Seòmar agus comataidhean

Scottish Government officials continue to meet at least monthly with SEPA and Scottish Ministers are provided with regular update briefings. In addition, the Minister for Environment and Land Reform has met on a number of occasions with the SEPA Chair, Board and Interim CEO.

The Scottish Government has conducted extensive engagement and consultation involving a wide range of public, private and third sector organisations and individuals throughout its preparation of National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4), including three formal public consultation exercises.

Our Call for Ideas in 2020 attracted over 180 stakeholders to participate at our roadshow workshops, plus around 100 at drop in sessions and over 100 at events hosted by the Royal Town Planning Institute in Scotland on our behalf. Separately, we received written responses to the Call for Ideas from nearly 350 consultees. 35 contributors also provided think piece articles, and we held a variety of sessions and meetings with a range of stakeholders including the Scottish Youth Parliament. The Scottish Government’s Position Statement consultation later in 2020 attracted around 250 written responses. We also undertook extensive collaborative work with local authorities to support their preparation of indicative Regional Spatial Strategies, which have formed the basis of the spatial strategy in the draft NPF4.

The recent Draft NPF4 consultation exercise attracted over 750 formal consultation responses, and we also encouraged participation in discussions with a broad range of stakeholders. Our engagement programme included open invitation discussions on policy themes and action areas with around 265 stakeholders participating. We held a roundtable discussion on equalities, and again worked with the Royal Town Planning Institute in Scotland to deliver roundtable discussions where 45 people participated. We also worked with PAS who hosted events for community groups (over 50 participants) and with PlayScotland to gather perspectives from children and young people.

All engagement material, including consultation responses, event overviews and analysis of consultation responses in relation to both the Call for Ideas and the Position Statement are available at www.transformingplanning.scot. Materials for the Draft NPF4 consultation will be published in due course.

A number of City Region Deals include elements of housing infrastructure that is required to unlock wider housing delivery and regional growth ambitions including a notional £20m joint allocation for Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Councils. It is the responsibility of Councils to bring forward eligible Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) projects to the Scottish Government for consideration. Progress has been slower than anticipated and to date no eligible HIF projects have been submitted by the Councils as part of the £20m indicative allocation referred to in the 2016 agreement. Given the long-term plans for City Deal delivery in the region, and that HIF is open for new applications, Scottish Government officials will remain engaged with both Councils to support them to apply for HIF support where suitable projects through the City Deal delivery plans are identified.

SEPA remains impacted by the cyber-attack and significant work is ongoing to build back. SEPA’s approach is to accelerate improvements already underway by building new systems and ways of working that will set it up for long term success. This includes a digital transformation that enables services to be more accessible online, making it quicker and easier for communities and businesses. SEPA will shortly publish its 2022-23 Annual Operating Plan setting out its priorities for the year ahead.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-08445 on 6 May 2022. 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 .

The Scottish Government has provided funding to local authorities to sustain and enhance resettlement teams and enable co-ordination of the third sector contribution to this work. We have made available more than £7 million to local authorities to support refurbishment of accommodation to support displaced people from Ukraine.

The package of enhancements identified by the project team for taking forward is currently being reviewed by Network Rail’s operations team for Scotland. It comprises signal enhancements, improvements to station approaches and specific capacity alterations to facilitate the mixed operation of faster and slower trains on the same route.

Ensuring the wellbeing and safety of those arriving from Ukraine, who are overwhelmingly women and children is critical. That is why under the super sponsor scheme, and as outlined in the Super Sponsor Scheme and Homes for Ukraine guidance for local authorities , sponsors and members of their household aged over 16 years are required to apply for an enhanced disclosure when they register for the scheme.

While most offers of accommodation are genuine and well intentioned, there is a clear safeguarding risk posed by the UK private sponsor scheme, which puts people at risk of arriving in the UK and being placed in homes before suitable checks are carried out. I have raised these concerns with the UK Government, and called on them to replicate our super sponsor scheme to prevent vulnerable people being placed in with unsuitable hosts.

The deliverables of the rail improvement project expected to be completed by the end of 2026 will be a capability which will facilitate, subject to changing travel behaviours, timetable and stopping pattern choices, the following options:

? an average journey time of 1 hour 10 minutes or less for inter-city services between Aberdeen and Dundee;

? an average journey time of 2 hours 30 minutes or less for inter-city services between Aberdeen and Glasgow;

? half-hourly services from local stations into Aberdeen and Dundee during peak times;

? an hourly stopping service between Aberdeen and Dundee; and

? new freight paths.

We are currently reviewing the previous work done, including the draft policy development, the results from the formal consultation and the written reports of the round table events, and will look to commence stakeholder engagement after the local government elections.