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The Scottish Government recognises the importance of mobile and broadband connectivity for almost all aspects of everyday life which is why we work closely with Local Resilience Partnerships, telecoms providers and the UK Government - both in preparing for, and responding to severe weather events which may impact telecommunications in Scotland.

It is important to note that resilience of the Communications Sector, which includes telecommunications and internet, is reserved and therefore the responsibility of the UK Government.

Major outages are extremely rare, but most telecoms equipment is dependent on a power supply in order to function which can be disrupted by extreme weather.

During the Storm Arwen response effort, welfare centres offered Wi-Fi and mobile phone charging facilities where possible. Additionally, in the in the run-up to Storm Arwen, the Scottish Government’s Ready Scotland campaign was activated using local radio and digital channels and was geographically targeted on the areas affected by the Amber and Red Met Office warnings.

The ‘Ready Scotland’ website, at ready.scot , provides advice to the public on how to prepare for and respond to emergencies; including utilities loss and severe weather.

We will continue to press the UK Government and the regulator (Ofcom) for assurance that increasing resilience of the telecoms network in Scotland is a priority.

Scottish Government makes DNS changes to domains on a daily basis. Given the number of change requests that have been processed each day since renewals in 2016 and the way in which domains are managed it is not possible for us to provide an accurate breakdown of the “active” or “inactive” domains for any date or year other than the latest data we have for the current portfolio as it stands today. We can however provide a breakdown of annual costs for the renewal, management and enterprise DNS provision for the Scottish Government domains portfolio each year since 2016.

Date     Total domains   Total Ex Vat

2021-06-30   1039     £13,267.50

2020-06-30   1021   £12,530.00

2019-06-30   837   £10,455.00

2018-06-30   705   £8,493.00

2017-06-30   640   £7,612.00

2016-06-30 630   £7,186.00

We have defined “active” as a domain that has DNS configuration applied to it. Any domain that is currently parked with our Registrar Com Laude or has no DNS configuration has been defined as “inactive”.

We set out an initial £20 million allocation for the Fund in our draft Budget document on the 9th December. Building on our commitment to co-design, we will take forward a series of engagements in the new year with partners across the region to design the approach for the implementation of the Fund, including how investments can demonstrate alignment with the national outcomes we set out in our response to the Just Transition Commission in September 2021.

We are fully committed to ensuring this Fund benefits communities fairly across the North East and Moray region. Our engagement activity will cover the region as a whole, ensuring that communities and businesses in Moray, with others, are able to influence the approach taken for the Fund.

The Scottish Government has received the following amounts in (a) health and social care related Barnett consequentials; and (b) Covid-19 Barnett consequentials related to health and social care spend:-

Work to review the response to Storm Arwen is already well underway.

I requested that the Scottish Government’s Resilience Division begin work on the scope and terms of a review into the Storm Arwen response on 30 November 2021, and on 14 December 2021 I formally commissioned the Scottish Resilience Partnership to collate evidence from local resilience partnerships to inform the findings of the review.

The Scottish Government will also gather evidence from other relevant groups, for example the voluntary sector and utilities companies.
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I aim to publish a review paper with recommendations as early as possible in 2022, although I now expect that to be later than originally planned due to the need to enable resilience partners to prioritise the pandemic response.

On the 3rd of November, and in response to an increase in risk to poultry of highly pathogenic avian influenza linked with increasing numbers of wild birds testing positive for the disease, the Scottish Government, along with Defra, DAERA and the Welsh Government, acted swiftly to declare an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) across the whole of the UK. This declaration legally required keepers to apply strict biosecurity measures in order to limit the spread of and eradicate the disease. These measures were further enhanced on 29 November, requiring all bird keepers to house their birds or otherwise keep them separate from wild birds.

When outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza have been confirmed, such as those in Angus or Dumfries and Galloway, a 3 km Protection Zone and 10 km Surveillance Zone are declared around the infected premise. Within these zones, movement restrictions are applied on poultry, other captive birds, carcasses, eggs, and a range of poultry product and associated equipment, all aimed at halting the spread of the disease. A full epidemiological investigation is carried out in every case to identify the source of the virus and any potential onward transmission routes.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with other UK administrations and its operational partners to put out communications to keepers ensuring they are aware of the risk and to promote compliance with the Avian Influenza prevention zone biosecurity measures. Whether keepers have just a few birds or thousands they must take action now to protect their birds from this highly infectious disease.

The Scottish Government has established a number of groups to advise Ministers on the development of education policy. These include the International Council of Education Advisers, the Scottish Education Council, the Curriculum and Assessment Board, the Teacher Panel, and the Scottish Board for Teacher Education. In addition, there were two important reviews of aspects of Scotland's education system published recently, the Audit Scotland report Improving outcomes for young people through school education, and the findings of the OECD: Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: Into the Future | en | OECD. Following on from the OECD review, Professor Ken Muir was appointed in August 2021 to act as an independent adviser to the Scottish Government, and to report recommendations on education reform early in 2022. At the beginning of his appointment, Professor Muir appointed an expert panel and an advisory group to support this work. Details of these groups including the remit and membership can be found here: Education Reform . It has also been announced that Professor Hayward will lead a reference group to advise on the reform of qualifications, and this work will begin next year.

It has also been announced that Professor Hayward will lead a reference group to advise on the reform of qualifications, and this work will begin next year.

This year’s Scottish Budget is a budget of choices and we have chosen to back our national mission to tackle child poverty and strengthen support available for families during the cost of living crisis.

The Budget commits almost £200 million to double the Scottish Child Payment to £20 from April 2022, immediately benefiting 111,000 children under the age of 6.

We remain committed to delivering the Scottish Child Payment for children and young people aged 6-15 by the end of 2022, subject to receipt of the necessary data from DWP, at which point more than 400,000 children will be eligible.

In advance we are supporting as many school age children and young people as possible through our Bridging Payments, worth £520 in 2022. This innovative response, which makes use of the data local authorities have, is delivering immediate support to around 150,000 children.

The Scottish Child Payment remains the best way to provide the support low income families need now which is why we have acted to double the payment from April.

The Scottish Government recognises the valuable contribution that positive, well supported transitions have on outcomes for care leavers and that the relationships care leavers build including with their foster carers are integral to these outcomes.

Since 1 April 2015, young people leaving care after their sixteenth birthday, and who have been looked after in foster, kinship or residential care have been eligible for Continuing Care and therefore able to continue in their care setting if that is in their best interests. The Scottish Government’s Continuing Care guidance stipulates that local authorities should carefully consider the financial implications for a carer offering a Continuing Care placement to ensure that a lack of financial support is not a barrier to the continuation of the placement.

The Scottish Government currently forecasts a balanced resource budget position by the end of 2021-22.

The £200 million of additional Covid support for Business’s and for Self Isolation Support Grants announced by the First Minister on 14 December 2021 has been reprioritised from existing budgets.

The 2022-23 Scottish Budget assumes £179 million of capital and financial transactions will be made available for carry-forward in 2021-22 through the Scotland Reserve.