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The rules on local connection were changed in November 2022 to give homeless households – like other households – choice and control about where they settle. The SSI in November 2022 stopped referrals of homeless households between Scottish local authorities on the basis of their local connection. Referrals to England and Wales are still permitted and the SSI did not change local connection rules for refugee households. The rules covering refugee households who have just left asylum accommodation are set out in the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003.

Homelessness statistics on local connection following changes to the legislation remain stable with 3% of households seeking homelessness support in an area where they do not have a local connection. The evidence to date shows that people are exercising choice about where they want to live as the legislation intended. We continue to monitor the flow of people moving in and out of each local authority area to inform our understanding of the impact of the legislative change.

The duties that local authorities owe to homeless refugee households were not affected by the November 2022 changes to local connection. It is section 7 of the Homelessness etc.(Scotland) Act 2003, passed by the last Labour / Liberal coalition which outlines that the time spent in Home Office asylum accommodation does not establish a local connection for newly recognised refugees, as the household has not had any choice about where they lived while accommodated by the Home Office. If a household receives a positive asylum decision while living in asylum accommodation in a Scottish local authority and presents as homeless, they cannot be referred to the local authority where they were accommodated by the Home Office on the basis of local connection.

Conversely, Section 199 (6) of the Housing Act 1996 states that a local connection is established if a person was at any time provided with accommodation in that district. This means that people granted refugee status in England and Wales are found to have established a local connection with the authority/authorities where they have resided in asylum accommodation – despite having no choice in where they were placed. This limits where they can make a homelessness application in England and Wales.

A decision by the UK Government in December 2022 to clear the backlog of legacy asylum claims resulted in an increased number of refugee households seeking support, with this increased pressure being most acute in Glasgow. More recently, the Home Office decision (27 August 2025) to end the temporary extension of the move-on period for single adults is likely to exacerbate the pressures being faced by local authorities. The Scottish Government supports the call from Glasgow City Council that the UK Government must provide adequate funding to allow local authorities to support newly recognised refugees and communities.

Scottish Ministers do not want to roll back the rights of homeless households and do not intend to make any further changes to local connection legislation at this time.

Violence against women and girls is a fundamental violation of human rights and has no place in our vision for a safe, strong, successful Scotland.

Our Equally Safe Delivery Plan contains a range of actions to build a robust and joined up approach to the prevention of violence against women and girls across all education settings in Scotland. Action 4.3 commits us to consider how we connect and share data with other public protection areas and use data and evidence to support conversations to prevent and reduce harm and to improve outcomes for adult and child victim-survivors of VAWG.

Tackling the difficult issues of having the right data for improvement and assurance and risk escalation at local and national level, is a workplan priority for the National Public Protection Leadership Group (NPPLG). A medium-term action for the NPPLG will look at how we progress interconnectedness of strands to inform policy and practice. The work of the Scottish Government Cross-Government Public Protection Team will complement the work of the NPPLG and support this action.

In relation to adult victim-survivors, the Adult Support and Protection National Minimum Dataset collects data on primary harm, including categories on physical harm’, ‘sexual harm’, ‘psychological/ emotional harm’ and ‘domestic abuse’. This data is shared with Local Health and Social Care Partnerships on a quarterly basis as unpublished management information and can be used to inform broader local discussions on public protection.

Adult Support and Protection contribute to the Equally Safe strategy as a partner in public protection and data will be available from wider sources.

For child victim-survivors, the Scottish Government are continuously looking to improve local and national data and evidence around child protection. A National Child Protection Data Group with members from the Scottish Government, Care Inspectorate and the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection (CELCIS) oversees this work. The group meets regularly and organises annual in-person events to bring together individuals with an interest in local and national child protection data from across the country.

A national dataset is published on an annual basis to support the publication of the Scottish Government’s annual children’s social work statistics. The publication of these statistics is important to allow us to follow long term trends in child protection data. The data collection specification has been revised to ensure alignment with the National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021 – updated 2023. Child protection registrations linked to domestic abuse are collected as part of this publication.

A minimum data set for Child Protection Committees (CPCs) has been developed which aims to support the delivery of continuous improvement and self-evaluation responsibilities. The minimum dataset is a ‘package’ of data collation, presentation, analysis, reporting and scrutiny supports to support child protection improvement, local planning and service development, and expanded analytical capacity. Child Protection Committees can supplement the minimum dataset with additional information depending on the needs of their area. Version 2 of the minimum dataset for Child Protection Committees was launched in June 2021 and aligns with the National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland.

Since 2021, our partners CELCIS have administered the Children’s Care and Protection Data Community of Practice Scotland Knowledge Hub site. The site is open to all people interested in children’s data. The Hub will facilitate a more co-ordinated strategic approach to sharing learning and to help inform local planning and service development.

