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The Scottish National Investment Bank has provided the following information about who it consulted with and the feedback received during development of its gender equality strategy:

“In developing its Equality Strategy, the Bank sought input from a wide range of organisations. This was facilitated through written feedback and direct discussion. Organisations consulted included:

Women on Boards

Women’s Enterprise Scotland

Abrdn

Engender

Close the Gap

IoD

Black Professionals Scotland

British Business Bank.

Feedback from respondents was considered and incorporated where appropriate.”

Yes; Forestry and Land Scotland encourages local staff to be members of / engage with Deer Management Groups. Likewise Forestry and Land Scotland does discuss / consult with local DMG’s as to their land management objectives and associated plans.

Forestry and Land Scotland do not keep central records of the volume of deer fencing erected by year. The data held relates to annual expenditure on deer fencing on Scotland's national forests and land.

The underspend on HM Treasury Funds available for each of the three years is as follows:

2018-19 - £339m (£191m Resource, £147m Financial Transactions and £1m Capital)

2019-20 - £256m (£85m Resource, £97m Financial Transactions and £74m Capital)

2020-21 - £426m (£358m Resource, £61m Financial Transactions and £7m Capital)

This includes all planned and anticipated carry forward commitments built into the following years’ budgets.

For 2021-22 the current carry forward requirement is £511m to fulfil known and forecast 2022-23 obligations. Current forecasting is in line with this requirement but remains subject to final movements and the outturn processes. The final underspend figure for 2021-22 will be the 2022-23 Scotland Reserve opening balance.

It is unclear what is meant by funding uplifts in the question.

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to introduce new council tax rebates based on energy efficiency ratings for properties. Individual local authorities are required by section 80A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 to establish their own energy efficiency council tax discount schemes. Advice and support on improving home energy efficiency is available through Home Energy Scotland, administered by Energy Saving Trust on behalf of the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government believes it is important to support children and young people to have the knowledge and skills necessary to use social media in a positive way.

We provided the Scottish Youth Parliament and the Scottish Children’s Parliament with over £90k of funding to develop the ‘Mind Yer YTime’ web resource, launched in April 2020 and updated in September 2021. This online hub is specifically designed to give children and young people advice on the safe use of screen time and social media use and their impacts on physical and mental wellbeing.

We provided over £160k to Young Scot to deliver a range of positive messages, advice and resources to young people regarding health and mental wellbeing through the ‘Aye Feel’ hub. This includes a range of resources, stories, blog posts and targeted social media content on social media usage and managing screen time.

In February 2022 we supported Young Scot to launch the ‘ National Conversation on body image, screen time and mental wellbeing ’ , with children and young people so that their voices can directly shape our future work in this area.

We have also provided Young Scot with £124,740 to run its #DigiKnow cyber awareness and peer education programme around online safety and security, aimed at young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

More broadly, we are aware that some stakeholders have concerns that the UK Government needs to go further in using the UK Online Safety Bill to protect the population’s mental health and wellbeing. We would encourage the UK Government to listen and respond to those concerns so that we can all seek to engage in social media in a constructive and positive way.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-06789 on 8 March 2022. The Scottish National Investment Bank’s forthcoming gender equality strategy will include information on how it intends to collect data. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

Over each of the last five years FLS has spent the following on deer culling contracts on Scotland's national forests and land:

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-06789 on 8 March 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

The Scottish National Investment Bank’s first report evaluating its gender equality strategy is due within 2 years of publication of the strategy, as required under the Scottish National Investment Bank Act 2020.

The Scottish Government expects the Scottish National Investment Bank’s gender equality strategy to be published shortly, following approval from the Board when it meets on 3 March 2022.