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The Scottish Government is absolutely committed to an infrastructure solution to address the landslip risks at the A83 Rest and Be Thankful. I share the urgency communities and businesses place on maintaining and improving connectivity of this vital route, which is why we are progressing measures for the short, medium and long term in tandem.

On 2 June 2023 the preferred route for the permanent, long-term solution at the Rest and Be Thankful was announced consisting of an online option with a 1.4 kilometre long debris flow shelter. Accompanying this announcement, the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges Stage 2 Assessment Report was published and includes the current estimated cost of the preferred option which is approximately £405 million - £470 million (at 2023 prices).

I share the urgency communities and businesses place in maintaining and improving connectivity of this vital route, and remain absolutely committed to ensuring continuity of access to Argyll and Bute so that the region remains open for business.

A detailed programme and procurement strategy to deliver the improvements to the Old Military Road as quickly as possible is currently being developed and it is expected that the improvements will be carried out on a phased basis starting later this year. The cost estimate will be updated as part of this work.

The role of the Scottish Government, since the three approved schemes began operating in July 2012, is to monitor each scheme for compliance with the Tenancy Deposit Schemes (Scotland) Regulations 2011 . This includes being satisfied that SDS and the other tenancy deposit schemes have clear and substantial processes in place that meet the requirements laid out in the regulations.

As part of this monitoring, the three schemes quarterly performance reports were analysed and measured against the key performance indicators to ensure these were adhered to. These include response times to customer enquiries and complaints, return of undisputed deposits and dispute resolution. The latest quarterly performance reports indicate all KPIs have been met.

The table below shows a percentage average, of instances in which performance is achieved, for each financial year for KPI 5 - Return of deposit following notification of dispute resolution decision.

Curriculum for Excellence is a flexible curriculum with defined experiences and outcomes that allow for teaching and learning of a very wide range of topics. This ensures that schools are able to deliver a curriculum that is best suited to their learners in their circumstances and local context.

Learning for Sustainability, which is an entitlement for all learners, provides the general curricular theme on sustainable development education, social justice, climate change, global citizenship, children’s rights, equality and outdoor learning.

There are experiences and outcomes across the curriculum that cover learning on material extraction and end product use such us: Sciences SCN 4-04b: “Through investigation I can explain the formation and use of fossil fuels and contribute to discussions on the responsible use and conservation of finite resources”; Social Studies SOC 4-08a: “I can discuss the sustainability of key natural resources and analyse the possible implications for human activity”; and Technology TCH 2-06a “I can analyse how lifestyles can impact on the environment and Earth’s resources and can make suggestions about how to live in a more sustainable way”.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of reports received by Police Scotland of scammers calling at people’s homes or targeting people online.

(a)Some information on door-to-door scammers is available from a 2018-19 study into police recorded fraud in Scotland, the findings of which were presented within the Recorded crime in Scotland 2018-19 National Statistics .

This study suggested that ‘fraudulent selling’ accounts for approximately 12% of fraud crimes, equivalent to 1,160 crimes. This typically relates to where a victim has paid for a service or product (either in person or through the internet) that the perpetrator has no intention of providing. This could include through online transactions, or payments to bogus workmen. Further analysis of this group suggests that an estimated 270 crimes of recorded fraud (or 3% of all fraud) involved a perpetrator knocking on the victim’s door, taking money and not providing a service.

(b) In general, the data received from Police Scotland for producing the National Statistics on Recorded Crime, is a simple count of the number of crimes and offences which the police have recorded and cleared up. As such we are unable to separately identify back to 1999 which recorded crimes of fraud were committed online.

However we recently introduced a new chapter within the National Statistics, which estimates the volume of recorded cyber-crime in Scotland based on a sample of police records. Under this approach, the number of recorded frauds which involved the use of cyber technology in any way are shown below.

Police recorded fraud in Scotland that was estimated to be cyber-enabled.

The CashBack for Communities fund is a unique programme that reinvests money recovered from the proceeds of crime to support young people across Scotland.

The 29 organisations that successfully applied for Phase 6 funding were notified about the award in March 2023. Four community groups that previously received indirect funding in Phase 5 were successful in applying for direct funding in Phase 6.

Other previously funded community and youth groups have been informed about the availability of continued funding through Phase 6. This information was circulated in March 2023 by the partners that previously supported groups in Phase 5.

Details of all the Phase 6 CashBack partners were announced on 13 March 2023 and are available on the CashBack for Communities website:

https://cashbackforcommunities.org/

The Scottish Government has not requested a progress update from the Scottish Civil Justice Council on its review of court rules in relation to Protective Expenses Orders. The Scottish Civil Justice Council is an independent body. Publicly available minutes of meetings of the Costs and Funding Committee on 26 May 2022 and 31 October 2022 record that detailed discussions took place about the court rules governing Protective Expenses Orders and drafting instructions were to be issued.

In March 2022, the Scottish Government agreed that the Delivering Equally Safe (DES) funding period should be extended by 18 months beyond September 2023, to allow suitable lead in time for a new funding model to be developed, following the conclusion of the Independent Strategic Funding Review.

The Scottish Government established the Independent Strategic Review of Funding and Commissioning of violence against women and girls services to develop a new funding model to ensure victims have access to high-quality, accessible specialist support.

A first release of Official Statistics on Winter Heating Payment will be published on 6 June 2023. This will provide information on Winter Heating Payment, including the number of eligible clients and number of payments issued, up to 30 April 2023.

The Official Statistics for Winter Heating Payment can be found at: https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/about/statistics/social-security-scotland-statistics-publications

Scottish Government Ministers and officials meet regularly with a wide range of stakeholders, including the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, to discuss areas of mutual interest.