Chamber and committees

Not all landlords take deposits from tenants. In addition, letting agents acting on behalf of landlords will have lodged a proportion of the deposits now with one of the three approved tenancy deposit schemes. As such, we cannot confirm what percentage of all landlords have lodged eligible deposits.

Up to the end of April 2013, over 140,000 deposits with a total value of £89 million had been lodged with one of the three approved tenancy deposit schemes. These are the most up to date figures available.

Comparison with the number of properties private landlords have registered with local authorities suggests that some landlords still need to lodge deposits.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with the scheme providers and other stakeholders to encourage compliance with the law in this area.

The Still Hungry for Success working group met for the first time on 14 March 2013 and again on 8 May 2013

The following table shows working group membership and attendance

At the first meeting the group discussed progress since Hungry for Success launched in 2003, existing successes, challenges and barriers in relation to school food provision and education.

At the second meeting, following informal consultation by group members with their stakeholder groups, discussion centred on the potential structure and scope of the guidance document.

The working group plan to meet again on 5 June, 14 August and 5 September.

A report commissioned by Scottish Natural Heritage in 2006 indicated that a minimum of 24,529 mountain hares are controlled annually (mainly by shooting) on Scottish estates. This represents 7% of the 1995 published Scottish population estimate of 350,000. However, the population estimate is subject to error, and so accounting for this uncertainty, the reported level of cull would lie in the range of 3.5 to 14% of the total population. Scottish Natural Heritage are planning to undertake further studies to determine the population level either later in the current year or in the next financial year.

There is no current evidence of non-compliance with the mountain hare closed season. To date, there have, therefore, been no prosecutions for non-compliance, and there have been 10 licence applications to date for shooting hares during the closed season.

A report commissioned by Scottish Natural Heritage in 2006 on the control of mountain hares on Scottish estates, indicated that 73% of mountain hares that were controlled (24 529 in total that year) were killed by being shot. Among those that were shot, 32% of mountain hares were shot for the purposes of tick control to prevent the spread of disease. A further 41% were shot for sporting purposes through a combination of informal and commercial shooting. The remaining 27% were snared for the purposes of tick control, or for the protection of crops, or forests.

The scientific evidence on this subject was reviewed in a 2009 paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology "Culling wildlife hosts to control disease: mountain hares, red grouse and louping ill virus" by A Harrison et al. The authors concluded that there is no compelling evidence to suggest culling mountain hares might increase red grouse densities.

As there has been no evidence of non-compliance in respect of the mountain hare closed season, the Scottish Government has no plans at present to introduce further regulation on this subject. However, the Scottish Government remains vigilant regarding all forms of wildlife crime and should action prove necessary we will not hesitate to do so.

The Scottish government has not issued guidance on the sustainable culling of the mountain hare as the only published information on the population level of the species is an estimate of 350,000 which dates from 1995 and is subject to a 50% margin of error. Further studies are therefore required to determine the population level and to provide a more accurate assessment of the number of mountain hares in Scotland; and Scottish Natural Heritage are planning to carry these out either later in the current or in the next financial year.

The National Gamebag Census data for mountain hare compiled by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust shows no significant trend in the data between 1961 and 2009, despite marked cyclical fluctuations which are known to exist in around half of mountain hare populations.

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.