Chamber and committees

While employment law is reserved, our Fair Work approach seeks to improve workers’ rights and conditions and aims to address women’s workplace inequalities by encouraging employers to take action to tackle occupational segregation and reduce gender pay gaps across the labour market in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all employees are fully supported and are empowered to carry out their role to their maximum potential. Where staff experience migraines, lighting and desk location can be altered to mitigate symptoms. In addition, the Scottish Government has a dedicated workplace adjustments team who can arrange for more specialist equipment, with input from health and safety colleagues and our external occupational health provider as appropriate.

Available support can include anti-glare monitors and coloured overlays to reduce strain from reading documents. Assistive software can be installed to enable staff to dictate work or have documents read to them, potentially reducing eye strain. Staff are also encouraged to take regular micro-breaks to ensure they have time away from laptops or other screens, and to use flexible working to help manage symptoms/triggers. The flexibility provided by hybrid working, where available, can also be helpful.

Scottish Government staff can use an employee passport to set out the workplace adjustments needed to support them at work. The passport provides a framework to help discussions with managers and improve understanding of the impact of health conditions, including migraines.

Staff from the Scottish Government’s workplace adjustments team regularly attend the civil service Workplace Adjustments Network to ensure we share good practise around migraines and other health conditions. Alongside assisting staff experiencing Migraines, the workplace adjustments team will advise line managers and business areas on available adjustments and good practise around this, to ensure staff are fully supported. Peer support and advice can also be found through the Scottish Government’s staff networks including the Disabled Staff Network.

Please note this information pertains to all core Scottish Government Directorates and associated agencies who receive an HR service from core SG.

Flood Risk Management Plans are developed by SEPA, which has the expertise to do so as Scotland’s Strategic Flood Risk Management Authority.

It is a local authority responsibility to develop and deliver flood protection schemes. However, the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act sets out a specific set of circumstances where the Scottish Ministers may consider a scheme if they receive notice from a local authority under Schedule 2 of the Act.

Should Ministers decide that they wish to consider a scheme, a Public Local Inquiry would be held by a Reporter. The Reporter would hear evidence on all relevant considerations, including from relevant experts, before making a recommendation. Ministers would then consider the recommendation of the Reporter before making their decision.

It is a local authority responsibility to develop and deliver flood protection schemes. As such, it is for the local authority to ensure that its individual project is value for money and has a robust business case.

Individual local authorities are responsible for managing their finances in a prudent and sustainable way, ensuring the delivery of best value to the public for the services they provide. The Scottish Government provides grant funding to support local authorities in this responsibility through the general capital grant.

At a programme level, a joint COSLA/ Scottish Government Flood Risk Management Funding Working Group has been set up to discuss funding and governance of flood resilience actions in Scotland. The group includes representatives from COSLA, SEPA, local authority Directors of Finance and flood officers, and the Scottish Government. This group have been tasked with making recommendations to improve affordability, learn lessons for future programmes, and discuss future funding arrangements. This includes consideration of VfM.

Our updated Vessels and Ports Plan was published on 1 February 2024 as part of the Islands Connectivity Plan. It sets out the recommended investment programme needed to maintain and safely operate the Clyde & Hebrides and Northern Isles ferry services networks and sets a target average vessel age of around 15 years by the end of this decade. This investment programme includes six new major vessels currently under construction and seven new small vessels now in procurement.

Individual project and programme business cases will continue to be considered through the Transport Scotland Investment Decision-Making process and in light of future Budget allocations.

There are no plans for compensation to be offered to Storas Uibhist for any business lost during the ongoing development of the Gasay proposals. Any such scheme ultimately draws resources otherwise intended for the operation of ferry services and associated projects.

The importance of this project and the future of the route to the communities it serves, is well understood by both Scottish Ministers and the three organisations involved in leading the project. Developing a robust Business Case is essential in underpinning decisions against the current fiscal backdrop.

The procurement timelines of the project are subject to completion of appropriate business case processes, availability of funding, and approvals from Scottish Ministers. The construction timelines are subject to successful completion of procurement and agreement of programmes with the contractor for the works.

Subject to approvals, procurement and construction, the Islands Connectivity Plan has scheduled the completion of the majority of the projects which commenced during Phase 1 by 2026-2031.

The Scottish Government places the upmost importance on planning accordingly to balance its budget. We originally assumed 3% per cent for pay awards at the time of the Budget, and a 2% +1% phased multi-year approach was confirmed as part of our 2024-25 Pay Policy.

The 3% was based on a range of judgements including affordability and on known funding at the time under the previous UK Government. The UK Government’s Autumn Statement was the worst-case scenario for Scotland and caused further uncertainty about future funding for public services from UK Government.

Stabilising economic conditions were also taken into account with inflation forecast to reduce to 2%. To those who believe we should set out our pay metrics earlier, it is worth remembering the UK Government does not set out its pay policy for the public sector and does not share the workings of the Pay Review bodies with us.

The Scottish Parliament agreed the general principles of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill in April. In advance of the dates for Stage 2 of the Parliamentary process being agreed, I am proposing to make some amendments to the Bill.

On 9 October the Scottish Government published its response to the independent review of the Victim Notification Scheme (VNS), which signalled our intention to use the Bill to deliver reforms to the VNS that require primary legislation, to ensure we reform the VNS as quickly as possible.

I have already made clear my willingness to amend the provisions that enable a time-limited pilot of single judge rape trials. I recognise, however, that there is not enough cross-party support at this time for such a pilot, irrespective of the model. In the interests of building as much consensus as possible, I will no longer pursue this policy and bring forward relevant amendments to remove it from the Bill. I remain committed to exploring the impact of rape myths and improving access to justice for rape victims. As part of this work, I will bring forward amendments to allow for research to be carried out into jury deliberations, which is currently heavily restricted by the Contempt of Court Act 1981.

I also intend to bring forward amendments at Stage 2 so that Scotland retains a 15 person jury in criminal trials. After reflecting carefully on the Criminal Justice Committee’s recommendations, and on the evidence, I believe that the most prudent approach to jury reform, including the abolition of the not proven verdict, is to seek support for a model with two verdicts (guilty and not guilty), 15 jurors, and a two-thirds majority requirement for conviction.

I have written to the Criminal Justice Committee to provide further detail about the planned amendments.

I am pleased to announce that the third Annual Report on our progress towards implementing Scotland’s Vision for Trade is being published today and is available at: www.gov.scot/isbn/9781836019084

The Report sets out how the Scottish Government has applied its principles to international trade policy matters, covering the period from July 2023 – October 2024.

Since our last Annual Report, published in Summer 2023, we have taken a range of actions to improve the international trading environment for businesses in Scotland, including stepping up our direct engagement with the business community, supporting the resolution of individual market access barriers and using standards and regulation to support businesses. For example, we collaborated with the British Standards Institution on the introduction of a new voluntary whisky standard which empowers distillers in Scotland to trade internationally.

We are using our principles-based approach to trade to create more opportunities for people to participate in our economy, for example by gaining a better understanding of the cause, impact and potential measures to address the a clear gender export gap, whereby businesses led by women are less likely to export than those led by men.

The tragic events unfolding globally demonstrate why taking such a principles-based approach, with concern for human rights at its core, is so important.

Many trade levers sit with the UK Government, and we are committed to working constructively with the newly-elected UK Government in furthering our shared trade interests.