Chamber and committees

The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 places the statutory responsibility for local roads with the local road authorities, including parking. The provision of parking, the charges levied and how they are collected is therefore at the local authorities discretion and this is not something in which the Scottish Government would become directly involved.

There is a National Parking Platform available across the UK, run at no cost to local authorities by the Department of Transport, which local authorities in Scotland would be free to participate in if they so wish.

This is not data that we hold centrally. There is no national collection of waiting times for adult diagnosis of ADHD. Accordingly, we cannot confirm whether any NHS board has closed its ADHD assessment waiting list to adult patients.

I can advise that The Scottish Government is currently working with the National Autism Implementation Team to implement Adult Neurodevelopmental Pathways across Scotland to ensure that adults with ADHD receive appropriate diagnosis and support.

So far £23,094,147 has been spent on trunk road improvement schemes in the North East of Scotland during the 2024-25 financial year. This figure includes capital expenditure on Minor Improvement works, Structural Maintenance, Strategic Road Safety and Structures improvement schemes. This figure includes Construction, Design and Investigation costs.

An additional £993,181.21 has been spent on Major Project schemes in the North East of Scotland for financial year 2024-25. This figure provided includes spend for taking the various projects through design and statutory process stages, acquisition of land compensation payments, preparatory works, as well as costs associated with construction.

The Scottish Government believes that local councils should decide how to achieve the right balance in the use of housing to meet local needs and to support thriving communities. We delivered secondary legislation to enable councils to apply a 100% Council Tax premium to second homes from 1 April 2024.

To enable increases beyond the 100% premium would require primary legislation. We are continuing to explore and consider this change, in partnership with COSLA, as part of the Joint Working Group on Sources of Local Government Funding and Council Tax Reform.

I meet with Transport Scotland officials on a regular basis to discuss improvements across the entire trunk road network including those located in the North East of Scotland, and most recently met at our regular portfolio meeting on 30 October 2024.

We can only provide information relating to the Scottish Government funded ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) public electric vehicle (EV) charging network. The commercial sector does not make their own charge point fault information readily available to third parties.

Overall reliability across the CPS network is typically very good with charge points being available for use 95% to 97% on average each month. Most faults on the CPS network are short-lived in nature and in the majority of cases require no physical intervention. Typically around 90% of faults are resolved within 48 hrs with the ChargePlace Scotland helpdesk remedying most faults remotely.

Please note, ‘faults’ cover many different scenarios and do not necessarily relate to issues that affect the operation of the charging infrastructure itself, for example, it could relate to lighting at the site. Some faults may be reported by more than one member of the public and therefore each recorded fault is not necessarily a unique instance. The following table shows the total number of ‘faults’ logged by members of the public.

CPS have published a Network Performance page on the CPS website Network Performance – Charge Place Scotland which provides a breakdown of ‘fault tickets’ by local authority from November 2022 onwards. Information prior to November 2022 has not been published on the website but is detailed in the following table.

The responsibility for development and delivery of flood protection schemes rests with individual local authorities, who are best placed to respond to local resilience needs.

The first set of Flood Risk Management plans covering the period 2015-2021 included 42 prioritised flood protection schemes. Work was expected to start, but construction was not necessarily expected to be completed, on those schemes within this six-year timeframe.

Flood protection schemes have impacts on individuals, communities and the environment, and require careful and thorough planning. Like all infrastructure projects, it can take many years for flood schemes to progress from option appraisal to completion.

The Scottish Government provides funding to local authorities to enable delivery of these important projects. £570million will be invested in flood resilience in the period 2016-2026.

40 of 42 have received funding to support development. 2 were not deemed eligible because they had previously received funding.

16 schemes are complete. The detailed status of those that remain is as follows:

4 are under construction.

The Scottish Government has been actively assessing the issue of cladding on high-rise buildings across the country. As part of its commitment to ensuring the safety of residents, several steps have been taken to determine the scale and cost of cladding remediation.

1.Building Safety Assessments: A nationwide review of high-rise buildings has been conducted to identify those with potentially unsafe cladding. This includes a comprehensive inventory of buildings affected by materials such as Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) and other types of cladding.

2.Financial Impact Analysis: The Scottish Government has commissioned detailed financial assessments to estimate the overall cost of remediation efforts. This process involves consultation with local authorities, housing associations, and private sector stakeholders to gather data on the number of affected buildings and the potential costs of necessary remedial work.

3.Pilot Project and Funding Allocations: The pilot project has been initiated to address cladding issues, and these have provided initial data on the costs associated with removing and replacing unsafe cladding. Additionally, funding schemes such as the Single Building Assessment Programme have been introduced to support building owners in conducting safety assessments and implementing remediation where necessary.

4.Collaboration with the UK Government: As part of a broader UK-wide effort, the Scottish Government continues to liaise with the UK Government on financial support mechanisms, including potential contributions from developers and building product manufacturers responsible for defective cladding.

We are committed to providing funding to safeguard homeowners and residents by addressing the risk to human life that is (directly or indirectly) created or exacerbated by a building’s external wall cladding system.

The cumulative spend of the programme to date is £9.0m. Spend of £0.5m was incurred in quarter one 2024-25 to support programme delivery works.

Data provided by the NHS Research Scotland Cancer Research Network on the number of blood cancer clinical studies that have been supported by the Network in each financial year since 2018-19 are shown in the following table, noting that individual studies can take a number of years to complete. The figures are inclusive of studies open to recruitment and in participant follow up in any given year, paediatric and adult studies, and public, charity, and industry sector funded studies.

A breakdown of the Scottish Government fleet (including pool, Government Car Service and Transport Scotland) over the last 5 years is provided in the following table.