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In addition to statutory surveillance for Avian Influenza in poultry and wild birds, he Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) conducts surveillance in wild mammals at risk of being infected with the avian virus on behalf of the Scottish Government. In the event of a positive result, genetic analysis is performed by the APHA and the UK Health Security Agency.

In February 2023 genetic analysis carried out on historical samples from two positive Scottish seals, collected in 2021 and 2022, identified a genetic mutation associated with increased risk to mammals. As a single mutation, this does not indicate that this virus is becoming fully adapted to a mammalian host, nor will trigger mammal to mammal transmission.

The Scottish Government has considered the impact of the actions of the Employment Action Plan on all disabled people, including people with learning disabilities, and noted these in the 2020 and 2021 annual Progress Reports which are published on the Scottish Government website.

On 22 February 2023 the Scottish Government published a statistical summary of the devolved employment services, which includes employability figures for learning disabilities within Fair Start Scotland. There is currently no data published for employment for learning disabilities within No One Left Behind.

We have undertaken a review of Individual Placement and Support (IPS) and of Supported Employment to identify areas of improvement and make recommendations on future delivery of these two forms of specialist employability support in Scotland. Findings of the Supported Employment review and Scottish Government’s response were published in September 2022. The Individual Placement and Support review report was published January 2023, alongside the Scottish Government’s response statement.

Recognising that there is still work to do to improve outcomes for disabled people, in December 2022 the Scottish Government published the refreshed Fair Work Action Plan: becoming a leading Fair Work nation by 2025 , setting out actions to promote fair and inclusive workplaces across Scotland. The plan takes forward the current work on the disability employment gap, to support more disabled people, including those with Learning Disabilities, into employment and to sustain fair work.

The Action Plan will be supported by an evidence plan to be published late 2023, along with an accompanying measurement framework. It will monitor the fair work context and progress we are making over time to ensure our actions respond to change and measure the impact of our current actions, including drawing lessons from actions we will deliver as part of this plan.

Maintenance of its estate and the allocation of its capital budget is a matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. The safety of its staff is paramount and SFRS are continuing to monitor the measures put in place to rectify the defects and support staff to deliver its service safely.

In 2019 an urgent issue was identified in relation to an obsolete method of roof construction (Reinforced Aerated Autoclaved Concrete (RAAC). As soon as the defects were discovered (from May 2019 to 2020) action was immediately taken with temporary support (acrow props) to reinforce identified weak points and scaffolded out crash decks to catch roof collapses and minimise the risk of injury to occupants. All roofs are subject to quarterly inspections by building surveyors to monitor the condition/identify any deterioration. There has been no negative impact on SFRS operations from these sites.

Skills Development Scotland published quarterly statistics on the Employability Fund. The information you have requested can be found at the following website. Employability Fund | Skills Development Scotland

The Scottish Government has always worked in partnership with Local Government to enable local authorities to provide services which deliver positive outcomes for the people and communities we jointly serve.

There have been a range of laws passed since 1999 which have provided more powers and responsibilities for local authorities and have impacted on the services they deliver. For example, the Islands Act 2018 handed more powers to our island communities and introduced measures to support and help meet the unique needs of our islands. We will also shortly be devolving Empty Property Relief to local authorities from 1 April 2023 with a concurrent transfer of £105m to local government, which is significantly more than the estimated cost of maintaining the national relief in light of the decision to freeze the poundage. However, it is not possible to provide a comprehensive list of all those policy and legislative changes within the timeframe being asked.

It is important to note that any new legislative change that results in additional expenditure by local authorities is expected to be fully funded by the relevant policy area.

The 'Bringing Home the Bacon: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Scottish Pig Sector' report was part of the Farmer-Led Group initiative to develop advice and proposals for the Scottish Government on how to cut emissions from agriculture. The Scottish Government is grateful to the Pig Industry Leadership Group and the other Farmer Led Groups (FLGs) for the work they undertook in short order to provide recommendations to support our ambitious vision for Scottish agriculture.

The recommendations of the FLGs informed the 'Agricultural Transition in Scotland' consultation, which was carried out between August 2021 and November 2021. This consultation has informed policy development to support the progression of our forthcoming agriculture bill.

To continue our co-design process with industry as part of the Agriculture Reform Programme we established the Agriculture Reform Implementation Oversight Board (ARIOB) to advise on progressing the broad recommendations of the FLG's and support implementation of policy reform. The ARIOB is comprised of representatives from all key Scottish agricultural sectors including members of the Pig Industry Leadership Group.

