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Local authorities are responsible for the administration and enforcement of landlord registration, and are the data controllers of the information held on the landlord registration IT system for landlords in their area.

The Scottish Government works with Registers of Scotland to provide local authorities with an online platform to prepare and maintain their registers.

The Scottish Government receives monthly aggregate information extracted from the system, including the total number of active registrations and the number of properties that these relate to.

The Scottish Government does not hold the specific information requested. However, through our mainstream Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP), we have supported many community controlled housing association developments across urban and rural Scotland. Each year, since 2008-09, an Affordable Housing Supply Programme Outturn Report is published which sets out the organisations which have received funding through the AHSP. Specifically in rural Scotland, since the introduction of the Rural and Islands Housing Fund in 2016-17, 44 community-led rural projects have been completed providing 152 additional homes. The fund play an important role in offering support to community organisations and others to deliver affordable homes, while complementing the delivery through our mainstream programme by Councils and Registered Social Landlords.

We can confirm that build work for the Scottish 4G Infill programme masts at both Skerries and Foula (sites named Bruray and Ham respectively) is now complete and activation is currently expected to take place by end of July 2023.

Forecasts for the 2023-2024 Budget were produced by the Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC), and published on 15 December 2022. The change to the rateable value threshold for Fresh Start relief from £95,000 to £100,000 was judged by the SFC to be below the materiality threshold, and was not costed separately. Fresh Start relief overall is forecast by the SFC to cost £5 million in 2023-24.

The Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022 was passed in June 2022. As part of learning lessons from the Covid pandemic, the Act updates the statute book to permanently embed reforms in Scotland’s public services. Although these were originally necessitated by the pandemic, they have delivered improvements for service users and improved efficiency. The Act also ensures that Scottish Ministers are able to respond swiftly and appropriately to future public health threats, by making permanent those powers that played a particularly significant role in managing the response to the Covid pandemic.

The Act also includes a Schedule of temporary justice measures, which are due to expire on 30 November 2023 and can only be extended if the Parliament agrees. Under the terms of the Act, Ministers must review the operation of each temporary measure before it expires, to inform a decision on whether it should be extended for a further year. If seeking any extension, Ministers must lay regulations to amend the expiry date, alongside a statement setting out the findings of the review, allowing for full parliamentary scrutiny.

There are no plans to repeal The Act itself The Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022 is not emergency legislation, it has been through the full Bill process, and thorough pre-legislative scrutiny. There is no statutory requirement for the permanent provisions in the 2022 Act to be reviewed.

The Scottish Government is co-operating fully with the work of the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry, this will include participating, as required, in public hearings. It is a matter for the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry as to who they call to give evidence.

The First Minister and the Prime Minister spoke on the telephone on 28 March 2023 and have exchanged letters. The First Minister looks forward to meeting the Prime Minister in person in due course.

Ofcom’s Connected Nations report for 2022 – published on 15th December – indicates that over 99% of all properties across Scotland can access a reliable broadband connection, with less than 1% unable to access broadband of at least 2 Megabits per second (Mbps).

Ofcom figures also show that gigabit-capable broadband access across Scotland has increased substantially in recent years from just 10% at the start of 2020 to 62% in September 2022. This is, in large part, a direct result of the policies we have put in place to improve Scotland’s digital connectivity, despite telecommunications being reserved to Westminster. The Scottish Government’s investment in the R100 programme is also now delivering full-fibre, gigabit-capable connections at pace in some of our most rural communities.

In the south of Scotland, the additional £36 million investment we announced in August 2022 will extend full-fibre broadband access to a further 2,637 properties across Scotland – including 1,149 properties through the R100 South contract on top of the 20,740 properties already within contract build plans.

The R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme – offering vouchers worth up to £5,000 for properties not within R100 contract or commercial build plans – remains available. We are seeking to drive demand in a number of ways – sharing case studies and updates online; working with public sector partners, including local authorities, to raise awareness of the scheme locally; and liaising with suppliers registered to the scheme to encourage them to proactively identify opportunities for voucher-funded projects.

We also continue to urge the UK Government to ensure that their investment in Project Gigabit is targeted at the hardest-to-reach properties in Scotland, thus extending gigabit coverage even further into rural Scotland and eliminating the need for some of those properties to require a voucher at all.

A date for the next Export Statistics Scotland publication has not yet been announced. Scottish Government statisticians are currently reviewing the methodology and results and will pre-announce the date of publication in line with the Official Code of Practice for Statistics as soon as possible. The timing and content of the Export Statistics Scotland publication is determined independently of Ministers.