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On 15 August 2024, we published the Summary of Responses to Investing in Planning - a consultation on resourcing Scotland’s planning system, which ran from 28 February 2024 to 31 May 2024.

We received 140 responses from a range of stakeholders, including industry bodies, and have published responses where consent has been given to do so. A full breakdown of respondents can be found in the Summary of Responses at: https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781836016328 .

I will set out the next steps on improvements to the planning system when the Scottish Parliament returns after recess.

We continue to consider the recommendations made by the UK Government's Animal Welfare Committee although do not have a timescale for completing our review. However, we are continuing to work with the industry to find ways of improving and safeguarding the welfare of farmed fish at the time of slaughter.

The Scottish Government is committed to the highest possible animal welfare standards, and improving aquaculture health and welfare is one of the main priorities embedded within our Vision for Sustainable Aquaculture.

Health Boards are autonomous institutions and as such, are responsible for their own recruitment activity taking into account, retention, absence rates and budgets when making decisions.

Scottish Government officials have however been engaging with Health Boards about their current position in relation to job offers and supply, with Boards remaining committed to maximising the opportunities for newly qualified nurses to find employment and reduce vacancies across nursing.

The Scottish Government works closely with third sector partners and all other agencies involved in supporting children and young people who are involved with the criminal justice system, their parents and carers.

We fund the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ), who work with a number of third sector organisations providing a range of support services to both children and their parents. This includes Action for Children, Includem and Barnardos.

As part of their Promise implementation work, CYCJ is leading a project to engage directly with parents of children in conflict with the law. The aim of this is to develop a network of parents who can participate in the development of policy and practice. In order to reach these parents CYCJ is actively engaging with existing parenting networks such as Parenting Across Scotland and Families Outside.

We collaborate with third sector partners which seek to prevent at-risk young people from coming into conflict with the law by offering more targeted support to children and families. Preventing children and young people from going down a path where they are in conflict with the law and supporting them appropriately and effectively when they do – to help address their underlying needs – has been integral to Scotland’s youth justice agenda for over a decade.

This includes organisations such as Cyrenians and Aberlour, which receive funding through the Cashback for Communities programme. Cyrenians’ Keeping Families Together project works across Scotland in partnership with Scotland’s four secure centres, offering mediation, whole family support and conflict resolution workshops. The approach enables young people and families to improve communication, address underlying issues and build stronger, more positive relationships.

Aberlour’s project, Alternative Routes #CashBack, supports young people aged 10-25 and their families most at risk of being involved in antisocial behaviour, offending or reoffending. They use a whole system approach involving the whole family and community, which improves confidence in young people and provides them with opportunities to connect, flourish and achieve at home, school, and in the community.

Includem’s ADAPT project – funded through the Scottish Government’s Whole Family Wellbeing Fund – also focuses on young people who are in conflict or at risk of being in conflict with the law. The project works with young people and their families to help them navigate a way out of a variety of difficult circumstances by diverting them from criminal behaviour and a resultant trajectory into the criminal justice system.

We also ensure that child victims and their families are offered trauma-informed and person-centred support and advocacy through the Victim-Centred Approach Fund and the development of a Bairns’ Hoose model in Scotland. The Victim-Centred Approach Fund enables victim organisations to support provision of practice and emotional support to victims, survivors and witnesses of crime across Scotland, while Bairns’ Hoose provides trauma informed recovery, support and justice services for children who have been victims or witnesses of abuse or violence, as well as children under the age of criminal responsibility whose behaviour may have caused significant harm or abuse.

Staff rotas and timetabling planning are operational matters for ScotRail. After coming into public ownership ScotRail was required to increase the number of Train Drivers to a level which would facilitate a reduction to reliance on staff working rest days and overtime.

The Scottish Government has funded the subsidy required to cover the net cost of ScotRail’s operations, including staffing.

ScotRail informs that its planning to recruit 160 train drivers each year from 2024-25 going forward.

The Government is open to giving local authorities the power to introduce a cruise ship levy. We will therefore be engaging with local authorities, the cruise ship industry, and others over the coming months to explore this issue further and develop more detailed proposals. We plan to launch a public consultation on a potential cruise ship levy before the end of the year.

The Scottish Government, through the Infrastructure Investment Plan 2021-22 to 2025-26 published in 2021, has enabled the upgrade to the Edinburgh Cancer Centre (ECC) at the Western General Hospital in NHS Lothian, which will complete this financial year.

Beyond this, given the extremely challenging financial position, all capital projects are now under review. Publication of the revised Infrastructure Investment Plan will be considered only once allocations from the new UK Government are confirmed and fully appraised by the Scottish Government.

We intend to resume Tranche 1 of the Sustainability Loan Scheme in 2024-25 once we have completed the disbursement of funds for those loans already completed and confirmed a budget. This will likely not be until midway through the financial year.

Our preference remains to continue the loan scheme into Tranche 2 and beyond – however, this is dependent on whether the UK Government resumes the allocation of Financial Transaction Capital to the Scottish Government.

The Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 (Commencement No.1 and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2024 were laid in the Scottish Parliament on 15 August. The Scottish Government does not generally lay secondary legislation during Parliamentary recess. However, Scottish Ministers are taking action to end the practice of detaining children in Young Offenders’ Institutions as soon as possible, having identified the earliest point at which delivery agencies and partners could safely deliver the change.

The Scottish Government is committed to developing a voluntary code of practice on dismissing and replacing land-owning land maintenance companies (“the Code”).

Whilst work on the development of the Code continues, other work pressures have impacted the rate of progress.