is important that our Land Reform policies take a proportionate and balanced approach, whilst improving how land is owned and managed in our rural and island communities.

We continue to listen to the views of stakeholders and have brought forward a number of amendments at Stage 2 to strengthen and simplify the Bill.

Protecting children from harm is a key priority for the Scottish Government. Child sexual abuse and exploitation are abhorrent crimes and have a devastating impact on victims and their families. In Scotland, we are working closely with partners to deliver a co-ordinated multi-agency response to preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation in all its forms. We are committed to ensuring that robust measures are in place across Scotland to make sure our services can identify and support victims of online harm, including children and young people.

We are taking forward a range of work with our partners to both prevent abuse and intervene early to ensure that risk and harm to children and young people is recognised and acted on quickly and effectively. This includes the establishment of a new National Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Strategic Group, comprising of operational partners, including Police Scotland, and other expert stakeholders, to review current action and agree where additional focus is needed to better protect children from abuse and exploitation, including online-enabled harm. This group’s overarching priority is prevention. Members are working together to identify priorities and actions to more effectively prevent, disrupt and provide support to victims of child sexual abuse and their families, including those facing online harms.

The Scottish Government is also a member of Police Scotland’s Multi-Agency Group on Preventing Online Child Sexual Abuse which monitors emerging online threats to develop a shared approach to using technological advancements to tackle abuse, improve data-gathering, improve support for victims and survivors and promote key activities delivered by our partners.

While regulation of the internet remains a reserved matter, we have successfully engaged with the UK Government on its Online Safety Act to strengthen protections for young people. The Scottish Government is also working closely with the UK Government on extending relevant Crime and Policing Bill provisions to Scotland, including offences relating to the possession, creation and distribution of Artificial Intelligence tools designed to create child sexual abuse material.

It is also important to emphasise the responsibility of tech firms in protecting children and young people. This is why I met Ofcom in August and again last week alongside the Minister for Community Safety to ensure pressure is put on tech companies to deliver effective safeguards for young people online, including the need for more prescriptive guidance to providers. The First Minister wrote directly to tech firms last year to remind them of their responsibilities and, alongside the Minister for Victims and Community Safety, I recently wrote to social media companies to invite them to meet to discuss the protection of children and young people from online harm.

We will continue to engage with the UK Government and Ofcom on implementation of legislation and to press for stronger protections to help keep children and young people in Scotland safe online.

We have carefully considered the impact that the proposals in Part 1 of the Land Reform Bill will have on landowners across Scotland. The 1000 hectare threshold means that only the largest 1.4% of Scotland’s farms are expected to be in scope, according to 2023 Agricultural Census figures.

For further assessment of the impacts of proposed measures in the Bill, please refer to the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA).

Local authorities are responsible for the provision and accessibility of household waste and recycling services, including civic amenity sites. However, the Scottish Government recognises the particular challenges faced by rural communities and continues to work with COSLA, SEPA and other partners to support fair and practical solutions.

We are making one of the biggest investments in a generation to modernise recycling in Scotland through the £70m Recycling Improvement Fund for local authorities. Over £8.8 million has been allocated to rural communities across all local authorities, including funding for civic amenity sites.

As part of our wider national strategy to tackle flytipping, we are also exploring ways to improve access to legitimate disposal routes and considering how best to support consistency and share good practice.

As set out in the Circular Economy & Waste Route Map and as enabled by the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024, we are reviewing the Household Recycling Charter's supporting Code of Practice. The Code of Practice will be put on a statutory basis to deliver better and more consistent recycling services across all areas of Scotland, including rural areas. This new statutory Code will provide clear guidance for both householders and waste practitioners, ensuring the right choices are the easiest options.

Working closely with local authorities is integral to this review, as their input ensures the practicality and effectiveness of the new Code across diverse communities. Co-design will help address the diversity of needs and local circumstances across Scotland.

The Scottish Government does not hold consolidated national data on the number of flytipping reports or enforcement outcomes. Between 2020 and its closure in March 2023, fewer than 900 reports were received annually via the Dumb Dumpers platform. In comparison, the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy’s Flytipping Baseline Report, published in October 2024, sets out that in 2022–23 between 63,378 and 64,486 flytipping incidents were reported directly to local authority systems, depending on the data source.

Data on the proportion of incidents resulting in enforcement action is not held centrally, as this is a matter for local authorities and other enforcement bodies. Improving national consistency in reporting and enforcement data remains a priority under the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy and the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024.

Using the data published from the ‘Annual Report on Procurement Activity in Scotland’ the following table provides spend from the last available five years, broken down by supplier location and size. These figures are derived from the Scottish Procurement Information Hub - Scottish Government’s spend analytics shared service.

Public Procurement Spend : Supplier Location and Supplier Size Spend

Keep Scotland Beautiful has been provided with grants of £620,000 from Zero Waste Scotland and Scottish Government in 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to deliver aspects of the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy focused on litter prevention, data improvement and supporting community engagement, In relation to community engagement, this supports the Community Litter Hub, provides training and engagement opportunities, and delivers community-led interventions to tackle litter arising from food and drink ‘on-the-go' and roadside litter.

In addition, the Private Landowners Grant Fund, administered by Zero Waste Scotland, provided targeted support to prevent flytipping on private land in 2023–24 and 2024-25. In 2023-24 has supported some community-based interventions. For example, Govanhill Housing Association received £19,960 to undertake improvements to 5 local flytipping hotspots by repurposing the areas affected and promoting this to residents, installing motion sensitive lighting and signage as well as working with residents to encourage appropriate behaviour.

The Scottish Government has made available record funding of £15.1 billion for Local Government in 2025-26. The vast majority of funding allocated to councils is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including meeting the requirements set out in the Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse (CoPLAR). No additional direct funding has been provided to local councils for the implementation of the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy. However, we have funded Keep Scotland Beautiful to deliver targeted interventions with councils and communities, and SEPA is working in partnership with councils on flytipping prevention and enforcement.

This approach aims to trial scalable solutions and share good practice across local authorities as the Strategy progresses.