Prior to the implementation of Oracle Cloud, the Scottish Government’s previous HR Information System did not require Job Title to be a mandatory field for completion. This meant that individuals could be operational in substantive posts, but with missing or out of date job titles recorded on the system.

There are 45 civil servants, directly employed by the Scottish Government, whose Job Title does not appear on the organisation’s HR Information System, Oracle Cloud, when a report is downloaded. Further information on Scottish Government workforce numbers is available here Scottish Government workforce information - gov.scot).

A Professions Strategy is in operation within Scottish Government. This enhances workforce management by adopting a classification system that links all jobs to a profession and a related job family and job type. While the majority of jobs have been through this classification system in preparation for Oracle Cloud going live, there is a small minority of roles (~7%) still to be formally classified which Scottish Government are currently progressing.

The Scottish Government continues to support free income maximisation, welfare and debt advice services with £16.9 million invested in
2025-26, a significant increase on the £12.3 million invested in 2022-23.

This investment supports a range of advice and income maximisation services including the Advice in Accessible Settings Fund. Since launching in 2023 the Fund, which aims to increase the availability and accessibility of advice in places that people already go, has supported more than 13,000 clients and unlocked £27 million in financial gains. The fund supports and encourages partnerships between existing advice providers and a wide range of other community based services. This includes charities, housing and homelessness services, specialist health services, carers support services and 3 partnerships involving schools.

NatureScot did not hold any direct discussions with (a) NFU Scotland and (b) Scottish Land and Estates regarding its recent decision to grant licences for the release of six beaver families at two sites in the River Beauly catchment

The main engagement for conservation translocations is carried out by the applicants, in this case, Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS).

The FLS application followed two years of engagement by Trees for Life and FLS. The Abriachan application followed local community consultation hosted by the Abriachan Forest Trust and Scotland the Big Picture. Scottish land and Estates and NFUS were invited to attend a consultation event, which NFUS attended.

The Affric engagement reports can be found here:

https://treesforlife.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Glen-Affric-and-Strathglass-beaver-consultation-report.pdf

https://treesforlife.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Deciding-Matters-Beaver-Consultation-Report-28-May-2024.pdf

NatureScot received correspondence from NFUS on this topic on behalf of members prior to and after the application was submitted by FLS.

As Licensing Authority and recognising there remained concerns amongst land and fisheries managers in Beauly and Strathglass about beaver release proposals, NatureScot carried out further engagement over the summer 2025 to better understand these concerns. Site visits were requested by 12 landholdings and three groups representing fishing interests. NatureScot staff met with the land and fisheries managers directly on site to discuss their concerns. A representative from NFUS was present at one of these meetings.

We are developing a Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Needs Assessment Tool which will help build a robust picture of the specific needs of women, children and young people experiencing VAWG in the different local authority areas across Scotland. This follows discussions with a range of specialist stakeholders about the importance of understanding the extent of need for VAWG services across Scotland.

The tool is seen as an important aide in bringing together partners from across different services and policy areas to raise awareness of everyone’s role, help identify opportunities to drive forward improvements and maximise the safety and wellbeing of women, children and young people.

The Needs Assessment Tool is entering a testing phase, supported by £350,000 of Scottish Government investment in 2025-26.

As part of our Equally Safe governance arrangements, we have a progress reporting cycle in place which will see an annual progress report published by the end of this year, providing updates on the actions it contains and sets out the work that will be undertaken over the next period.

An interim progress report is also compiled for the Equally Safe Joint Strategic Board to monitor progress, the most recent one in February 2025. I would be more than happy to share a copy of this with the elected member.

Summerhall Arts, set up in 2023, was awarded Multi Year Funding by Creative Scotland in January 2025. Over 2025-26 it will receive grant funding of £168,254 which will support its core operating costs.

The previous operator of the Summerhall venue, Summerhall Management, had received the below payments from Creative Scotland since 2020:

The Scottish Landfill Tax and the planned Scottish Aggregates Tax play complementary roles in encouraging the substitution of recycled and secondary aggregates for primary aggregates.

Research commissioned by the Scottish Government, Scottish Landfill Tax: Lower Rate Review (May 2025) highlights in particular that the introduction of the Scottish Aggregates Tax presents an opportunity to reassess how taxation influences the volume of lower-rate aggregates sent to landfill.

Further consideration of the alignment and interaction between the two taxes will be undertaken once the Scottish Aggregates Tax is operational.

The Scottish Government is providing £2 million towards the development of the Grangemouth Sustainable Manufacturing Campus as part of the Falkirk and Grangemouth Growth Deal. The project is being led by Scottish Enterprise and Falkirk Council, with Scottish Enterprise currently assessing the most effective approach to move the project forward, in order to develop the project business case.