Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government supports several small bodies that provide Scots language teaching resources for use in schools. Education Scotland and the Open University also make an important contribution to this. In addition, the Scottish Languages Bill, currently making its way through Parliament includes Scots provisions which will strengthen this support. In relation to Scots provisions, the Bill will also require Scottish Ministers to consult with those that have an interest in both the promotion of Scots and in the publication of Scots books and resources. We are confident that these measures will improve the resources available for teaching Scots in the classroom.

The refreshed Learning for Sustainability (LfS) Action Plan was published in June 2023. The Learning for Sustainability Leadership Group – which meets quarterly – is overseeing delivery. The Leadership Group commenced an annual stocktake process in July to assess progress against the Action Plan and to agree key priorities for 2024-25.

Further to the Scottish Government’s response to S6W-25156 on 22 February 2024, key areas of progress since publication of the Action Plan include:

? The development of a new LfS Mentor Network, which launched in February 2024 with over 97 engagements undertaken in its first 6 weeks, which reached more than 600 practitioners across 20 local authorities. The Network provides a forum for educators to provide peer-to-peer support and advice;

? The formation of a sub-working group leading on development of LfS Indicators that will support practitioners and wider stakeholders to embed a whole-school approach to LfS and delivery of our Target 2030 vision;

? The creation of a range of resources that draw on examples and activities from across Scotland to support educators to deliver good practice approaches to LfS. These resources will be hosted on the new and bespoke LfS online portal that launches in Autumn; and

? Continued close engagement with Education Scotland, His Majesty’s Inspectorate for Education (HMIE), the Care Inspectorate and the Scottish Social Services Council to help consider alignment of LfS principles and approaches as part of on-going reviews of relevant inspection frameworks and practitioner standards.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

This is an operational matter for the agencies referred to. I have asked the agencies’ Chief Executives to respond directly to you with the information requested.

Any application for public support from our enterprise agencies is subject to robust appraisal and appropriate due diligence.

Since the Budget, the Scottish Government has had exploratory discussions with a range of business and public health stakeholders. This includes Alcohol Focus Scotland, British Heart Foundation, Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems in their roles as members of the NCD Alliance Scotland.

There are no plans to review the monetary penalties at this time.

It should be noted however that SEPA continues develop relationships with relevant parties with the aim of taking a prevention-based approach, where penalties are viewed as a last resort.

Whilst fixed monetary penalties remain as one available enforcement measure, they are intended for lower-level offending. For more significant offending, SEPA also has the option of variable monetary penalties (with the current limit set at £40k) or it can recommend prosecution in serious cases to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

SEPA collected around £ 4.8m in financial penalties in the financial year 2023-24.

The Small Business Bonus Scheme Evaluation Short-Term Working Group was established to inform advice to Scottish Ministers in respect the recommendations made in the Evaluation of the Small Business Bonus Scheme Report , and in particular “that the Scottish Government begins to collect new information that will make a more robust assessment of the Small Business Bonus Scheme (SBBS) (and potentially other reliefs) possible in the future.”

This Group met twice and minutes of the meetings are published on the Scottish Government website . Members were clear that SBBS relief is of great benefit to many small businesses, and also raised concerns about the burden that the collection of any additional information would entail.

Recognising these concerns, the Scottish Government has not introduced any additional information-sharing requirements for this relief at this time and the Small Business Bonus Scheme remains the most generous scheme of its kind in the UK.

We anticipate that the Four Day Working Week Public Sector pilot and the accompanying Shorter Working Week evaluation report will be concluded and published in Spring 2025.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) has not taken any formal action as a result of a college failing to meet Fair Work criteria since the Post-16 Education (Scotland) Act 2013 came into force.

Fair Work requirements are a condition of SFC funding. SFC will monitor compliance through reporting requirements in colleges' annual reports.

This is an operational matter for Caledonian Sleeper, the Member may wish to contact Caledonian Sleeper Ltd directly.