In the Bringing Home the Bacon report there was a reference to the role of Carbon Audits in supporting businesses to reduce emissions. As part of the National Test Programme we are funding farmers to undertake carbon audits which establish a business’s carbon footprint, and identify areas where emissions can be reduced.

The report also refers to the need for investment in on-farm slurry storage and management. Through the Sustainable Agriculture Capital Grant Scheme (SACGS) the Scottish Government funded investment in slurry management equipment for farms in 2022 and in 2023 support for slurry storage is available through the Agri-Environment Climate scheme.

This is an operational decision for Boards. We continue to work closely with them to ensure delivery of the CAMHS waiting times standard and implementation of the CAMHS Specification.

The number of employers supported was especially high in 2020-21 as this was when employers submitted HR1 notifications as they thought they would have to make large numbers of employees redundant as a result of the pandemic.

Full details are as follows.

All applications for a European Protected Species (EPS) licences must provide the number of individual animals affected by the proposed work, and applicants must show how this number was calculated.

Marine Scotland has published a document that provides guidance and advice for any aquaculture production business that wishes to apply for a licence to disturb EPS as a result of ADD use - faq_adds_and_eps_including_annex_1_and_annex_2_-_version_5_-october_2021_-_final.pdf (marine.gov.scot) . The guidance provides links to how areas are defined and the cetacean abundance estimates that should be used for calculations, While this document focuses on finfish farms, the information provided can be of use to anyone applying for an EPS licence.

While not published yet, Marine Scotland are in the process of updating its guidance on the use of finer scale distributions to account for uneven densities of marine mammals across SCANS blocks. Previously, the block estimates from SCANS III (Hammond et al. 2021) were recommended, however finer scale density surfaces are now available: Modelled density surfaces of cetaceans in European Atlantic waters in summer 2016 from the SCANS-III aerial and shipboard surveys (Lacey et al. 2022) . These estimates can be downloaded as shapefiles for each species here , and are considered the best available density estimates to use in EPS license assessments. Finer scale density estimates allow for a better characterisation of uneven distributions within SCANS blocks however the issue of temporal effects remains a challenge. For a specific site, there may be other, more suitable information on the cetacean species likely to be present along with their densities. However, MSS would only recommend using robust, effort-related survey data that is appropriate for absolute density estimation.

Marine Scotland bases its decisions on the best available scientific evidence at any particular time including any relevant peer reviewed literature. Any such literature is subject to a critical review to determine its applicability. Marine Scotland’s decisions will reflect the outcome of this process as well as consideration of information provided by the applicant and any expert advice received.

Marine Scotland is currently updating the above guidance to include finer resolution species density surfaces and this will be published in 2023. All applications for EPS licences will be expected to follow the updated guidance.

The Business Principles Agreement, jointly developed with business, was published in December 2021 to cover the current five year Parliamentary term. The Agreement applies across all Scottish Government policy areas and provides a framework to enable more effective joint working between the Scottish Government and business though greater co-development, collaborative delivery and collective assessment of policies impacting business.

During 2022 Ministers had almost 1,250 engagements with business, an average monthly increase of 5% on the COP26 boosted average from May to December 2021. In addition business experience informed development of our National Strategy for Economic Transformation Delivery Plans, while a number of Industry Leadership Groups (ILGs) were set-up or refreshed during 2022 to deepen our sectoral connections, and I established an ILG Chairs group to foster cross-sectoral collaboration and sharing of experience.

The establishment of the Joint Taskforce on Business Regulation provides a further best practice application of the Principles approach with the majority of Agreement signatories being Taskforce members. The Joint Taskforce is co-chaired by myself and CoSLA Spokesperson for Environment and Economy Cllr Gail Macgregor and has so far met in December 2022 and February 2023.

Business organisations and regulatory stakeholders have set out what they would like the group to look at and this will be reflected in the Terms of Reference, with members acknowledging that there is ongoing work in many areas to address the concerns they have raised around specific regulations. The Joint Taskforce will look to identify the existing mechanisms for discussing these regulations before considering and suggesting what interventions might be most appropriate. We will publish minutes and papers on the Scottish Government Website.

The Taskforce has also agreed to look at ways of identifying and demonstrating the cumulative burden of regulation on businesses and members have been asked to consider and provide feedback on the Business Regulatory Impact Assessment approach to help improve the process for developing new regulations in future.