Chamber and committees

The A96 Dualling East of Huntly to Aberdeen: Online at Inverurie – Dualling Feasibility and Appraisal report is available to view from the A96 Dualling pages of Transport Scotland's website at: https://www.transport.gov.scot/projects/a96-dualling-inverness-to-aberdeen/a96-east-of-huntly-to-aberdeen/

Nurses are not classified by specialty, unless they are Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS). However, there is no osteoporosis specialty, so this data is not available.

CNS data is published annually but the September 2018 data was incomplete. ISD’s position is that, due to the data quality concerns that resulted in Sep-18 data not being published for several Boards, all historical data, whilst published, should be treated with caution. ISD will continue to work with Boards to ensure improved recording going forward.

There is no vacancy data collected for CNS. Vacancy information is collected from health boards quarterly for nursing and midwifery staff (excluding CNS), allied health professionals and consultants, plus annually for pharmacists. The data is not held in national systems and it is therefore laborious to produce. There is no agreement to provide data for other staff groups, as it is considered too much of a burden on health boards.

Table 1 shows the number of WTE radiography staff in post and number of WTE vacancies in each NHSScotland board as at December 2018.

Table 1

Further to the answer to question S5W-18706 answered on 26 September 2018, the 2016 UK Special Protection Area (SPA) Review recommended that ‘consideration of the need for and provision of, additional conservation measures (outwith this SPA review) is required; that contemporary SPA provision is insufficient for the requirements of the species and appropriate changes or additions to the SPA suite should be considered; that a review of boundaries of the existing SPA is needed to ensure that important areas used for feeding etc. are included; that better ecological information on foraging habitat requirements of breeding curlew on agricultural grasslands near breeding sites is needed; and that better survey methods should be developed.’

The Scottish Government and Scottish Natural Heritage are considering whether any changes to the Scottish SPA network are required. Other related recommendations are being picked up under the Working for Waders project which is funded and coordinated by Scottish Natural Heritage. More information on that project is available via the following web link: https://www.workingforwaders.com .

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Funding committed by the Scottish Government under the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) options for (i) wader grazed grassland and (ii) wader and wildlife mown grassland is provided in the following table.

Forestry Commission Scotland has published guidance which sets out the responsibilities of forest owners and managers to control the spread of non-native species in accordance with the UK Forestry Standard. The guidance is available via the following web link: https://scotland.forestry.gov.uk/images/corporate/pdf/managing-invasive-and-non-native-forestry-species.pdf ).

Through Scotland’s Rural Development Programme, grant support is available to landowners to remove regenerating (a) conifer and (b) other non-native trees and scrub from designated open habitats, where the presence of that regeneration is leading to a loss in open habitat condition, including nesting habitats for breeding waders.

A collaborative project involving Forestry Commission Scotland, the British Trust for Ornithology, Scottish Natural Heritage and RSPB Scotland will generate spatial information on the key hotspot locations for curlew populations in Scotland. An initial report is due at the end of March 2019.

When the Scottish Government is in receipt of this report, an assessment will be made on next steps, including how this information could be published and used to help inform forestry planting decisions to mitigate the risk of negative impacts on sensitive areas for curlews and other waders.

The Scottish Biodiversity Strategy (SBS) is a high level strategy document that focuses on the delivery of biodiversity across all of Scotland. It sets out the principles and approaches, rather than listing the wide range of actions, policies, strategies and individual species that have an impact on biodiversity. Curlew conservation projects are part of the SBS Route Map to 2020 and it is likely that they will also form part of the key actions under any updated SBS.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-22272 on 3 April 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

The Scottish Government is party to the UK Government’s commitment, as a signatory to the African and Eurasian Waterbird Agreement, to the implementation of the International Single Species Action Plan for the conservation of the Eurasian Curlew. The Action Plan is available via the following web link: https://www.unep-aewa.org/en/publication/international-single-species-action-plan-conservation-eurasian-curlew-ts-no-58 .

Scottish Natural Heritage has advised that the actions arising from the Status and Future of Curlew in Scotland conference, which took place at the Battleby Conference Centre on 27 September 2018, have been, or will be, delivered through the Working for Waders project. This collaborative project brings together a wide range of organisations, government bodies and individuals. More information is available via the following web link: https://www.workingforwaders.com .

The conference was an important milestone in raising awareness of the plight of the curlew and in identifying what action needs to be undertaken. The Conference report is available via the following weblink: http://www.curlewcall.org/record-of-the-battleby-conference-september-2018/ .

While we remain sympathetic to the underlying concerns of the offshore workforce, we do not believe a public inquiry into helicopter safety would, at this time, add to the significant work done by the CAA, Unions, operators and other stakeholders in developing and implementing a range of safety measures. We recognise that stakeholders continue to work to further improve helicopter and offshore safety. This includes the Workforce Engagement Review currently undertaken by Oil and Gas UK, involving the offshore unions and industry.

I understand that the CAA’s post implementation review of CAP1145, being undertaken by an independent CAA team, will work through the Offshore Helicopter Safety Leadership Group and Step Change in Safety meaning that the offshore workforce and representative groups, including trade unions, will have the opportunity to be fully engaged.