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The Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s (SEPA) remit in relation to such incidents covers monitoring and mitigating potential impacts on the environment. It is working in partnership with North Lanarkshire Council who are leading on development of plans to ascertain exactly what remedial works are required.

For more information, you can contact SEPA directly at ask@sepa.org.uk

The Scottish Government recognises the essential role that heritage has in shaping Scotland's identity, and the importance of protecting and caring for it in a sustainable way so current and future generations can enjoy and benefit from it.

Tartan is inextricably connected with Scotland, its history and its culture. With Tartan Day being a chance for people around the world to mark their connections to Scotland.

The Scottish Government is grateful for the work of Prickly Thistle in maintaining and innovating the craft of tartan weaving in the Highlands.

The Scottish Government welcomes the insights provided by The Circularity Gap Report: Textiles published by Circle Economy. The report highlights critical challenges and opportunities in transitioning towards a circular economy within the textiles sector.

The findings of the report align with the Scottish Government’s proposals set out in the draft circular economy and waste route map to 2030, to tackle textile waste, reduce resource consumption, and encourage sustainable production and consumption practices. The final Route Map will be confirmed in due course.

The Scottish Government will engage with stakeholders across the textiles supply chain to develop policies and actions that reflect the urgency highlighted by this report. We recognise the need for a strategic approach to textiles across the waste hierarchy, from production and consumption, through to recycling and end of life management.

The Scottish Government continues to engage with stakeholders across the textiles supply chain to develop policies and actions that reflect the urgency highlighted by this report.

We will carefully review the recommendations of the Circularity Gap Report: Textiles and consider its findings as part of our ongoing efforts to deliver a net-zero and circular economy for Scotland.

The availability and affordability of rare earth materials are critical to supporting our transition to a net zero economy.

The Scottish Government recently published the Green Industrial Strategy, which focuses on seizing the economic opportunities of the global transition to net zero. The strategy commits to exploring how to support supply chain resilience through recycling, reuse and remanufacturing of components and materials, including rare earth materials.

The Scottish Government is committed to building a vibrant, sustainable, and inclusive rural economy that meets the goals of achieving a nature-positive and wellbeing economy for future generations.

Our enterprise agencies help businesses across Scotland to start and scale, be more productive, access finance and attract investment, develop new products and services, enter new markets and positively impact on their communities.

We have allocated over £321 million to the enterprise agencies in 2025-26 to support their work and help them unlock the full economic potential of their regions.

Local authorities are responsible for the development and delivery of flood protection schemes.

Five flood protection schemes were due to complete in 2024 and the relevant local authorities have advised that Millport Coastal, Upper Garnock and Stranraer are complete. Campbeltown and Hawick FPS are at an advanced stage and nearing completion.

The common staffing method (CSM) sets out a process to identify, mitigate risks and determine what changes, if any, are needed to staffing numbers. Its purpose is to ensure a consistent approach to decision making across NHS Scotland. The frequency of applying the CSM has been defined as once per financial year as a minimum.

Local recruitment based on the outputs of the CMS are a matter for the Health Board and are one of several factors used to determine recruitment.

Use of the CMS will form part of the evidence that Health Boards submit Scottish Government to demonstrate how they have complied with the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019. Under the Act all Health Boards must submit a report on how they complied with their legislative requirements. Scottish Ministers will then lay a summary report to Parliament outlining overall compliance with the Act.

Under the Act, Scottish Ministers have a duty to take all reasonable steps to ensure that there is a sufficient number of registered nurses, registered midwives, medical practitioners, and other types of employees.

Information gained from Health Board annual reports will inform national policies to ensure sufficient future supply including determining future student intake numbers, recruitment and retention polices, and student career pipelines.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all students with a disability, long term medical condition or additional support needs are able to access further and higher education and are fully supported throughout their studies.

Further Education

The Additional Support Needs for Learning Allowance is a non-income assessed allowance administered by individual colleges. It is intended to support students with disabilities or additional learning needs who are studying a course of Further Education and may have extra costs because of their disability.

Colleges, as part of their integral core funding via Scottish Funding Council, also receive the Access and Inclusion Fund. This supports the teaching and learning of students with additional support needs.

It is the responsibility of individual colleges to manage their student support budgets in a prudent and effective manner. The Scottish Funding Council has clear guidelines and processes in place to monitor colleges’ management of their student support funds, including the requirement for colleges to be audited, by external auditors, on their annual student support expenditure.

Higher Education

The Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) is a non-income assessed fund that is administered by Student Awards Agency Scotland. It is intended to support disabled students and those with additional learning needs who are studying a course of Higher Education and may have extra costs because of their disability.

As a bespoke fund, the amount a student is eligible to receive is based on their individual needs. Those awards are made based on comprehensive guidance prepared by Student Award Agency Scotland and shared with institutions on an annual basis, ensuring that there is a consistency of approach across the sector.

Good cyber resilience is essential for delivering secure digital public services. Staying ahead of cyber criminals is an ongoing battle; as technologies evolve, so do their tactics. Public sector organisations are responsible for their own cyber resilience and security arrangements, and must continually adapt to these emerging threats. However, the Scottish Government does provide assistance to the public sector to strengthen their cyber resilience posture and address areas for improvement.

Through the implementation of The Strategic Framework for a Cyber Resilient Scotland and the Public Sector Cyber Resilience Framework, supported by the new central function of the Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre, the Scottish Government works with the public sector to help them to put in place robust security standards, controls and governance, maintain and regularly test incident response plans, train staff and learn lessons from past incidents.

Specifically, the Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre plays a key role in coordinating effective multi-agency response to incidents which impact on the public sector. In September 2024, the Scottish Government published the SC3 Strategic Plan which sets out the strategic objectives for the next three years. SC3 is working with the sector to progress towards these objectives:

1. Create a data-driven operation that can track and evaluate actionable security metrics for every public sector organisation in Scotland.

2. Ensure that public sector organisations remain informed regarding current and emerging risks and threats so that they are equipped and prepared to manage them.

3. Reduce the prevalence and remediation timescales of exposed and exploitable vulnerabilities across the public sector.

4. Increase the level of preparedness for cyber incidents across the public sector, such that all organisations have current and well tested response plans and that major national cyber incident response processes are robust and effective.

5. Ensure that appropriate standards and good practices for cyber and information security are defined, reviewed, adopted, and adhered to across the public sector.

The Scottish Hospice Leadership Group is comprised of the Chief Executives of most of the independent Scottish hospices and their key partners.

The group is not a Scottish Government body, however Scottish Government officials attend their meetings on a regular basis to discuss matters of mutual interest.

The Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health last met the Chair of the group on 18 September 2024 to discuss working towards establishing a longer term sustainable funding model.