Seòmar agus comataidhean

The groups and sub-groups named in response to question S6W-12170 that have an allocated budget are:

• Scottish Science Advisory Council £32,000
• Youth Work Strategy Review Group - £3,500
• National Bairns’ Hoose Governance Group - £14,400
• Race Equality & Anti-Racism in Education Programme Board - £350,000
• Gender Equality Taskforce in Education & Learning - £50,000

The other groups and sub-groups named in the previous response do not have allocated budgets. Any incidental costs associated with the running of these groups are covered by the relevant departments’ budgets.

In response to the request for members and leaders of the groups and sub-groups names in the answer to question SW6-12170, this information is available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 63939).

The Scottish Government Trade & Investment (T&I) Envoy programme is voluntary in nature and is not remunerated or pensioned.

Trade & Investment Envoys are entitled to reclaim all reasonable expenses incurred while performing their T&I Envoy duties as requested by the Scottish Government, including the costs of travel, accommodation, meals etc., which are reimbursed at Civil Service rates.

The Workforce Development Group is newly established and had its first meeting on 29 November 2022. The group will meet bi-monthly with the next meeting scheduled for 30 January 2023.

Scottish Government officials engaged with the Met Office during the initial development of Winter Heating Payment policy. This was prior to the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and included discussions about how cold weather events are identified for Cold Weather Payment and the location of weather stations. Further engagement took place at official level in 2021 and 2022.

Scottish Water does not maintain information by parliamentary region or by local authority, however was able to extract leakage data for the equivalent area which is a close match to the South Scotland parliamentary region. A copy of the table which provides total leakage volumes in Mega litres per day for each of the months since April 2016 is available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib Number 63968).

Statistics on the number of school pupils assessed and/or declared disabled and the number of pupils reported as having additional support needs for hearing impairment, visual impairment and deafblind are published in the pupil census supplementary statistics, available on the Scottish government website in the Pupil Census supplementary statistics tables 1.7 and 1.8.

The National Induction Framework was created as a resource for providers and staff as a good practice example. It was developed in conjunction with the sector, to enhance and support an employer’s own induction processes. It should complement existing induction processes but it is not mandatory. The framework has been widely promoted to the sector by stakeholders to encourage its use.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13768 on 25 January 2023. Winter Heating Payment has been discussed with UK Ministers on a number of occasions including at the Joint Ministerial Working Group on Welfare on 21 November 2021 and 16 May 2022. Minutes of meetings are available on gov.scot.

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 .

We welcome the recent Circularity Gap Report which clearly sets out the size of the challenge ahead. The Scottish Government is clear that transitioning to a circular economy is key if we are to tackle the climate and biodiversity crisis, and this means reducing our demand for raw material, increasing reuse and repair, and recycling more.