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The Scottish Government commissioned an expert report from Malcolm McMillan on the roles and functions of the Scottish Law Officers. The purpose of the report is to outline the history and development of the roles and functions of the Scottish Law Officers; describe their current roles and functions; highlight the role of Law Officers in a number of other jurisdictions; describe the constitutional context relevant to a review of the roles of the Scottish Law Officers; and provide a summary of insights and comments on the Scottish Law Officers’ roles from former and current holders of these offices and relevant officials. The work to publish the final report is in the final stages.

The remit and terms of reference will be included in the published report.

The Scottish Government thanks the Marine Conservation Society and all the many volunteers for their excellent work in monitoring beach litter and cleaning our shores. Citizen science is valued, and in combination with data from our scientists and our wider international monitoring programme, it is useful in helping us prioritise policy development to effectively reduce marine litter.

Flood risk management implementation reports are available on the Scottish Government's website. Some reports have been completed for single years and some for multiple years.

Relevant links are provided below:

• Report for years 2015-2018: Implementation of the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009: report to the Scottish Parliament - gov.scot
• Report for 2019: Implementation of the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009: report to the Scottish Parliament - 2019 - gov.scot
• Report for 2020: Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 implementation: report to the Scottish Parliament - 2020 - gov.scot

A report covering the period 2021 to 2024 is under development.

Local authorities also produce regular mid cycle and end of cycle reports on the delivery of actions in the Flood Risk Management Plans.

As outlined in the answer to question S6W-30798 on 7 November, since 2016, the Scottish Government has allocated £570 million to local authorities for flood protection schemes and flood resilience. In this period, the estimated costs of cycle one schemes eligible for funding has risen.

A joint Scottish Government/ COSLA Funding Working Group was established to make recommendations to Ministers and COSLA Leaders on how to improve the affordability of the remaining cycle one schemes. This has resulted in the removal of 6 schemes that failed to meet key progress deadlines from the funding programme.

The Funding Working Group are considering whether further recommendations are required to ensure the programme remains affordable.

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

Health Improvement Scotland are working with all NHS boards and partner organisations to standardise the reporting of adverse events, and have developed a national framework which was published in February 2025.

This also includes a standard review process through the development of a national Significant Adverse Event Review template with associated guidance and national learning summary. The category of violence and aggression (which includes instances of sexual violence) is a priority category.

The safety of staff and patients is the responsibility of the individual Health Board. We expect Health Boards to make every effort to keep staff, patients and service users safe and to report incidents to the police where appropriate.

The courts have extensive powers to deal robustly with sexual offending. All instances of such behaviour should be reported and escalated to Police Scotland as quickly as possible for consideration of necessary action.

The Scottish Government understand the level of concern Dr Donald Macaskill has for the challenges currently being faced by the Social Care sector within Scotland

This information is not held by the Scottish Government and is a matter for Higher Education Institutes and NHS Boards.

The Scottish Government routinely engages with Welsh Government officials on a range of animal welfare issues, however, there has been no specific engagement on the commitment made to phase out greyhound racing in Wales.

In general, the Scottish Government has no role in day to day operations at airports in Scotland as these are regulated by the UK Government and its associated agencies. For power loss specifically, this would be a matter for the electricity distribution networks, who in turn are governed and regulated by the UK Government and OFGEM respectively.

However, the Scottish Government works closely with Highland and Islands Airport Limited (HIAL) and we remain assured that robust measures are in place to ensure all 11 airports operated by HIAL have sufficient power. Contingency plans are also in place for these airports should the primary powers sources be affected.

Information is not held centrally on the total number of violent incidents within schools that involve the use of a weapon. Some information is available where any such use of a weapon resulted in either the exclusion of a pupil or the recording of a weapon possession (used) crime by the police.

Table One shows those exclusions from school in 2020-21 and 2022-23 which included the reasons of Physical assault using improvised weapon, physical assault using weapon and threat of physical violence using weapon or improvised weapon. This data is published biennially, with the next update covering the 2024-25 academic year. It should be noted that each exclusion can include more than one reason and figures for 2020-21 will have been impacted by the closure of the school estate as part of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Table Two shows the number of weapon possession crimes in school recorded by the police, where the weapon has been used against another person (for example to threaten or assault). This only covers cases that have been reported to the police, and again the relatively lower figures for the year ending December 2020 will likely reflect the pandemic related school closures.

Table One: Reasons for exclusion from school, 2020-21 and 2022-23