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The Scottish Government regrets any instance in which the statutory 20 working day deadline for responding to information requests is not met. It remains committed to its obligations under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act to ensure openness and transparency. The Scottish Government is working at pace to deliver the actions in its FOI Improvement Plan, including the target agreed with the Scottish Information Commissioner of answering 95% of requests on time.

The Scottish Government has received and responded to a large number of requests relating to the topics the Member highlights. The figure quoted by the Member relates to the number of such requests which remained outstanding in August 2022. Considerable progress in responding to outstanding requests has been made since that time.

Information on the initial destinations of school leavers three months after the end of the school year (i.e. in October) is published in the Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations publication released in February each year. Information on the destinations of the same cohort of school leavers nine months after the end of the school year (i.e. the following April) is then published in Summary Statistics for Follow-up Leaver Destination each June.

Chart 4 of the follow-up leaver destination publication provides information on the percentage of school leavers whose follow-up destination was the same as their initial destination whilst table L1.8 of the associated supplementary tables provide more details of the percentages of school leavers who had sustained their initial destination or moved into another destination by the time of the follow-up data cut - i.e. 9 months after leaving school.

The information used to produce these destination statistics is sourced from the 'Opportunities for All' shared dataset. This dataset contains information on the activities undertaken by young people in Scotland and is managed and hosted by Skills Development Scotland (SDS). SDS supply the Scottish Government with two snapshots from this dataset throughout the year - in April and October.

The eDevelopment service currently has 52,000 registered users.

In the last 5 years the eDevelopment homepage has been accessed 3,294,533 times. The figures in the following table set out the number of times that users have accessed the homepage. The information is broken down into each of the 5 years.

As of January 2023, over 1.41m planning and building standards applications have been submitted online via eDevelopment since the service went live in 2016.

The service regularly receives over 5,500 submissions each week.

We estimate that in 2021-2022, up to 95% of all planning submissions and 90% of building warrant applications are submitted online through the service.

The Digital Planning Transformation programme is a £35 million programme to transform the planning service and realise £200 million economic benefits to the sector. Work is progressing to deliver outputs from five missions as set out in the

Digital Strategy for Planning that underpins the programme.

The Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 provided powers for local authorities to respond to incidents of dog owners allowing their dogs to be out of control in public places by imposing Dog Control Notices (DCNs).

The Scottish Government updated operational guidance for the 2010 Act in December 2020. This reflected the first decade of use of the 2010 Act and built on best practice to assist local authorities in discharging their responsibilities. This guidance is available at: Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010: guidance - updated - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

A further review of this aspect of the 2010 Act is not planned at this time.

The Scottish Government has also introduced a national DCN database which is helping independent enforcement agencies (local authorities and Police Scotland) access information on dog owners who allow their dogs to be out of control.

The Scottish Government carried out a marketing campaign on dog control with the Scottish SPCA in 2021. This campaign has since been re-run on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram on a number of occasions and directs the public to information about ‘The law on controlling your dog’ on the mygov.scot website at: Controlling your dog in public - mygov.scot

This website makes clear that dog owners are responsible for the actions of their dog, and the sets out potential penalties for failing to control dogs.

Local authorities can also consider byelaw making powers to address a specific problem.

A final response to S6W-15344 was issued by the Parliament deadline on Friday 10 March 2023.

Scottish Government’s Palliative and End of Life Strategy is being developed with an overarching aim that everyone in Scotland receives well-coordinated, timely and high-quality palliative care, care around death and bereavement support based on their needs and preferences including support for families and carers.

We will develop a strategy that reflects what matters to people experiencing serious illness, dying and bereavement. We are reviewing the information and evidence we have about people’s experiences of palliative and end of life care, and bereavement, in order to inform our strategy going forward.

The data required to make Winter Heating Payments was supplied by the Department for Work and Pensions on 31 January 2023. Following this, Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland carried out internal assurance processes on the around 400,000 records received. To ensure the safety and security of the payments, payments began in small batches.

As of 28 February 2023, 34,261 people had received the Winter Heating Payment and a further 365,303 eligible clients were to be paid. We expect to distribute £20 million in this round of Winter Heating Payments, more than double the £8.3 million provided on average by the Department for Work and Pensions in each of the last seven years of Cold Weather Payment.

A first release of Official Statistics on Winter Heating Payment will be published on 6 June 2023. These will be available at our statistics publication page at:

https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/about/statistics/social-security-scotland-statistics-publications.

The Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 (“the 2010 Act”) introduced the Dog Control Notice (DCN) regime. This regime is operated by independent local authorities under the terms of the 2010 Act.

Local authorities are required to appoint at least one officer for the purposes of the 2010 Act. Local authority ‘authorised officers’ i.e. dog wardens, will be permitted to serve a written DCN on dog owners (if the owner is not yet 16 years of age, a person who has parental responsibilities would be served) who do not keep their dogs under proper control.

It is for local authorities to determine the best approach for enforcement for their areas.

Action taken by the Scottish Government to facilitate the use of the 2010 Act powers includes updated Scottish Government guidance for local authorities in relation to the exercise of their functions and the functions of authorised officers under the 2010 Act (published in 2020): https://www.gov.scot/publications/updated-guidance-control-dogs-scotland-act-2010/

The Scottish Government also led discussions between Police Scotland and local authorities to update the non-statutory Joint Protocol agreement between these enforcement agencies. The intention of the Joint Protocol is to aid local authorities and the police with the decision making process when considering how best to deal with complaints relating to irresponsible dog ownership. The updated Joint Protocol was published September 2021: https://www.safercommunitiesscotland.org/wp-content/uploads/Joint-Protocol-REVISED-10.09.2021-Control-of-Dogs-pdf.pdf

The Scottish Government has also established a national DCN database. The database went live in early February 2022. The national database brings together the DCN records of all local authorities into a centralised database accessible by all local authorities and Police Scotland. Where a person subject to a DCN moves from one local authority to another, the national database will be a valuable tool in helping to enforce that notice.

The Scottish Government has also recently funded the development and delivery of dog warden training, successfully delivered by Royal Environmental Health Institute for Scotland (REHIS).

On the 13th March 2023, following substantial stakeholder engagement, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released an article; "Green jobs" update current and upcoming work - Office of National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) announcing that ONS will now define a green job as:

Employment in an activity that contributes to protecting or restoring the environment, including those that mitigate or adapt to climate change.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has continued to review the approaches, expectations and challenges of defining and measuring green jobs, supported by a range of research and engagement with stakeholders and users, many of which were open to the public. This has included a public user engagement exercise (Response summary: Defining and measuring green jobs - ons.gov.uk), an interactive workshop, bilateral conversations with several stakeholders, and discussions with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Economic Experts Working Group (EEWG). All ONS engagement was conducted in line with the existing code of practice for statistics and they will continue to engage as they develop the detailed framework behind the definition.