Chamber and committees

The delivery of Police Scotland’s contact, command and control function is an operational matter for the Chief Constable with oversight from the Scottish Police Authority. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland continue to monitor progress in this area following their 2015 assurance review of police call handling directed by myself.

The delivery of Police Scotland’s contact, command and control function is an operational matter for the Chief Constable with oversight from the Scottish Police Authority.

This is a matter for the Scottish Police Authority. Ministers expect the Authority to have robust arrangements in place to monitor all aspects of police performance.

The Office for National Statistics estimates the level and rate of unemployment based on International Labour Organisation definitions. Further information can be can be found at https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment:

Unemployed people are defined as those without a job who have been actively seeking work in the past 4 weeks and are available to start work in the next 2 weeks. It also includes those who are out of work but have found a job and are waiting to start it in the next 2 weeks.

Therefore in the situation where there has been a self-employed job loss in the oil and gas sector, if the person meets the criteria of being unemployed, as defined above they would be included in the unemployment statistics estimate.

Information on the number of self-employed jobs lost is not held centrally.

Estimates of the level of self-employment, in each year, by industry are available from the Annual Population Survey, ONS. However estimates for this query, for those directly self-employed in the oil and gas industry, are too small to be provided with any degree of reliability from this source.

The management of urban gulls is the responsibility of local authorities.

Local authorities can help to minimise the problems caused by gulls by preventing the eggs from hatching, including by egg and nest removal, egg oiling or egg replacement with artificial dummy eggs. Where necessary, these actions can be licensed under Scottish Natural Heritage General Licence No. 3/2017, which authorises the killing or taking of certain species of gulls for the purpose of preserving public health and safety and for the purpose of preventing the spread of disease.

The Urban Gull Task Force (UGTF), which consists of members of the Scottish Government, Scottish Natural Heritage, Dumfries and Galloway Council, and an experienced independent contractor, has been working on approaches since 2009 to try and (a) deter gulls from nesting in urban environments and (b) to reduce the numbers of young fledging each year. Various techniques have been or are being trialled and adapted to increase effectiveness, including falconry, water sprayers, and egg and nest removal. A further trial comparing permanent exclusion devices, as well as a trapping trial, is being planned for 2018. Once the UGTF has confidence that particular methods and procedures are capable of providing positive results, it is intended that this work will be published in the form of guidance for local authorities.

The Scottish Government does not intend to review the 2010 research.

The industry convention for reporting performance across the franchise as a whole, and for comparing ScotRail’s performance with other train operating companies in England & Wales, is the Public-Performance-Measure, which measures arrivals against a five-minute benchmark.

Performance for train services between the North-East and the Central Belt, and for train services between Aberdeen and Inverness, are at 86.0% and 88.8 %, respectively.

26 High-Speed-Trains (HSTs) will be introduced to run between Scotland’s seven cities from December 2018. This will ensure more capacity for services to Stirling, Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, Inverness, Edinburgh and Glasgow delivering 40% more seats than operate on those routes today. HSTs are faster, popular with passengers and will be refurbished to provide the latest standard of comfort, accessibility, catering provision.

Alongside the introduction of HSTs, the Scottish Governments investment in “Revolution in Rail” will see additional local services for the North East. This has been made possible by retaining 13 trains beyond the terms of their current lease, which were due to end in December 2018.

We are delivering a huge investment within the North-East with major projects, such as the Aberdeen to Inverness and Aberdeen to Central to Belt (STPR) rail improvements projects, which will be delivered over an incremental basis (in phases) until 2030. As well as the £200 million additional investment, announced over and above the £250 million Aberdeen City Region Deal, which will focus on improving performance and address capacity issues between Aberdeen and Dundee, with full delivery expected over the course of the 10-year City Deal period.

These levels of financial support reflect the Scottish Government’s commitment to invest in rail infrastructure and services to better connect our communities and support sustainable economic growth.

The Scottish Government has no minutes of meetings at which the potential closure of the Mulberry Unit at Stracathro Hospital was discussed.

The Mulberry ward moved from the Susan Carnegie Centre in Stracathro on 1 February 2017. There were 25 beds. 9 patients were transferred. 20 beds were opened in the relocated Mulberry Unit based at Carseview in Dundee.