Seòmar agus comataidhean

While inter-governmental discussions are ongoing, and while we are developing PSED-related improvement proposals, we have not yet made an assessment of the likely impact on women of the UK Government’s commitment but we are making stringent efforts to resolve this matter and to consider how action planning could be used in a Scottish context.

As Minister for Equalities, I am still awaiting a confirmed meeting date with UK Government Ministers, following an offer via correspondence in May 2025, to discuss the Scottish Government’s concerns around provisions in the UK Government’s Employment Rights Bill and to seek a resolution in line with current timelines for the Bill’s passage. These concerns relate to powers to mandate for equality action plans and the naming of outsourcing providers for public bodies in Scotland. Currently these provisions will only come into force for public bodies in England, and so Scottish Ministers continue to seek assurances around receiving the equivalent powers to regulate as those proposed for UK Government Ministers.

Using the powers that we do have and as part of the Scottish Government’s phased approach to improving the effectiveness of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) in Scotland, we continue to review the operation of the Scottish Specific Duties to support Scottish listed authorities to enable better performance of the general duty.

Local authorities are entirely separate entities from the Scottish Government and it is the responsibility of each local authority to manage its day-to-day business, including meeting statutory obligations in relation to procurement processes.

The rules public bodies, including local authorities, must comply with in relation to procurement in Scotland are set out in the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, the Procurement (Scotland) Regulations 2016, the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, the Utilities Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2016 and the Concession Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2016. Parties which have suffered, or risk suffering, loss as a result of an alleged failure to comply with the procurement legislation may bring action under that legislation in the courts.

Local authorities are autonomous corporate bodies, accountable to their electorates, and are responsible for managing their own procurement processes in line with statutory duties and national procurement legislation.

The Scottish Government does not independently review local authorities. The Accounts Commission and Audit Scotland provide independent scrutiny of local government performance. These bodies can consider concerns raised by the public or elected members and use this information to inform their audit work. Parties which have suffered, or risk suffering, loss as a result of an alleged failure to comply with the procurement legislation also have the option of bringing action under that legislation in the courts.

There are a variety of targeted capability and improvement programmes at national and sectoral level to review, support and underpin local performance against agreed national standards and policy aspirations, helping to strengthen the systems, skills and processes that support audit and governance.

Local authorities are autonomous corporate bodies, accountable to their electorates, and they are responsible for managing their own procurement processes in line with statutory duties and national procurement regulations. As such, I am not aware of any such discussions.

The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 provide for parties which have suffered, or risk suffering, loss as a result of an alleged failure to comply with any duty in those regulations to bring action under that legislation in the courts.

The Scottish Government is not responsible for ensuring local authorities’ compliance with legal obligations.

This is a matter for the operation company and the Scottish Government is unable to disclose this information as it is considered commercially sensitive.

The Scottish Government continues to investigate the wide-ranging implications of aligning with the recast Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive on policy and legislation. This includes implications for the operation of storm overflows and the related guidance. I will provide further information to Parliament once this work has reached an appropriate stage.

The Scottish Government is aware of the recently published paper which investigates patterns and trends in cetacean strandings across Scotland since 1992.

While the paper reports increasing strandings rates across species groups, it also acknowledges that strandings do not always represent an increase in mortality in a population; they can also reflect either an increase in abundance, or periodic movements of individuals into an area. Furthermore, the detection of stranding events has also improved over time with increased awareness, volunteer coverage, social media and cultural engagement with cetacean conservation.

Any applications for development in Scotland’s seas involves careful consideration of the project’s potential environmental impact, including on European Protected Species.

The Scottish Government will more fully consider the findings of the report.

Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) approved the Final Draft of the Strathclyde Regional Bus Strategy on 19 September. A costed programme and timeline for delivery of a Franchise Framework Assessment as required by the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019) will be considered at a future partnership meeting.

As this work develops, SPT will be required to undertake more detailed appraisals to determine which of the various bus options they want to progress with. In a climate of increasing fiscal pressure, it is important that the business cases for improving bus services are made robustly and in an evidenced based way to support future decision making on funding.

In 2025-26 the Scottish Government provided record funding of over £15.1 billion to local authorities, a real terms increase of 5.5%. It is, however, the responsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financial resources available, including on support for bus provisions such as franchising in their region, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled its statutory obligations. Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to make local decisions on how best to deliver services to their local communities.

Section 7 of the Act was brought into force on 26 June 2024 but only insofar as for the purpose of section 8 (removal of certain trustees by court: unfitness). The Scottish Government’s preferred approach is to allow the remaining provisions of the Act to be brought into force at the same time as a Scotland Act Order extends relevant provisions to pensions trusts and officials are working closely with UK Government colleagues to progress this work.

The Scottish Government has no plans currently to mandate further data collection from salmon farms given the information already provided is sufficient for transparency and regulatory purposes. The approach was set in our response (March 2025) to the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee's recent inquiry and report into salmon farming in Scotland. In this correspondence, I also committed to improve the accessibility of existing data collections and to explore how to gain greater insights into cleaner fish mortality.