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The Scottish Government last discussed expanding access to environmental health courses accredited by the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland with tertiary education providers on 28 June 2023.

The Scottish Government has not carried out work to assess the impacts of buddleia on Scotland’s forests, natural habitats and riparian areas. Due to the preference of the species for disturbed open ground, its impact on these areas appears to be low. It is not considered to be forest-invasive at this time, and as such, currently poses limited concerns for woodland management or creation. We will continue to record and monitor its presence in the habitat restoration plans we will produce as part of our work to restore Scotland’s Atlantic rainforest.

We understand that buddleia is only likely to establish in buildings where there is a lack of building maintenance. Investing in overall repair and maintenance, therefore, will reduce problems caused by buddleia. Historic Environment Scotland has produced guidance, on both building maintenance and on the effect of biological growth on masonry, which is freely available on its website.

The Crofting Commission publishes its application processing times in its Annual Report & Accounts. The median turnaround times for applications completed during Q1 of 2023-24 is as follows:

Croft House decrofting: 11 weeks

Apportionment: 117 weeks

The croft registration process belongs to Registers of Scotland, therefore these figures are not readily available.

Whilst the Commission’s capacity for processing casework declined in 2021-22, an increase to its budget in the last two years has enabled it to expand its staff resource and improvements are being made. The apportionment cases now being cleared include some of those affected by delays in 2021-22, or earlier.

The Scottish Government gathers data on displaced Ukrainians applying for homelessness support as part of the statutory collection which feeds into the Homelessness in Scotland official statistics series. The intention is to publish this data six-monthly, in line with the timing of the Homelessness in Scotland publication schedule. Annual statistics are published around late August and a six-monthly update, to give an indication of trends ahead of the next annual publication, is published around late January/early February.

The following table presents the budget for NHS estate maintenance in each of the last three financial years. It is the intention of the Scottish Government to double the NHS estate maintenance funding over the Capital Spending Review period of 2021-2026.

Under planning legislation a failure to comply with a condition of planning consent constitutes a breach of planning control. Monitoring compliance with conditions attached to planning permissions is a matter for the relevant planning authority.

Planning authorities have a range of enforcement powers, and a general discretion under planning legislation to take enforcement action against any breach of planning control if they consider such action to be in the public interest and proportionate to the scale of the breach, having regard to the provisions of the development plan and any other material considerations.

As previously announced, we intend to open a Scottish Government Office in Warsaw within the lifetime of this Parliament. The office will contribute to a fairer, greener Scotland by promoting Scottish culture and expertise, attracting inward investment and fostering people-to people contacts between Scotland and Poland.

The number of posts advertised annually by NHS Education for Scotland is determined by two factors: (1) the number of trainees who have completed training, obtained a CCT (Certificate of Completion of Training) and whose posts are therefore vacant, and (2) whether any additional posts have been created.

We funded the creation of additional training places this year in both Medical and Clinical Oncology. This, coupled with high CCT rates, has led to lower fill rates. All unfilled posts are being readvertised in the last recruitment round of 2023, meaning these fill rates could improve. The end-year position will be known in November.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission publish forecasts of the number of people receiving payments and spending for Carer’s Allowance Supplement. Those figures are on a national level and not at a constituency geography. The latest published forecasts estimated spending forecast for Carer’s Allowance Supplement for 2023-24 is £49 million with an estimated 91,000 people receiving payments.

The Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts at May 2023 can be found at: Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts – May 2023 – Scottish Fiscal Commission .

To note, payments are made twice a year and while most people will receive two payments there may be some people only eligible at one of the payment windows.

Social Security Scotland publish statistics for total number of carers eligible for Carer’s Allowance Supplement, in each financial year by local authority area, as well as the value of payments at each eligibility date by local authority area.

The official statistics for Carer’s Allowance Supplement can be found at: Social Security Scotland - Summary statistics for Carer's Allowance Supplement to April eligibility date 2023

The latest published number of carers paid and value of payments for the Local Authority area of South Lanarkshire, which includes East Kilbride, are as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Number and value of Carer’s Allowance Supplement payments in South Lanarkshire for each financial year.

During the development of the Bill Scottish Government officials have been in regular contact with officials from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to understand the UK Government’s plans for the legislation and the impact it will have on organisations in Scotland as well as with subject-specific officials in other Departments. There have also been exchanges between the various Ministers in both Governments throughout the process.

Of particular focus in these discussions has been: the need to balance the rights of individuals with reducing the burden on organisations using personal data; the potential for impact on EU data adequacy for Scotland as a result of the Bill, which the Scottish Government has sought assurances on; and the areas which require Legislative Consent from the Scottish Parliament.

The Scottish Government also issued a response to the UK Government’s 2021 consultation ‘Data: a new direction’ which informed the development of the legislation.