Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S5W-32512

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many incidents of fly-tipping have been recorded in each year since 2014.

There is no single dataset of all flytipping incidents in Scotland, as there is no legal requirement for duty bodies or landowners to report on flytipping externally. The figures provided below represent incidents reported via the voluntary reporting options Flymapper, Dumb Dumpers and Flytipping & Litter Monitoring System (F&LMS).

It is clear that the data varies significantly from year to year but it is not possible to deduce whether this relates to variations in incidents or variations in reporting by relevant bodies.

Year	Flytipping incidents recorded by Flymapper and Litter Management System
2014	3,096
2015	7,295
2016	10,447
2017	10,329
2018	6,579
2019	1,007

Question reference: S5W-32510

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what behaviour-change marketing campaigns it has run since 2011 aimed at discouraging littering, broken down by the (a) cost of, (b) reach of and (c) outcome in litter reduction achieved by each campaign.

Information on campaigns run by, or in association with, Scottish Government is provided in the following table. A significant proportion of litter prevention communication is led by local authorities in line with their statutory responsibilities.

Name of campaign	Year	Run by	Cost	Reach
Litter Week of Action – Flingin’s Mingin’’	2013	Zero Waste Scotland	£45,288	Press and radio: 300,000 Social Media: 2 million Overall reach: 2.5million
Dirty Little Secret	2014	Scottish Government	£400,000	88.09% of 18-24 year old (target audience)
Managing Our Waste (Flytipping social media portion)	2020	Zero Waste Scotland, Scottish Government, Keep Scotland Beautiful, COSLA	£907.26	Overall Social media: 236,187 Website views: ‎ 6849 page views 5948 unique page views
Scotland is Stunning – Let’s keep it that way	2020	Scottish Government, Zero Waste Scotland and Keep Scotland Beautiful	£47,600	Overall reach 14.5 million

Question reference: S5W-32500

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its consultation on an obligation for food retail sites over a certain size to redistribute edible food; when it expects to implement such measures, and what the criteria will be for site inclusion.

Question reference: S5W-32499

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government when the Waste Data Strategy Board’s detailed monitoring and reporting timeline will be published.

The Waste Data Strategy Board’s action plan includes key components of waste data monitoring and reporting. The plan includes the development of a national food waste monitoring and measuring plan to align with Food Waste Reduction Action Plan, and an update of the national food waste estimates.

We remain committed to consulting on proposals for enhancing food waste monitoring and measurement, as set out in the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan, in due course. As part of this future work, the Waste Data Strategy Board will work closely with the Scottish Government and Zero Waste Scotland to develop a detailed monitoring and reporting timeline. A full review of the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan progress is scheduled for 2021.

Question reference: S5W-32495

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide details of the effect that its advertising campaigns have had in increasing uptake of tools to prevent food waste among consumers and householders.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-32339 on 10 November 2020. The Scottish Government 2018-19 ‘Food Waste Gone Bad’ campaign has most recently been evaluated. This campaign generated awareness of 47% and most notably, 76% of people who saw the campaign took action as a result, with a corresponding increase of 4 percentage points in the proportion of the target audience recycling food waste at ‘every opportunity’.

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

Question reference: S5W-32511

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many fixed penalty notices for littering have been issued by each public body in each year since 2014.

Question reference: S5W-32509

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its planned 2020 review of its national litter strategy, Towards A Litter-Free Scotland: A Strategic Approach To Higher Quality Local Environments.

Towards a litter free Scotland was reviewed in 2019-20 by a steering group of organisations. The key findings were as follows:

The focus should move to a more holistic approach, tackling throwaway culture by setting prevention within the context of the circular economy and linking to wider policy areas such as marine litter, climate change and biodiversity loss.
Improving the collection and use of data is vital to inform action and measure the impacts.
Future work should be led by a steering group to ensure ownership by a range of stakeholders, reflecting the need to work together across geography and sectors.

Further work on the review is planned for 2021 and will take into account the impacts of COVID-19 on littering and littering behaviours.

Question reference: S5W-32497

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government which hospitality sub-sectors it has prioritised for support to reduce food waste; what best practice guidance has been developed for them, and what proportion of businesses in each of these sub-sectors has received such guidance in the last 12 months.

Certain subsectors have been identified and prioritised but planned work has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Zero Waste Scotland and partners have developed a specific toolkit for the hospitality and food service sector which has been promoted and shared with key stakeholders, including through a regional workshop (which 40 businesses attended), webinars (235 sign-ups) and round table events (12 operators with multiple businesses). The toolkit includes an e-module, a quick start guide and posters for kitchens to reinforce best practice and behaviours. Further sector specific guidance is planned for the next year, and will take into account the impacts of COVID-19 for certain sectors.

Question reference: S5W-32507

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has carried of the (a) frequency and (b) quantity of litter in each year since 2014.

The Local Environmental Audit and Management System (LEAMS) methodology is currently used to assess litter levels on annual basis, this is used by local authorities and validated by Keep Scotland Beautiful. Results are published annually in the Local Government Benchmarking Framework Report .

A new monitoring system is being developed by Zero Waste Scotland and various partners on behalf of Scottish Government that will provide a spatial tool for monitoring litter and flytipping levels in Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-32496

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how business advice and support services to identify and demonstrate the value of food waste to the hospitality sector have been expanded since 2019.

Requests for assessments under the Food Waste Reduction Business Support Service have significantly reduced compared to the previous year due to the impact of COVID-19.

However next year we hope to increase the support to the hospitality sector, increasing opportunities for staff training and providing more bespoke support in measuring and monitoring of waste, supporting behaviour change. The advice and support service will offer support to non-SMEs, whereas in previous years support was SME-focused.