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This is a matter for local authorities. The information requested is not held centrally.

I have asked Janet Egdell, Chief Executive of National Records of Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

National Records of Scotland have today published: 2022 results | Scotland's Census (scotlandscensus.gov.uk).

Scotland’s Census results are designated as Accredited Official Statistics and form an integral part of the statistical system in the UK. The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), the independent regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority – Statistics for the Public Good, awards Accredited Official Statistics designation based on the quality, good practice and comprehensiveness of official statistics. 

More detail about the schedule for future reports can be found here. Census outputs schedule | Scotland's Census (scotlandscensus.gov.uk).

Land is key to ensuring that rural and island communities can thrive, to giving people places to live and work, to providing essential infrastructure that people need and to help us keep people on the land.

When land is transferred at scale this makes it more difficult for communities and others to purchase land, as the supply of smaller and more affordable plots of land is restricted. This can be detrimental to the sustainability of those communities.

Further information on the transfer test proposals in the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill can be found in the Policy Memorandum (parliament.scot)

If passed by the Scottish Parliament, the Bill will allow Ministers to consider the impact on the local community of certain sales of land over 1000 hectares before the sale can proceed.

Ministers may decide that the landholding should be sold as separate lots, though this is not expected to be appropriate in all cases.

The Bill sets out a process for landowners to apply for a review of a Ministerial lotting decision as well as appeal and compensation processes.

More details on this issue can be read in paragraphs 109 to 134 of the Policy Memorandum accessible (parliament.scot).

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS currently share information regarding the number of individuals released under Emergency Early Release (ER) on the SPS website. Further work has commenced on an analysis of the entire ER tranche data, and the SPS hope to be able to publish a full data report, which will be available on the SPS website by the end of August.

SPS continue to be as open and transparent as possible, whilst continuing to meet our statutory obligation to ensure that those in our care have their personal information protected; as such we have taken the decision not to publish a breakdown of establishments of those released under the ER scheme as some of the data could relate to a small group of individuals, which may lead to their inadvertent identification. SPS will however, share information that does include individual local authorities and health boards as part of the released data set.

The Scottish Government has no plans to change its visual identity from the current saltire.

The Scottish Government has not made such an assessment. These are operational matters for Scottish Canals as part of their Asset Management Strategy work and responsibility to maintain and develop Scotland's canal network.

Over the past 10 years, there has been a 50% increase in consultant oncologists, from 94.8 WTE (whole time equivalent) in March 2014, to 142.6 WTE in March 2024. We have also increased consultant radiologists by 31.9%, from 288.2 WTE ten years ago (March 2014) to 380.1 WTE in March 2024.

In addition to this, we have been increasing the number of available specialty training places for junior doctors in Radiology and Oncology training programmes, and more junior doctors are joining NHS Scotland than ever before, with more than 1,100 specialty trainees recruited throughout 2023.

To specifically support scope based diagnostics, the National Endoscopy Training Programme has been established within the NHS Scotland Academy to commission and deliver endoscopy training to a wide range of learners from different professional backgrounds, with representatives from every mainland health board in Scotland.

This ensures the availability of appropriately trained endoscopists and endoscopy support staff to deliver safe, high quality endoscopic investigations for Scotland’s patients. To date this has supported 80 trainees to complete Basic Skills courses, 137 trainees to attend upskilling courses, 54 trainees to attend immersion training at the Golden Jubilee University National Hospital, and 113 trainees to develop their ability to recognise lesions, primarily to support improved cancer detection.

We have also funded NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to develop a non-medical endoscopy programme. Since 2021, 53 places in total have been made available for non-medical endoscopy training and 20 places have been made available for non-medical cystoscopy training.

Since 2021, Scottish Government has provided three permanent CT scanners to support core diagnostic imaging capacity within Boards, including a mobile CT pod which is deployed flexibly to Boards that require additional capacity. One further mobile CT and seven mobile MRI scanners are also being used across multiple NHS Boards to provide additional capacity and earlier diagnosis efforts.To specifically support scope-based diagnostics we have published an Endoscopy and Urology Diagnostic Recovery and Renewal Plan backed by £70 million. The plan focuses on key areas including infrastructure. Funding has been allocated to extend the use of mobile endoscopy units for 24-25 to provide additional capacity.Further to this and despite the extremely challenging capital funding position, we are committed to continued investment in our capital radiotherapy replacement programme. We intend to invest more than £65 million over the next 3 years for this programme.We continue to invest in cancer services across NHS Scotland, with £11.3m recurring funding provided to Health Boards in 2024-25 to support cancer waiting times improvements, focusing efforts on the most challenged tumour types.

The UK Shipbuilding Credit Guarantee Scheme provides a partial guarantee to a lender making a loan to a ship-buyer or operator, so that new vessels, or refits, retrofits or repairs of existing vessels can be procured from UK shipyards. This type of finance guarantee is not required where the Scottish Government or its agencies are the buyer/funder. As the Scottish Government, through Transport Scotland, is the funder of CMAL vessels projects, the scheme does not benefit these kinds of contracts. The scheme may be applicable to commercial clients or funders looking to build or refit vessels at the Ferguson Marine Port Glasgow yard.