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No specific risk assessment has been carried out for the impact of the Household Recycling Charter on recycling rates.

The Scottish Government has committed to evaluate the Household Recycling Charter. This work has been delayed temporarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but we are working with COSLA and local authorities to take forward this evaluation.

Of the 32 local authorities across Scotland, 31 have signed up to the voluntary Household Recycling Charter, Edinburgh City Council has not yet signed up. So far, 9 councils have fully aligned their services with the Code of Practice, these are: Dumfries & Galloway, Dundee City, East Ayrshire, Falkirk, Fife, Moray, Shetland Islands, South Ayrshire, and Stirling.

The Scottish Government allocated £475,000 of additional funding to Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority over this year and last year to meet the costs associated with additional visitor management pressures in the National Park following the easing of restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic in the National Park. This is in addition to £425 000 which has been allocated to mitigate the wider impact of the pandemic on businesses and local communities.

The additional funding for visitor management has been spent on a range of additional measures by the Park Authority, including increasing its seasonal staff complement (such as rangers, campsite wardens and environment officers) to manage the substantial number of visitors to the national park and the high volume of litter and waste generated; providing and maintaining additional temporary toilet facilities; making adjustments to Park Authority sites to ensure COVID-safe access for the public; and providing additional signage, for example to help manage traffic in congested areas.

In addition, the Scottish Government allocated £70,000 to the Park Authority from the Scottish Government’s COVID Recovery Task Force Funding in 2021 to fund strategic development plans for East and West Loch Lomond to assess how these areas can continue to attract visitors whilst reducing visitor pressures such as traffic and parking capacity issues.

Looking to the future, the Scottish Government’s increase in the Park Authority’s Capital budget by £540,000 for 2021-22 and for each of the next three years will enable the organisation to deliver visitor infrastructure improvements and develop a capital investment plan to better support visitor management in the National Park.

The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) is an autonomous Higher Education Institution (HEI), and as such has responsibility for its own strategic and operational decision making, including those related to the rebuilding of the Mackintosh building. The GSA has made clear its intention to rebuild the Mackintosh as a fully functioning art school, engaging fully with the local community in taking this forward.

All category A listed buildings, including the Mackintosh, are of significant cultural and historic importance to Scotland and are defined in Historic Environment Scotland (HES) guidance as buildings of “outstanding special architectural or historic interest”. HES, as the lead public body for investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland's historic environment, will continue to work with the GSA, Glasgow City Council and other interested parties on the complex issues surrounding the rebuild of the Mackintosh building.

All Scottish HEIs in receipt of public funding must comply with the terms of their Financial Memorandum with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), and the principles of good governance set out in the Scottish Code of Good HE Governance.

The SFC continues to engage regularly with the GSA at senior management and board level on a range of issues, such as institutional governance, its plans for the delivery of high quality education, and the use of its estates for this purpose. This includes the Mackintosh and the approach the GSA is taking to inform decisions around its rebuilding.

The GSA will shortly publish the first stage of this process, the Strategic Outline Business Case (OBC), which was developed in accordance with UK and Scottish Government guidance and includes input from a range of internal and external stakeholders.

No risk assessment has been carried out regarding the potential impact on recycling rates of charging for garden waste collection.

There is no statutory requirement for local authorities to separately collect garden waste and charging for its collection is not a new option available to councils. Garden waste is included in Schedule 2 of the Controlled Waste Regulations 1992 which contains the types of waste for which a charge for collection may be made. It is up to individual councils whether to charge or not.

As set out in our update to the Climate Change Plan, we will consult on requirements to separately collect garden waste by 2023, to further promote reuse and recycling.

Within the Cultural Collections budget line for 2021-22 the 3 National Collections (National Galleries of Scotland, National Library of Scotland, and National Museums Scotland) saw increases to resource budgets of over £1 million to support the public sector pay settlement.

There was a reduction to capital budgets within the cultural collections and other cultural capital lines of £4.75 million due to the profile of capital commitments. In 2021-22 the capital allocation for the cultural collections decreased due to the commitment to the Scottish National Gallery project reducing compared to 2020-21; and completion of some capital commitments for National Museums Scotland.

The Other Cultural Capital budget line saw a reduction of £3.4 million due to the Scottish Government completing its funding commitments to several capital projects in 2020-21. These include the Paisley Museum project with £2 million committed in total, £750k of which was provided in 2020-21; Citizens Theatre project with £2 million committed in total, £1.25 million of which was provided in 2020-21; and Burrell Collection project with a £5.75 million total commitment including £650k in 2020-21, and an uplift of £750k in Covid emergency support delivered in 2020-21.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government as this is an operational matter for Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority. I have therefore asked the Park Authority’s Chief Executive to write to the Member to provide details.

Scottish Government does not hold information on the cost of tackling litter in each local authority. Local Authorities are responsible for clearing litter on public land. They will be providing information on the costs of tackling litter as part of the forthcoming research on the scale and cost of litter and flytipping in Scotland.

The total visits, from 2014-15 to now, are split across the Recycle for Scotland (RfS) site, when it was standalone, and the new How to Waste Less (HTWL) site, which the RfS site was incorporated into in April 2020.

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) is a relative measure of deprivation which ranks 6,976 small areas (called data zones). Rank 1 represents the most deprived data zone in Scotland and 6,976 represents the least deprived data zone in Scotland. The rankings are split into deciles 1-10, which define the deprivation levels in 10% bands. Data zones in decile 1 are among the 10% most deprived areas in Scotland, and data zones in decile 10 are among the 10% least deprived.

The following table shows the SIMD decile for incineration facilities operational in Scotland in 2019, accepting household or commercial waste.