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The Scottish Government is currently working with Zero Waste Scotland, COSLA and an Advisory Group, comprising local authority Waste Managers, to review the Code of Practice that accompanies the Household Recycling Charter. One of the aims of the review is to ensure that local authorities will still be able to fulfil the aims of the Charter when Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme is introduced.

No specific risk assessment has been carried out for the impact of the Household Recycling Charter on recycling rates.

The Scottish Government has committed to evaluate the Household Recycling Charter. This work has been delayed temporarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but we are working with COSLA and local authorities to take forward this evaluation.

Statistics detailing a range of information on the Scottish Welfare Fund including application numbers and awards are published on the Scottish Government website monthly, quarterly and annually. The annual update for 2020-21 lists application numbers and awards by local authority area for each year since the Fund began in 2013. These statistics can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/collections/sg-social-security-scotland-stats-publications/

The Scottish Government is providing funding of £60 million towards renewing play parks in Scotland to ensure that all children have access to quality play in their own community. This funding will be distributed to local authorities over the course of this parliamentary term. The first allocation of £5 million for 2021-22 was agreed with COSLA in July 2021 and every local authority has been notified of their individual allocation.

The funding being provided is for the renewal and refurbishment of play parks, ongoing maintenance of play parks is the responsibility of individual local authorities, who will manage their budgets and allocate financial resources to play parks maintenance based on local needs and priorities. We are continuing to work in partnership with COSLA to agree a suite of national aims and principles to provide the framework for delivery of the commitment.

The Scottish Government want every child to have safe access to play and expect that local authorities and other local agencies will play their part in ensuring this. Law and order around the location of public play parks is matter for the relevant local authority and Police Scotland, who are able to exercise powers under the Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004, section 96 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, section 18 - 22 of the Public Order Act 1986 and section 38 of the Criminal justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010.

It is for the local authority, Police Scotland and ultimately the courts, to use the powers available to them, to take appropriate and proportionate action against any individual taking part in antisocial behaviour.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Whilst a site for HMP Glasgow has been acquired, SPS still need to finalise the future operational requirements for the establishment and undertake a procurement exercise to appoint a suitable contractor who will develop the design of the new prison. There are also obligations to secure further statutory approvals for the site which will include satisfying any planning conditions, before construction work can begin.

We are in daily contact with Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) facing the greatest challenges and are monitoring the situation closely. Health Boards and HSCPs have provided assurances that people in need of the most urgent care will continue receiving care during this challenging period.

We are working with local partners to address these pressures at a local and national level, including putting in place measures to support recruitment and multi-disciplinary working. Some of the immediate actions we have taken include: funding support to advertise vacant posts on a dedicated social care webpage; and targeted communication with Further and Higher Education nursing students and Social Work students, to encourage applications to join the workforce.

We have allocated an additional £380 million to Health Boards to help with costs arising from the pandemic. This comes on top of the £1.7 billion already provided to Health Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships last year.

For unpaid carers, we have invested an additional £28.5m for local carer support in this year’s budget, bringing total investment in the Carers Act to £68m per year. The previous Cabinet Secretary wrote to authorities in March to highlight the importance of using this additional funding to expand carer support. We also added a further £1.1m last year to the annual £3m voluntary sector Short Breaks Fund and have committed an additional £570,000 this year, enabling more families/carers and young carers to take a break from caring.

The Electronic Duty of Care (edoc) system has been operational since January 2014. We are taking forward the commitment to move towards the use of a mandatory system for waste monitoring as part of our work to implement an electronic waste tracking system, set out in our update to the Climate Change Plan.

A range of trials have been undertaken as part of work to develop an electronic waste tracking system, including as part of a GovTech Catalyst competition. In 2019, as part of phase 1 of the competition, 5 technology suppliers each developed proof of concept electronic waste tracking solutions. Of these, 2 were selected and developed into prototype systems to test the key elements of waste tracking in 2020. These proof of concepts and prototypes were informed and tested by a user research panel of businesses, which currently includes around 450 businesses operating across Scotland.

We are not aware of a specific recommendation for the preferred full design for a HazDoc system submitted to Scottish Government.

The development of an electronic system for hazardous waste is being taken forward as part of our work to implement an electronic waste tracking system, as set out in our update to the Climate Change Plan. The design of this system so far has involved input from a range of stakeholders and will be informed through a consultation planned in Autumn.

Over and above the local government finance settlement, between 2015 – 2019 the Scottish Government provided around £8 million through Zero Waste Scotland to support local authorities in aligning their services with the Household Recycling Charter Code of Practice.

In March, we launched a £70 million recycling improvement fund to support improvements in local authority recycling infrastructure. One of the objectives of the fund is to Support Local Authorities with aligning their services to the Code of Practice which accompanies the Household Recycling Charter.

The Scottish Government criminal proceedings database does not hold information on the specific type of vessel involved in charges prosecuted under Loch Lomond Byelaws.

The Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service were able to manually search relevant case records and confirmed that 3 people have been prosecuted for offences involving a jet ski under Loch Lomond Byelaws 2013 B3.5(1)&3.17 - Knowingly/recklessly/negligently navigate and behaviour of vessel.