Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government supports Scottish Canals to conserve Scotland’s canals as part of our heritage, and transform them to play a vital role in local communities and as an asset for all of Scotland.

Scottish Canals is engaged in regeneration projects across the canal network as part of how it delivers wider public value and is a key partner working with local authorities, local communities and funders to deliver projects that will bring about a wide range of benefits for many communities which sit along the canal network. Recent projects include The Claypits, Bowling Harbour and the Ardrishaig Egg Shed.

Heating engineers are vital to the success of our Heat in Building Strategy which sets out how we will achieve our Net Zero Emissions in Scottish buildings by 2045. Ensuring heating engineers are sufficiently trained in the repair and installation of zero emissions heating are a key part of this. Our support for this includes:

• A doubling of the Flexible Workforce Development Fund to £20m - enabling employers to access up to £15,000 each to address skills gaps in their workforce. This fund is available to all Scottish employers, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

• Providing funding to support apprentices with zero emissions heat skills with 95 apprentices applying for funding across five Scottish colleges.
‎• Funding zero emissions training equipment (e.g. heat pumps) for colleges in the north of Scotland to ensure pan-Scotland training provision (colleges in the south of Scotland have benefited from Scottish Power’s Green Economy Fund). By the end of this financial year there will be 13 training centres - including the North East Scotland College (currently installing their equipment) - across Scotland covering repair and maintenance of heat pumps.

In addition, we have also been working with industry, the sector skills bodies and Skills Development Scotland (SDS) to develop skill requirements for zero emission technologies that will help professionalise the sector and provide career pathways for young people. We have also set up an independent group to provide recommendations to Scottish Ministers on the potential scope and content of a heat pump sector deal with an interim report published in June and we will respond to final version once published.

Finally, we are working hard to unlock workforce investment by driving up the demand for products and services in the zero emissions heat and energy efficiency sector. This includes investing almost £1.8bn to build upon, expand and improve our heat and energy efficiency funding programmes over the next five years, and a proposed framework of regulations to require action from building owners.

Local authorities and integration authorities have legal duties to provide carer support under the Carers Act. In practice they commission third sector organisations, including carers centres, to provide much of that support on their behalf. The 2021-22 budget contains an additional £28.5 million in the local government settlement for Carers Act implementation. Added to similar (baselined) increases in previous years since the Act came into force in April 2018, this brings the total investment in the Carers Act for 2021-22 to £68 million per year. It is for local authorities and integration authorities to decide how to use the funding to meet their duties under the Carers Act, but it is expected that this will include providing additional funding to carers centres and other organisations commissioned to expand carer support.

The previous Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport wrote to local authorities in March 2021 to highlight the importance of using this additional funding to expand carer support: www.gov.scot/publications/carers-act-finance-2021-2022-letter

Alongside funding for the Carers Act, the Scottish Government also funds the Time to Live scheme, administered by Shared Care Scotland, to enable local carer organisations to provide small grants for carers to spend on short breaks or something that gives them a break from caring. In response to the pandemic, we put an additional £910,000 into the scheme in 2020-21 and have committed a further £400,000 in 2021-22.

In 2019 the Scottish Government launched the Young Carers Package with Young Scot. The idea behind this was to help support young carers with their well-being, education and life goals as well as taking some sort of a break. So the package offers exclusive discounts, vouchers, opportunities and prizes to win all geared towards this goal.

In recognition of the pressures on young carers during the pandemic, an additional £300,000 has been provided to Young Scot to add new e-vouchers and opportunities suitable for home use and physical distancing to their young carer package for 11-18 year olds. New opportunities include subscriptions to mindfulness relaxation apps, mobile data top ups, sanitary product vouchers, entertainment subscriptions and e-vouchers to some of the most popular stores and wellbeing boxes filled with things to help young carers take care of their mental wellbeing.

I asked the Scottish Qualifications Authority to reply.

Initial modelling indicates that 53% of SQA’s running costs (permanent SQA staff, overheads and other indirect costs) were attributable to the implementation of the Alternative Certification Model (ACM) in 2020 and 56% are attributable to the implementation of the ACM in 2021. Including direct delivery costs, the cost of the ACM was therefore:

(a) 2020: £33.4m

(b) 2021: £41.7m (forecast)

The SQA levy to local authorities and entry fees charged to independent schools and colleges for National Qualifications have remained unchanged since 2012-13 despite changes in costs. In addition, 2020 and 2021 late entry fees have been waived and there have been no charges for appeals.

Savings generated by the delivery of the ACM in place of an ordinary exam diet reduced SQA’s grant-in-aid requirement from Scottish Government, and enabled support for other critical pressures, supporting people and communities during the pandemic.

Guidance on replanting on deep peat following clearfell is contained within the Scottish Government’s Practice Guide, Deciding Future Management Options for Afforested Deep Peatland (2015). It sets out the circumstances where a presumption to restore the peatland habitat applies and the assessment method that should be used to decide future options where a presumption to restore does not apply.

In 2018, the Scottish Government (via ClimateXChange – Scotland’s Centre of Expertise on Climate Change), commissioned the following report: Afforestation and restocking on peaty soils – new evidence assessment. The study broadly confirmed the findings of previous research on which the Practice Guide is based.

At this point in time there are no plans to review existing guidance however, we will continue to invest in research in this area, and will take account of new evidence, as it emerges, to help inform the future development and implementation of forestry policies and regulations.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested. The data we receive from Police Scotland for production of the Recorded Crime in Scotland National Statistics is a simple count of the numbers of crimes and offences, for each local authority, which the police have recorded and cleared up. We do not receive further details on the characteristics and circumstances of individual crimes, therefore we are unable to identify how many crimes of vandalism were in relation to graffiti. Time series information on the total number of crimes of vandalism recorded by the police is available from the Recorded Crime in Scotland National Statistics (a link to the latest publication is found here: Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2019-2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ). The 2020-21 Bulletin will be published on the
‎ 28 September 2021 here: Recorded Crime in Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Our Position Statement, published in November 2020, confirmed that we expect National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) to contribute to meeting our target of net-zero emissions within an overarching goal of addressing climate change. The draft NPF4, which will be laid in the Scottish Parliament this autumn, will set out a draft spatial strategy and proposed national planning policies to achieve this.

The First Minister announced in the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government on 7 September that this Government will carry out scoping work on the remit and powers of a Learning Disability, Autism and Neurodiversity Bill, in this Parliamentary year.

A decision on the timing of a Bill will be taken by Cabinet in the context of setting the content of future legislative programmes. Meantime, the Scottish Government will work closely with stakeholders to consider the issues and how to deliver change quickly and effectively to uphold people’s rights.

Zero Waste Scotland have spent the following amount of money on tackling litter from 2015 to 2021:

We will lay the draft National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) in the Scottish Parliament this autumn and will consult widely on it. We recognise that we need to act now to reduce emissions, adapt to a changing climate, and to protect, restore and better connect Scotland’s biodiversity.

Our approach to NPF4 will ensure that climate change and nature recovery are at the heart of the new spatial strategy.