Seòmar agus comataidhean

Scotland continues to use public procurement to achieve a vast range of positive economic, social and environmental outcomes making Scotland a better place to live, work and do business.

Latest available figures show that our £16 billion public procurement spend generated around £13.8 billion pounds of economic activity for Scotland and supported around 130,000 full time equivalent jobs.

Spend in Scotland alone was £8.9 billion and, where relevant details are known, 55% of this was with SMEs, and almost half was with businesses in the 60% most disadvantaged areas in Scotland.

The Scottish Government and the Historic Environment sector cannot achieve the aims of the Skills Investment Plan alone. Public, private, and third sectors, private owners, and communities across the country all have a role to play in delivering the Skills Investment Plan actions, and all will benefit from a highly skilled historic environment sector.

The Scottish Government supports the historic environment through its sponsorship of Historic Environment Scotland the lead public body set up to investigate, care for and promote Scotland’s historic environment.

In 2024-25 Historic Environment Scotland’s operational budget is rising by 13.3% to £129.7 million, enabling the organisation to invest in fair staff pay, in running and maintaining its properties, in delivering grants to the heritage sector, continue research on Climate Change and in fulfilling its advisory and regulatory functions.

Skills Development Scotland commenced contracting for new apprenticeship opportunities at the start of April 2024 and Scottish Government investment will support up to 25,500 new Modern Apprenticeship starts across Scotland, and continue to provide support for around 38,000 apprentices already in training for 2024-25. This will include MAs in traditional skills and craft roles.

Skills Development Scotland publishes annual Regional Skills Assessments to provide a coherent evidence base to inform future investment in skills, built up from existing datasets and forecasts. Skills Development Scotland has worked with key partners and stakeholders in the production of these assessments to ensure an inclusive approach to their development, dissemination and utilisation and that they cover all Regional Outcome Agreement areas, City and Growth Deal Regions and Rural Scotland.

Additionally, Scotland’s strategy for the historic environment ‘Our Past Our Future’ will work with regional economic partnerships to embed the historic environment in job creation across the country.

Supply of LPG fuel in the UK is a matter reserved for UK Government. It is the responsibility of individual LPG retailers to ensure that the availability of LPG is actively monitored, and managed to prevent shortages, which can occur during periods of peak demand. The investment costs and installation of LPG fuelling sites is commercially led, and applications for new sites fall within the remit of local authority planning.

Patient data is typically held on the IT infrastructure of the Health Board delivering, or having previously delivered, the individuals care. This can include data initially generated by other Health Boards or health and care organisations that is transferred to the NHS Dumfries & Galloway (e.g. referral letters) in order for them to deliver the best quality care.

Only data held on the NHS Dumfries and Galloway IT infrastructure was stolen during this cyber-attack.

Since 2021, we have seen year on year increases confirming record breaking funding in Active Travel. However, the significant pressures on public finances, including the failure of the outgoing UK government to provide more capital funding for Scotland in its Spring budget, means that there are real challenges in progressing our ambitions to invest in infrastructure, particularly for my portfolio. Consequently, difficult decisions about how and where to invest our capital for transport projects had to be made and continue to be kept under review.

Nonetheless, the Active Travel budget for 2024-25 was confirmed as £220m, a 16% increase on 2023-24. While the Bute House Agreement came to an end in April 2024, the Scottish Government remains committed to delivering on our ambition to increase investment in and participation in walking, wheeling and cycling.

Financial support has been provided to smaller businesses since 2019 in preparation for Low Emission Zones, through scrappage grants and retrofitting grants. Over £6.3 million has been paid out to small businesses with cars, taxis and vans whilst over 1,100 non-compliant business vehicles have been scrapped with the owner receiving a £2000 cash scrappage grant. Over 450 taxis have retrofitted using the grant funding available. A further £5 million has been allocated to the LEZ Support Fund in this financial year to help both smaller businesses and lower income households scrap or retrofit their vehicles to adapt to LEZs.

ScotRail’s passenger assist service provides assistance to those who need help when travelling on the ScotRail network. Passengers who require assistance when travelling can turn up and use the help point to request assistance. For those who want peace of mind assistance cab be booked in advance with one hour’s notice, which compares favourably with the 2 hours required by other GB Train Operating Companies.

Currently ScotRail operates a half hourly service on the East Kilbride route, with additional services operating at peak times which gives four trains per hour. ScotRail keeps its services under continued review to ensure its services meet passengers requirements as much as possible.

The Scottish Government recognises the strength of feeling of beneficiaries in Scotland about the future of the current Scottish Infected Blood Support Scheme (SIBSS), which has been important both in supporting people, and in providing a service they value, over a number of years.

The UK Government set out its proposals for an infected blood final compensation scheme, and the setting up of a new UK-wide Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA), on 21 May. The UK Government proposes that support scheme payments, such as those currently provided by SIBSS, will continue to be paid on an ex-gratia basis until 31 March 2025. From 1 April 2025, SIBSS payments will be taken into account in calculating final compensation awards. Infected and affected people will have a choice of receiving their compensation as a lump sum or as periodic payments. The UK Government has also said that it will ensure that no one will receive less than they do now. In addition, Sir Robert Francis, interim chair of the IBCA, published a Statement of Intent on 29 May 2024 making clear that Regulations setting out details of the compensation scheme will be laid in the UK Parliament on or before 24 August 2024. Currently, he is consulting with infected and affected communities and their representatives.

The Scottish Government will continue to represent the views of Scottish stakeholders to the UK Government during these consultations, including on the question of whether SIBSS members who opt for periodic payments should get those ongoing payments from the support schemes or the IBCA. Having campaigned for years to achieve these outcomes, we do not want people to now feel they have no say in how compensation is paid.

We are conscious of the ongoing global issues affecting construction which are impacting the pace of housing delivery and remain focused on our target of delivering 110,000 high quality, energy efficient affordable homes by 2032. The £80m over two years announced on 26 April takes our investment in affordable housing in 2024-25 to nearly £600m, which will deliver social and affordable homes across Scotland, including acquisitions.

The recently established Housing Investment Taskforce will, over the course of financial year 2024/25, work to identify actions that will unlock both existing and new commitments to investment in housing across all tenures, bringing together key interests of investors and investees.

Following recent legal proceedings, we will shortly provide a message to stakeholders relating to policy 16 of National Planning Framework. In addition, we are working with stakeholders on a series of cross-sector actions to ensure those involved collectively play a positive part in housing delivery.