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Under the terms of the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, which the Scottish Government is entitled to follow, there are three categories of early departure: voluntary exit, voluntary redundancy, and compulsory redundancy. No voluntary redundancy schemes have been run in 2024-25, and therefore the number of employees in Scottish Government who have been offered voluntary redundancy packages and rejected them, but remained employed with the Scottish Government is nil.

The Aquatic Animal Health (Scotland) Regulations 2009 already places a legal obligation on salmon producers to report increases in mortality levels to Scottish Ministers or a veterinarian. This applies to unexplained mortality, and there is a voluntary agreement in place with aquaculture production businesses for any instances of mortality above specified thresholds to be reported to Scottish Ministers as part of wider aquatic animal health surveillance. This agreement is a requirement of the Code of Good Practice for Scottish Finfish Aquaculture. Fish farm operators are also legally obliged to keep records of site mortality levels and these are periodically inspected by the Fish Health Inspectorate during their risk-based inspections.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-31897 on 9 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

There have been no discussions between Transport Scotland, CalMac and CMAL on removing the MV Caledonian Isles from service. CalMac is currently working through a data gathering assessment to quantify the requirement for further repairs on the vessel. Once this phase is complete, the outcome and options for progression will be discussed between CalMac, CMAL and Transport Scotland.

The number of treatments (including enhanced examinations) is compiled on the basis of claims made to Practitioner Services for payment within agreed working schedules and monthly activity is therefore not always presented on a directly comparable basis. For example, the September payment schedule period contained 20 working days which is lower than the average schedule period (c.24 working days), resulting in a small reduction to prior months’ claims.

Practitioners Services will periodically close the schedules to allow other payments to be made to dentists, such as quarterly allowance payments.

The Scottish Government do not hold this information. It is a matter for UK shipyards to come to commercial agreements on guarantees with financial institutions as stipulated in shipbuilding procurements.

The Scottish Government highly values the vital support independent hospices provide to people and their families, as well as supporting other health and social care services and teams delivering palliative care and care around dying.

We know Scottish Hospices have been facing financial pressures due to rising costs including costs associated with providing Agenda for Change (AfC) pay parity. We have listened to these concerns, and that is why in the Scottish Budget published on 4 December we set out a commitment to provide £4 million for the hospice sector in 2025-26. From 2025-26 we will align the support we provide for pay uplifts in the Hospice sector to the outcomes of the NHS Agenda for Change negotiations. This will ensure that hospices will get the additional funding needed to see their healthcare staff match pay increases with NHS staff.

The Scottish Government engaged directly with the other UK nations at the UK Education Ministers’ Council on a range of matters within education. This included detailed discussions on teacher professional learning and teacher recruitment and retention, which were the main focus of the meeting. These discussions provided an opportunity to showcase some of the work underway in Scotland in these areas, including on professional update for teachers, and guaranteed induction placements. There was also some discussion of UK Government policy towards international students relating to further and higher education.

The Transport (Scotland) Act 2001 established the discretionary power for local authorities to implement road user charging schemes, including congestion charging and they are best placed to determine whether a local road user charging scheme supports the objectives set out in their local transport strategy.

Any approach should support our shared ambition to a Just Transition to Net Zero, taking into account the needs of those who may be less able to reduce car use, such as carers and those living with a disability, or in rural locations.

As outlined in our draft route map to reduce car use, the scale of the challenge means that we need to take forward a broad combination of interventions, including infrastructure, incentives and regulatory actions. We continue to work closely with local and regional partners to update the route map and will be published on completion of this engagement. We work with all local authorities to support equitable measures which encourage active travel and accompany greater investment in public transport for a fairer and greener transport system in order to ensure a just transition to net zero.

Ministers must collectively consider all factors, particularly antisocial behaviour and violence against women and girls. Therefore, Ministers will continue to be informed by the equally safe strategy, alongside the strategic review by the independent working group on antisocial behaviour, which will present its report to Ministers, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and Police Scotland this year.