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Dundee City Council published its audited 2021-22 annual accounts on Monday, 7 November 2022. The accounts are available for inspection on its website:

Dundee City Council Audited Annual Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2022 | Dundee City Council

The Scottish Government is aware that Comhairle nan Eilean Siar is dealing with a significant cyber incident. The Scottish Government, Police Scotland and the National Cyber Security Centre are working together to provide advice and support to the Council as they manage this incident.

It is the responsibility of every organisation to ensure they have their own cyber resilience arrangements in place. The Scottish Government works closely with the public sector to help improve its cyber security and resilience.

The Public Sector Action Plan associated with the Strategic Framework for a Cyber Resilience Scotland has recently been refreshed and sets out how the Scottish Government will continue to work with the sector to improve its cyber resilience standards and best practice.

We have established the Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre (SC3) to improve national incident response coordination, early warning and threat intelligence. Police Scotland, the Scottish Government and the National Cyber Security Centre are lead members. SC3 shares threat intelligence with the Scottish public sector, including early warning of critical software vulnerabilities which could be exploited to conduct a cyber attack. This helps the wider sector proactively defend their networks and systems from similar attacks.

In addition, the Scottish Government, through its delivery partners is providing:

• incident response training events aimed at preparing public sector organisations for responding to cyber incidents and attack
• upskilling funding to help bolster cyber security skills within public bodies, and
• cyber awareness training for public sector board members to improve knowledge and understanding at the highest levels within organisations.

There were no convictions under regulation 44(1) of the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 (where main crime) in 2021-22.

This information is being compiled by Creative Scotland. I will write to the member with the requested information as soon as it is received.

Following the first meeting of the Ministerial taskforce, we announced a grant scheme to support those suffering from the impacts of Storm Babet. After the second meeting of the Taskforce held on Wednesday 29 November, I can announce that applications for these grants will open on Monday 4 December. The grants will comprise a £1,500 community recovery payment for people whose properties have been flooded, and a £3,000 business recovery grant for businesses, community groups and organisations impacted by flooding. Grants will be administered by eligible local authorities which are those that had an exceptional red warning for rain during October’s storm - Angus Council and Aberdeenshire Council - and also in areas that were affected with catchments that cross local authority boundaries.

As well as these individual grants, the Scottish Government is providing more support in a range of ways. We want to do all we can to help people rebuild their lives. The Scottish Government is therefore providing additional funding of up to £100,000 to help those families who have lost everything to resettle. We have announced funding to help farmers repair floodbanks damaged by the extreme rainfall during October.

We have also initiated the Bellwin Scheme to help councils with weather related costs, and have extended it by two months. We will also share technical advice and expertise to help Angus Council identify and provide for future housing need.

This support is over and above our long-standing annual funding of £42 million and the additional £150 million for flood risk management together with our £12 million commitment for coastal change adaptation over the course of this parliament.

We continue to work with local authorities and those directly affected by Storm Babet, to help councils, people, businesses and communities to recover in the short term, but also to consider longer term issues like repairing infrastructure.

As set out previously, since 29 August 2022 women aged 71 to 74, and those 75 and over with a history of breast cancer, were able to register for self-referral appointments by contacting their local breast screening service. From 1 st December, all women aged 75 and over regardless of their history with breast cancer, will be able to register for self-referral appointments by contacting their local breast screening service, if they have not been screened in the last three years,. As a result, all women aged 71 and over will now be able to self-refer for breast screening, in line with procedures in place before the pandemic.

The impact of the restart on programme capacity and wait times will continue to be monitored closely to ensure there is no adverse impact on those who are invited for screening and for whom there is the clearest evidence of benefit.

Developing a net zero or decarbonisation plan can help businesses to understand how they can change their practices to reduce their carbon emissions and the benefits they can gain from doing so. The Enterprise Agencies provide a range of support to help businesses develop net zero plans and to transition to net zero. Since 1 November 2022, Scottish Enterprise grant funding has been provided on the condition that the recipient business either has a net zero action plan in place, or commits to developing one within twelve months of accepting the grant. Scottish Enterprise retains a record of those organisations which have a net zero plan in place.

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the Building a New Scotland paper, ‘An independent Scotland in the EU’, are set out in the following table:

Environmental Waste Crime is a priority for the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce (SOCT), which has established an Environmental Waste Crime Working Group to take forward appropriate activity to disrupt the impact of organised crime groups in this sector and reduce the harm they cause to communities. Membership of the Working Group includes SEPA, COPFS, HMRC, NCA, Office of the Traffic Commissioner, Police Scotland and Resource Management Association Scotland.

The SOCT has recently published its Progress Report. The report offers case studies on some of the activity including environmental waste crime, undertaken by the SOCT and partners since March 2020.

Serious Organised Crime Taskforce Progress Report 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

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

SPS published its Annual Procurement Report on the SPS Website on 2 October 2023. (Link: http://www.sps.gov.uk/Corporate/Publications/Publication-9204.aspx ).