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The Scottish Government considers that the provisions of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, as amended, are sufficient to ensure that action can be taken if the welfare of greyhounds, whether still racing or retired, is not being met. The provisions of Part 2 of the Act apply to all people responsible for animals, including breeders, trainers and owners of racing greyhounds.

As a result of the Scottish Government’s introduction of the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020 a person convicted of the offence of causing an animal unnecessary suffering can currently be sentenced for a period of up to 5 years in prison and/or an unlimited fine.

Family Fund administers the Take a Break Scotland fund on behalf of the Scottish Government. Currently, it is one of four programmes which make up the annual £3 million voluntary sector Short Breaks Fund. During the period 2011-12 to 2021-22, 21,131 Take a Break Scotland grants have been provided to carers (please see the breakdown below for each year). The higher numbers of grants in 2020-21 and 2021-22 is due to additional funding provided to meet extra demand during the pandemic. It must be highlighted that this is the number of grant applications funded, and there may be more than one carer benefiting from each grant.

Number of Short Break grants provided by the Take a Break Scotland fund.

The primary responsibility for dealing with planning applications and local planning matters rests with Glasgow City Council as local planning authority.

It is for the planning authority to interpret and implement relevant planning legislation and guidance as it deems appropriate given the circumstances of a case and to ensure that the provisions of the planning system are applied properly. Planning applications should be determined in accordance with the terms of the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise, each proposal being considered on its own merits. In reaching a decision on the planning application the planning authority is expected to have regard to all material factors, including consultee views and representations submitted to them.

As this is a live planning application it would not be appropriate to comment on the merits of the case so as not to prejudice the decision making process.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally, as local authorities and integration authorities have legal duties to provide carer support under the Carers Act. In practice they commission third sector organisations, including carer centres, to provide much of that support on their behalf. The 2020-21 budget contained an additional £11.6 million and the 2021-22 budget a further increase of £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 carer 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 recent years, £490,000 per year has been allocated to this scheme but in response to the pandemic, the Scottish Government put an additional £910,000 into the scheme in 2020-21 and has committed a further £400,000 in 2021-22.

In April 2020, we established a £500,000 fund to help local carer organisations transition to home working, so they could continue to provide advice and emotional support remotely, such as telephone counselling and online sessions.

In March 2021 the Scottish Government also provided over £24,000 of funding to 28 local carer organisations, who requested assistance with the cost of informing carers about how to access priority Covid-19 vaccinations.

Self-directed Support (SDS) is Scotland’s mainstream approach to social care, applying to both children and adults and enshrined in law through The Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013. This approach to social care has been chosen to ensure individuals are empowered to be equal partners in their care and support decisions and to participate in social and economic life. It is, however, focused on social care and support, rather than access to health services. As such, the Scottish Government does not currently have plans to develop a self-directed support scheme for young people to access mental health services.

However, the Scottish Government continues to invest heavily to ensure a range of mental health support is available to children and young people, in line with their needs.

Our work with children and young people’s organisations - monitoring surveys, research and referral rates – helps Scottish Government and our partners to incorporate the lived experience and views of children and young people into our policy and service design processes; as we seek to ensure that the right help and support is available.

We continue to invest in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) which support children and young people in need of specialist mental health support, and have invested an additional £40 million in CAMHS services this year.

We have also provided £15 million of additional funding to local authorities to deliver locally based mental health and wellbeing support for 5-24 year olds in their communities. This includes funding new and enhanced community mental health and wellbeing services for 5-24 year olds with a focus on prevention, early intervention and the treatment of distress.

In addition we continue to prioritise support for children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing in schools, including developing and delivering new mental health training and learning resources, and £16 million in funding to ensure that every secondary school has access to counselling services.

Furthermore, we continue to invest in a range of other measures to support children and young people’s mental wellbeing. This includes providing enhanced digital resources on mental health and wellbeing available via Young Scot’s website and expansion of the Distress Brief Intervention programme to under 16s.

In our Mental Health Transition and Recovery Plan we committed to considering and addressing the causes of mental health inequality at a structural and individual level, particularly the impacts of the pandemic on the mental health of minority ethnic groups. We have established a Mental Health Equality and Human Rights Stakeholder Forum, with representation from organisations representing Race equality, to provide advice on the implementation of the Plan and wider equalities work within mental health policy. The Forum first met in February and we continue to consult with the group as we implement the Plan.

We recognise that there is a need to improve data collection to help us understand any barriers faced by people from minority ethnic communities accessing mental health support, as has been recommended by the Expert Reference Group on Covid and Ethnicity and the Mental Welfare Commission in its recent publication on Racial Inequality and Mental Health in Scotland.

As part of the Scottish Government’s Equality Data Improvement Programme, government analysts are assessing evidence, including on ethnicity/race, across the health and social care portfolio and are committed to developing an action plan to improve equality data. Scoping of requirements for initial research on mental health and ethnicity will take place over the coming months.

The offshore wind sector has a vital role to play in decarbonising our energy system and ensuring we become a net-zero economy by 2045. With a pipeline of new projects set to be provided by the first cycle of ScotWind leasing, the Scottish Government committed to setting out a Strategic Investment Assessment (SIA) for Offshore Wind within our first 100 Days of Government and this was published on 20 August. The findings contained within the report by Ironside Farrar were essential in assessing current and future marshalling and assembly capacity in Scotland’s ports and form a key element of the SIA findings and recommendations. Both the SIA and the Ironside Farrar report set out a clear path of the steps we must take to seize the economic opportunity offshore wind supply chain presents for Scotland. The Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council (SOWEC) co-chaired by Ivan McKee, Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise and Brian McFarlane of SSE, will be responsible for taking forward delivery of the recommendations and actions from the SIA which includes the findings from the Ironside Farrar report.

Historic Environment Scotland has undertaken surveys of Scotland’s historic environment sector to evaluate the ongoing economic impact of the pandemic on heritage businesses and community groups and is working on further plans to empower and enable a resilient and robust recovery for the sector.

Historic Environment Scotland has also been conducting targeted and direct engagement with communities around its Properties in Care closed either by the pandemic or by recent health & safety precautions.

The Scottish Government’s policy is to replace vehicles when they reach the end of their operational life cycle, with fully electric replacements, wherever possible.

During the last 3 years we have procured 63 Ultra Low Emitting vehicles (ULEV’s). 40% of the purchases were zero-emission electric vehicles.

This replacement strategy allows us to increase the number of electric vehicles on the fleet, year on year, implementing the targets set out in the 2019-20 Programme for Government, where we outlined our commitment to phase out the need for all petrol or diesel cars in the public sector fleet by 2025 and for all other new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02844 on 23 September 2021. 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 .