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ScotRail proposals to adjust opening hours of some of its ticket offices have been accepted by the Scottish Government on the condition that passengers will receive an improved, more direct customer service. Any consultation regarding these adjustments is a matter for ScotRail.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. This is a matter for individual NHS Boards. However, the digitisation of records remains a strategic priority and the Scottish Government is committed to ensuring all healthcare staff have access to the right information at the right time to ensure that the best care possible can be provided.

The Scottish Government encourages all health and social care organisations to move from paper to electronic record keeping and sharing as this improves efficiency and supports transfers of care between different parts of the health and care system. Our ambitions and priorities for electronic record keeping, sharing of records, and improving access to health and care data for both staff and people who use services are set out in our Digital Health and Care and Health and Social Care Data strategies.

All public bodies sit within the Scottish Government budgeting boundary and public bodies underspend forms part of the overall Scottish Government financial position for each financial year. Individual public bodies may not spend their full allocated budget each year - they may return budget for reallocation elsewhere across the budgeting boundary through the Autumn Budget and Spring Budget Revision process; or they may not fully drawdown on their cash budgets in a financial year. Any reallocations of budget or underspends at year-end form part of the overall Scottish Government budget position. The Scottish Government does not maintain a record of the individual underspends by body for each year.

Details of the financial position for any individual body will be set out in their audited accounts for each year. Links to these are provided on the National public bodies directory (https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-public-bodies-directory/).

This years’ budget document presents the latest budget for 2024-25 (which is the position at Autumn Budget Revision as approved by the Scottish Parliament) as the comparator information. There are significant movements in portfolio budgets across the financial year that reflect transfers of resource funding between portfolios – these transfers can reflect in-year decisions on reprioritisation, but also allow for recurring movement of significant sums between areas where policy responsibility (and initial budget) sit in one portfolio and ultimate delivery takes place in another. In the case of the Care Experience - Whole Family Wellbeing Funding line the starting position looks artificially low against the budget figures for 2025-26.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to Keeping The Promise by 2030 and despite the unprecedented challenges to public finances, we have continued to prioritise and protect funding for Whole Family Wellbeing, The Promise and GIRFEC, which will allow the continuation of the important work to transform family support services.

Scottish Government does not directly hold this data. Livestock traceability systems used within GB capture all death data reported and can easily identify farms of origin prior to slaughter. Scottish Ministers will consider all evidence available before a final decision is made.

All primary teachers are generalists; therefore, they deliver the totality of the curriculum including PE.

Special schools may cater to primary and/or secondary and some special schools will therefore have primary qualified teachers that are able to offer PE.

Specialist PE teachers are predominantly based in secondary schools. The 2023 school staff census shows that, excluding virtual schools, one secondary school (0.3%) does not have a teacher whose main or other subject is PE.

In some local authorities physical education teachers that serve more than one school are recorded as centrally employed rather than allocated to individual schools. There are 25 FTE centrally employed teachers with PE as their main subject. Teachers recorded in this way are not included here, therefore the schools without a specialist P.E teacher may have access to centrally employed PE teachers.

With the introduction of a new heat network authorisation and consumer protection regime being developed under the Energy Act 2023, my officials have focused their efforts on engaging with the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Ofgem regarding the data that will be collected as part of this new regime and the system that will be used to collect it. Ofgem has recently published the Heat networks regulation: authorisation and regulatory oversight consultation which provides details on the registration and monitoring. Both processes will provide valuable data on heat networks.

We expect that the quality of data from the new regime will be significantly better than that submitted as Heat Networks Metering and Billing Regulations 2014 (HNMBR) notifications, for a number of reasons, including that Ofgem is developing a dedicated digital platform so that regulated entities can engage with Ofgem supporting the processes of Registration, Authorisation Application and reporting for monitoring.

The date for heat networks regulation taking effect has been confirmed as 1 April 2025 in the Heat Networks (Market Framework) (Great Britain) Regulations 2025 Statutory Instrument (SI) 2025, laid in the UK Parliament on 28 November 2024, with later commencement dates for some of the regulations within the SI.

The Heat networks regulation: authorisation and regulatory oversight consultation can be accessed at the following address: Heat networks regulation: authorisation and regulatory oversight.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-22894 on 27 November 2023.

The National Marine Plan (NMP2) will inform if, where, when and how development takes place and provide guidance on reaching those decisions.

The regulation and management of activities are covered by sector specific regulations outside of planning. Fisheries management measures form part of our ecosystem-based management but are not a national or regional marine planning matter.

We have a live call for evidence under our Inshore Fisheries Management Improvement (IFMI) Programme, which closes on 04 February 2025. This seeks expert input to help us transition to a more agile management model and enable a regional approach.

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 Government has allocated £1.3 billion through its Heat in Building Programmes in this Parliamentary Session, investment it is committed to continuing in 2025-26 with over £300 million capital funding allocated in the draft budget. However, the Scottish Government cannot finance the transition alone and established the independent Green Heat Finance Taskforce with a remit to explore how to attract greater private finance to support the clean heat transition.

The Scottish Government is engaging with lenders and the wider finance sector as it considers the Taskforce’s Part 1 report and, following its Part 2 report, will formally respond identifying which recommendations across both Taskforce reports will be prioritised and how we will take forward action in partnership with others.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-32247 on 18 December 2024. 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.