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The latest statistics show that despite the challenging economic conditions, the total number of businesses in Scotland rose to 360,910 in 2022, a 5.2 per cent increase on the previous year.

However we know businesses in Scotland are struggling because of Brexit and the UK government’s mismanagement of the economy. That is why the Scottish Government is doing all it can, through our limited levers, to provide immediate support to businesses including the lowest Non-Domestic Rates poundage in the UK.

At the same time, we are delivering our National Strategy for Economic Transformation to achieve our long-term ambitions for a stronger, fairer, and greener economy. The activities we are delivering are supporting businesses, encouraging and cultivating new businesses, and attracting more businesses to Scotland.

We are working closely with delivery partners, businesses, the third sector and trade unions to successfully implement the strategy and transform our economy.

As detailed in my reply to question S6W-15995, on 11 April 2023, the Ministerial Working Group met on 29 June 2022.

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

Local authorities are independent democratically elected bodies with their own powers and responsibilities. As long as they act lawfully, it is up to each local authority how it manages its day-to-day business and decision making processes. Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to make local decisions on how best to deliver services to and outcomes for their local communities, including decisions on borrowing to attract investment for net zero projects. Any borrowing by local authorities, whether it’s through the public works loans board or through the issuance of bonds, is for local authorities to determine affordability themselves, subject to the conditions of their prudential borrowing regime.

This information is not held centrally.

Ministerial engagements (including official visits), overseas travel, car journeys, domestic travel and gifts received are published on the Scottish Government website at: www.gov.scot/collections/ministerial-engagements-travel-and-gifts/ in line with the terms of the Scottish Ministerial Code.

In our engagement with the UK Government on accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), as with all developing trade agreements, the Scottish Government has consistently requested an assessment of the economic impacts on Scotland. We believe that before embarking on the negotiation of such agreements, the UK Government should be fully aware of their likely impacts across all parts of the UK.

As part of its Strategic Approach to accession to the CPTPP the UK Government produced a Scoping Assessment covering the UK-wide economic benefits expected as part of membership of the trade pact. This analysis suggested that CPTPP membership will result in a long-term increase of 0.08% in UK GDP.

While the UK Government’s Scoping Assessment does consider regional value added, and suggests an indicative change of £163 million in Scotland, or a 0.12% benefit in regional value added, this analysis is not disaggregated to local authority level. Nor is there any information on the expected impacts on employment or on expected changes to sectoral output at a Scotland-specific level. This limits our capacity to understand the potential impacts of this agreement in Scotland.

Data currently available does not allow the Scottish Government to undertake such an assessment itself, however in line with commitments in our Vision for Trade, we are working to gather evidence to better understand the impacts of trade across our society and economy. We recognise that trade has a net positive effect but that increased openness to trade can create “winners” and “losers”, including across particular local authorities and groups. In line with this commitment the Scottish Government has been building our evidence base on trade impacts and we are considering how to further improve the data available to us on this and the options we can take forward to address these differential impacts of trade.

The Scottish Government is committed to investing in Changing Places Toilets during this parliamentary term, in order to increase the number of these facilities across the country and to support mobile Changing Places Toilets to allow people easier access to events and outdoor venues.

The Scottish Government is committed to investing in Changing Places Toilets during this parliamentary term, in order to increase the number of these facilities across the country and to support mobile Changing Places Toilets to allow people easier access to events and outdoor venues.

Further information will be available over the course of this parliamentary term.

According to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) Incident Statistics, in 2020-2021 the total number of dwelling fire fatalities was 46. For 2021-22 the total number of fatal casualties from fires in dwellings were 30.

SFRS Fire and Rescue Incident statistics are published annually and include figures on fire fatalities and trends. These can be found here https://www.firescotland.gov.uk/about-us/fire-and-rescue-statistics.aspx .

Any death from fire is one too many and that is why effective fire safety, to prevent fires and reduce their impact, remains a priority for the Scottish Government and SFRS. Whilst fire safety priority groups, themes and actions are operational matters for SFRS, the Scottish Government actively supports measures to reduce fires and fire fatalities.

The role of the Scottish Government is to monitor each of the three deposit schemes for compliance. This includes being satisfied that the tenancy deposit schemes have clear and substantial processes in place that meet the requirements laid out in the regulations.

The three approved tenancy deposit schemes are private businesses and the Scottish Government is not involved in their business operations. We do not hold information on the salary bands of the Chief Executives.