Seòmar agus comataidhean

I intend to write to the Education, Children and Young People’s Committee later in October with a fuller update on local authority progress with regard to CO2 monitoring and ventilation in school buildings. At this point in time, I can confirm the following:

A) The Scottish Government confirmed a total of £10m funding allocations to local authorities in its grant letter on 14 October 2021. The funding allocations for all local authorities have been agreed and grant payments will be made in line with standard processes and timelines. Local authorities have confirmed that they have been progressing purchases of CO2 monitors on the basis of confirmed funding allocations. We plan to request formal confirmation that all funding provided has been, or will be, used for the specified purposes at a later date.

B) The following table shows the breakdown of how the £10m funding was allocated to each local authority. We do not hold a detailed breakdown of how each local authority will spend their allocation. However the grant letter to local authorities states that the funding should only be used for specified purposes, including the purchase of CO2 monitors, associated additional staffing costs, and to contribute to any remedial action identified as being necessary following CO2 monitoring.

We currently have no plans to amend the existing waiting times standards although recovering our NHS and improving waiting times for patients is a top priority for this Government.

In response to the pressures on NHS services caused by the pandemic the NHS Recovery Plan was launched on 25 August 2021. The Plan which is backed by more than £1 billion of investment, sets out the Scottish Government’s key headline ambitions and actions to be developed and delivered now and over the next 5 years. While recovery is the immediate task, the Plan is fundamentally about ensuring that the process of recovery focusses on alternative pathways of care that allow people to be treated sooner and closer to home .

There have been 88 public facing Scottish Government websites launched since 2016, 15 were launched in 2016, 16 were launched in 2017, 13 were launched in 2018, 9 were launched in 2019, 29 were launched in 2020 and 6 were launched in 2021.

Waste management and collections are the responsibility of local authorities and they are best placed to make decisions regarding the provision of waste and recycling services in their area. As democratically elected bodies it would not be appropriate for Scottish Ministers to get involved in the day to day running of Scottish Councils.

We continue to work closely with local authorities, COSLA and other partners to support waste reduction, increased reuse and recycling and responsible waste management. This includes making our first investments from the £70m Recycling Improvement Fund to support local authorities in improving recycling infrastructure, and developing a route map to help achieve our 2025 targets and beyond. We are also working with local government to review the Household Recycling Charter’s Code of Practice, to help make it easier for householders to recycle the right things and encourage high levels of citizen participation in waste prevention, recycling, and reuse.

From 2017 to the end of 2021 we have received a total of £194.8m in EU Exit preparation consequentials.

Spend, both in preparation and post-EU Exit, has been on staff supporting activities such as legislative preparations, and supporting stakeholders and partners, including businesses, cultural bodies, higher education institutes, local government and the third sector.

We have consistently targeted our spending responsibly and appropriately to mitigate against the negative impacts of exiting the EU and we have allocated our spend to deal with the concurrent impacts of Covid and EU exit.

Following previous calls from stakeholders, I carefully considered the position and concluded that there was no way to reopen, or widen out grounds for appeal for the 2020 appeals process in a fair and equitable manner to all learners.

This decision was announced via a parliamentary question on 21 June 2021 and can be found at: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers/question?ref=S6W-00913 .

The EHRC’s findings refer to historic omissions at the SQA. Learners can be assured that SQA complied with its equalities duties regarding the awarding of National Qualifications over the last two years including those relating to the 2020 appeals process.

The Strategic Board works with the enterprise and skills agencies to improve performance measurement in a number of ways:

• The Board produces its Annual Analysis to coincide with its Strategy Day. This includes a comprehensive analysis of Scotland’s performance against relevant National Performance Framework indicators. Importantly the report also includes consideration of agencies contribution to the outcomes and detail on the agencies progress on delivery of the Board’s missions.
• The Board ensure the agencies plans are aligned - with each other, with Scottish Government and Board strategic direction and with the National Performance Framework. Each of the agency operational plans now share a vision, one which supports the Strategic Board’s Plan and Scottish Government priorities. In addition, the agency operational plans now use common planning assumptions shaped by common economic analysis as well as making clear how agency activity supports the outcomes of the National Performance Framework.
• Additionally, the Board has overseen specific analytical work to help improve performance measurement in relation to key areas of agency activity. The Board’s work on Innovation (working jointly with the Analytical Unit, Scottish Government and agencies) has identified a number of specific cross-agency actions to improve the monitoring and evaluation of activity – including developing consistent approaches and addressing data gaps.

The report Making Things Last: A Circular Economy Strategy for Scotland set out that the reuse economy in Scotland has a yearly turnover of at least £244 million, supports over 6,000 jobs, reuses 89,000 tonnes of material annually, and provides opportunities for individuals to obtain high quality products at considerably lower cost than new. This data came from a baseline report( https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/research-evidence/scottish-reuse-mapping-sector-analysis-report ) which was used to inform support for reuse.

Zero Waste Scotland operate the Revolve certification scheme for second hand stores and internal analysis by them indicates that, based upon totals reported by the Revolve Network, the weight reused has more than doubled between 2017-18 and 2019-20.

This information is not held centrally and no recent specific analysis has been undertaken.

UK wide analysis was carried out in 2012 by WRAP on the reuse potential of furniture and electrics collected at Household Waste Recycling Centres. The data shows just below 50% of furniture was assessed as re-usable and over 40% of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment collected was assessed as suitable for re-use. This number rose to 60% as suitable for reuse following minor repair.

Through our work to bring forward a Circular Economy Bill and develop a route map to achieving our targets to 2025 and beyond, we are investigating how further reuse and repairs could be encouraged and incentivised, including through more responsible production as part of our transition to a fully circular economy in Scotland.