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Amey is the operating company with responsibility for the A77. Acting on behalf of Transport Scotland, they are currently undertaking a route assessment of all junctions between Monktonhead and Smithston.

Amey have recommended an approach to identifying short-term future demand by taking information from Transport Assessments prepared to support new development in the area, this is currently being consider by Transport Scotland.

For longer term forecasts, Transport Forecasts 2021 will be published later this year, these are currently in development and are being used in the second Strategic Transport Projects Review.

These will update the published Transport Forecasts 2018, which build in committed development and Local Plan Development allocations from the local authorities, along with committed transport interventions. Since the previous publication, the demand for transport has been considerably impacted by COVID19 leading to unprecedented changes in how we access employment, services, leisure and goods.

The Scottish Government extended the designation of Scotland’s current network of Enterprise Areas until March 2022. Informed by findings from a survey we commissioned in November 2020 regarding place-based economic initiatives, and the report of a Scottish Enterprise evaluation of Enterprise Areas, the future format for Enterprise Areas will be confirmed later this year.

Following the publication of the recommendations from the Ministerial Working Group on Mortgage Lending and Cladding, we invited property owners living in buildings where safety concerns had been determined to submit an Expression of Interest in participating in the first phase of the Single Building Assessment. Over 300 Expressions of Interest were submitted. The selection of the buildings to be included in the first phase has been completed and building owners will be notified of the outcome this week.

The Single Building Assessment is a safety assessment on buildings with flatted properties with external wall cladding and will provide us with the clear evidence on the total need for remediation. All flatted properties will be covered; that’s around 770 high-rise buildings and many more at lower heights.

This approach will allow us to identify buildings that are at risk and if there are no problems identified, it will release people from safety and mortgage lending concerns. It will also save homeowners the hundreds of pounds they may otherwise have faced through paying for an individual EWS1. The costs of Single Building Assessment will be met by the Scottish Government.

Once the Single Building Assessment programme has been established we will target remediation at the buildings at most risk.

The Scottish Government recognises that a diverse and successful ports sector contributes significantly to national, regional and local economies. We continue to work with the ports sector to explore avenues of funding for diversifying and reducing the carbon impact of port operations.

Scotland’s ongoing programme of planning reform is refocusing planning on improving the quality of our places. We are undertaking a review of National Planning Policy in Scotland with a view to publishing National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) in 2022. This will be Scotland’s long-term development strategy, the direction of travel for which is set out in the NPF4 Position Statement published in November 2020. Permitted development rights (PDR) refer to those types of development for which planning permission is granted by national legislation, meaning they can be carried out without needing to submit a planning application. Port operators in Scotland already have broad PDR under Part 13 of Schedule 1 to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992. As we noted in the draft Green Port Applicant Prospectus published in March 2021, the Scottish Government will consider whether port operators’ existing PDR remain fit-for-purpose.

Despite its forthcoming launch, there has been little detail shared or dialogue with Scotland on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. It remains unclear how much Scotland will receive or on what basis our allocation will be decided. It is extremely disappointing that the UK Government has again decided to use the powers it has given itself in the Internal Market Act to introduce a scheme which bypasses the Scottish Government and stakeholders.

We continue to analyse a number of options around signalisation and prohibition of movements in order to understand the wider impacts of this on the surrounding local and trunk road network. This is a complex task, which aims to balance the need to reduce conflict at this location along with minimising any reduction in operational performance of the A702 corridor.

We have commissioned specialist traffic modelling consultants to carry out a detailed modelling exercise to assess the effectiveness of different junction option scenarios including road closures/banned turning movements in conjunction with new traffic signal arrangements. This detailed modelling exercise is currently ongoing and is expected that this work will be concluded in summer 2021.

Information on the number of NHS patients waiting for treatment is published quarterly by Public Health Scotland and can be found at NHS waiting times - stage of treatment 25 May 2021 - Data & intelligence from PHS (isdscotland.org)

This data shows the number of patients on waiting lists and how many have been waiting over 12 weeks. This is shown by NHS Board and can be filtered to show numbers by specialities.

There are arrangements in place to allow travellers to travel without pre-payment of the Managed Quarantine Hotel/Testing Package who are claiming Hardship. The Scottish Government have agreed to accept the costs of Scottish residents on Low Income benefits. The list of agreed benefits is:

• Universal Credit
• Child Tax Credit
• Council Tax Reduction
• Working Tax Credit
• Housing Benefit
• Income Support
• Pension Credit
• Income-based Jobseekers Allowance (JSA)
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
• Carers Allowance

An Equality Impact Assessment to support the decision to replace the National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher examination diet in 2020-2021 with an Alternative Certification Model will be published on the Scottish Government website shortly.

SQA has undertaken an Equality Impact Assessment of the 2021 Alternative Certification Model that was co-created by the National Qualifications 2021 Group. It is available on the SQA’s website at: Equality Impact Assessment - National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher Alternative Certification Model 2021 (sqa.org.uk) .

We have worked to ensure that nobody is placed at detriment as a result of their participation in the programme as a vaccinator.

Our desire to protect as much of Scotland’s population as quickly as possible has necessitated the deployment of all available resources, and the rate of progress we have seen would not have been possible without the mobilisation at pace of a large, capable and diverse workforce. We are grateful for the contribution nurses have made alongside other Healthcare Professionals.

It is our expectation that reliance on the temporary measures currently in place will reduce as Health Boards continue with efforts to recruit a sustainable vaccinator workforce.

To support delivery of the National Infrastructure Mission, in early 2019 Scottish Ministers established an independent, short-life, Infrastructure Commission to examine and advise on the right vision, ambition and priorities for infrastructure in Scotland to meet our 30-year economic growth and societal needs. The Commission published two reports during 2020, which are available online at:

https://infrastructurecommission.scot/storage/281/Phase1_FullReport.pdf

https://infrastructurecommission.scot/storage/276/Phase2_Delivery_Findings_Report.pdf

The Infrastructure Investment Plan 2021-22 to 2025-26 was published on 4 th February 2021. It recognised the value of the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland’s expertise and insight to the discussion on how we develop our long-term infrastructure strategy. The Plan also committed to giving further consideration to the most appropriate approach to Scottish Minister’s receiving independent advice to set longer term priorities. We will set out further details of the steps we will take to explore this later this year.