Seòmar agus comataidhean

Through the Scottish Government’s Fair Work policy, all employers across Scotland, which would include those involved in the Offshore Wind sector, are encouraged to adopt Fair Work principles. The Fair Work Action Plan asks employers right across Scotland to play their part, while setting out what support is available to help them realise the benefits of fair, diverse, and inclusive workplace practices.

The highest salary currently paid is £240,000 for the Chief Executive of the Scottish National Investment Bank. This is also the figure published in the Bank’s Annual Report 2024. Senior salary information can be found for individual public body’s on their websites. You can find links to each body’s website at National public bodies: directory.

Given the changes in the Scottish Government’s devolved powers over the last decade, it is not possible to apply direct like with like comparisons in Scottish Government funding levels over the past decade, notably due to the addition of around £5.6 billion of funding for devolved social security benefits.

This information is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government remains committed to the current GP contract that was agreed with the Scottish GP Committee (SGPC) of the British Medical Association in 2018, and to ensuring the stability and sustainability of general practice. We continue to regularly discuss the contract with SGPC and other stakeholders.

The Scottish Government has undertaken an extensive range of work in pursuit of reforming the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) regime in Scotland.

This has included three recent consultations to scope and refine the approach to EPC reform.

Domestic Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) reform: consultation - gov.scot

(23 July 2021)

Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) reform: consultation - gov.scot (25 July 2023)

Scottish Energy Performance Certificate Register Lodgement Fees and Penalty Charges - Questions - Energy Performance Certificate reform – lodgement fees and penalty charges: technical consultation - gov.scot (12 February 2025)

These consultation documents have been complemented by public events and workshops.

More generally, the Scottish Government has, and continues to, engage intensively with all major stakeholders in EPCs, seeking their views in taking forward our reforms. The Scottish Government regularly convenes a Strategic Advisory sub-Group and an External Reference Group focused on EPC reform. Stakeholders include representatives of Approved Organisations, local authorities (in their enforcement role), consumer groups; EPC assessors; surveyors; the UK Government; the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland; private letting agencies; and many others. We have also engaged with other European countries including Denmark and the Republic of Ireland.

In taking forward our reform of EPCs, we have been receiving advice from the Climate Change Committee, the UK’s statutory adviser on tackling climate change, and other advisory bodies including Historic Environment Scotland.

In relation to the EPC’s appraisal of cavity walls and associated insulation measures, and other energy efficiency improvement recommendations, we acknowledge concerns raised over the ability of the EPC to identify when such measures are technically suitable. In response, we are creating a short term industry group to advise on how the reformed EPC will select measures for potential improvement. We are also carrying out further user testing on how best to present this information on the certificate, in particular ensuring that it signposts the need to have detailed technical advice before installing any measures. In parallel, we are currently scoping the development of a methodology to assess the technical suitability of measures as a step beyond the EPC.

The Scottish Government published its response to Dr Colin Church’s second and final report on 5 May 2023, which focused on options to decarbonise residual waste infrastructure in Scotland.

We welcomed the report’s recommendations in supporting the continued reduction of emissions associated with waste, whilst also recognising Dr Church’s observation that “properly regulated incineration has an important role to play as part of the waste hierarchy in managing Scotland’s unavoidable, unrecyclable residual waste in a sanitary manner”.

We acknowledge of course that the residual waste sector is a complex system and, in accordance with Dr Church’s Recommendation 1, our Circular Economy and Waste Route Map (published in December 2024) sets out a series of ongoing and future policy commitments to achieve Dr Church’s Recommendation 1 (i.e. “rapidly seek further reductions in the proportion of recyclable materials in the residual waste stream”).

This includes policies such as banning single use plastic items, the implementation of the packaging extended producer responsibility scheme and a new co-designed statutory Code of Practice for household waste and recycling.

In its May 2023 response, the Scottish Government accepted Recommendation 17 in principle. While the Scottish Government agrees that phasing out the incineration of plastic waste is key to decarbonisation, our approach must be balanced, as banning it outright could lead to an increase in inappropriate disposal.

Our Route Map commitments will help to deliver increased reuse and recycling in accordance with our Circular Economy goals and help drive the reduction in fossil-based plastics going to incineration.

The proposed ETS expansion is part of a whole-system approach set out in the final Circular Economy and Waste Route Map, making incineration a less attractive waste treatment method while limiting the production of plastic upstream and increasing its removal from the waste stream prior to incineration.

Supporting policies include the ban on certain Single Use Plastic Items, implementation of an Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging scheme this year and the commitment to require kerbside collection of plastic film and flexible packaging.

The Scottish Government is aware that the best way to mitigate ETS costs is to produce less waste and we will continue to work to put policies in place that reduce fossil-based waste in the residual waste stream.

That is why the primary focus of the Scottish Government continues to be on transitioning to a circular economy and preventing waste from occurring in the first place.

Zero Waste Scotland's (ZWS) Corporate Plan for 2025-2030 includes present and future targets beyond the life of this Corporate Plan.

The reference to seeking reduction of Scotland's extraction of raw materials by one third is based on a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Report, which stresses the importance of high-income countries reducing their material footprint by bending the resource use curve to achieve economic growth, reduced inequality, improved quality of life and dramatically reduced environmental impacts.

During the lifetime of the current Corporate Plan, Scottish Government will continue to work with ZWS in developing data and policies required to establish a baseline and trajectory for future target setting to measure progress towards a circular economy.

The UK ETS is jointly governed by the UK ETS Authority (‘the Authority'), comprising Scottish, UK and Welsh Governments and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland.

The Authority is currently in the process of analysing the results from a recent consultation and developing policy positions. Following this period of analysis, an Authority response will be published in due course, which will provide further details on the outcome of the consultation and policy positions for all Scottish partners.

We are aware that Scottish local authorities (LAs) are in a different position to the rest of the UK, given the introduction of the ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste, due to come into force on 31 December 2025. This differing position for Scottish partners is foremost in our consideration of related policies in this area.

In order to reflect this, a provisional analysis set out in the analytical annex of the recent consultation noted that if all household waste that currently goes to landfill in Scotland was to be redirected to incineration because of the landfill ban, total costs for all Scottish LAs could increase to £40million.

The Scottish Government is committed to continuing to working with COSLA on future ETS cost projections. We continue to work closely with Local Authorities, through our SG-LG group, on circular economy related issues.