Seòmar agus comataidhean

The inspection of independent schools as outlined in the question were carried out for the following reasons:

• "special inspections" which are generally in response to concerns being raised over the quality of provision for children and young people or safeguarding concerns being identified. HM Inspectors carried out inspections in independent schools in response to requests from Scottish Ministers.

• "post registration inspections" which, in line with Scottish Government guidance, should be carried out by HM Inspectors within nine months of opening. Post registration inspections continued to be carried out as soon as was practicable taking account of the impact of the pandemic. HM Inspectors carried out inspections in independent schools for post-registration purposes.

Since March 2020 HM Inspectors have focused on engaging with schools, colleges, and services throughout Scotland to provide support and contribute to the overall recovery of the education system. In academic year 2021-22, HM Inspectors engaged with over 400 schools and settings. This included visits to 112 schools, settings and services that were identified, pre-pandemic, as requiring a further inspection. It also included recovery visits to 148 schools and settings to learn about their own current priorities as they responded to the impact of the current pandemic, what was working well, and the challenges education practitioners faced. HM Inspectors carried out four national thematic inspections involving engagement with 148 schools, settings and services.

Serco Caledonian Sleepers Limited (SCSL) chose to submit a rebasing proposal in accordance with the provisions of the Franchise Agreement. An alternative commercial proposal was also submitted. Following careful analysis, review and negotiation with SCSL, a financial position which represented value for money to Scottish taxpayers could not be presented; subsequently neither proposal was accepted.

In answer to part (a), information on spending on the Lord Advocate’s reference to the Supreme Court was published on 22 September, at: www.gov.scot/publications/independence-referendum-supreme-court-referral-legal-costs .

In answer to part (b), as is usual for any Bill, when independence legislation is introduced in Parliament the Financial Memorandum accompanying the Bill will set out a detailed estimate of costs arising from the Bill, and the Parliament will have opportunity to scrutinize this.

For the final part of your question I refer you to the answer to your previous question, S6W-11224 on 1 November 2022. 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 .

The £20 million referred to is a provisional estimate from the Resource Spending Review for the financial year 2023-24. The costs of the Supreme Court referral are being met from the 2022-23 Government Business and Constitutional Relations budget line.

Place Directors are senior civil servants (directors or deputy directors) who volunteer for the role alongside their day-to-day responsibilities. Each Place Director represents Scottish Government in one of Scotland’s 32 local authority and Community Planning Partnership areas. They don't receive any additional remuneration beyond their existing salary.

The role of Place Directors is to understand, promote and support how public services work together and with communities, to improve wellbeing and outcomes on local and national priorities. They provide a bridge between local areas and the Scottish Government, providing two-way intelligence, constructive criticism and, where valuable, support for local capacity building. Their strategic role complements the more detailed responsibility of civil servants in relevant Scottish Government policy teams for testing and supporting how specific policies, services and reform programmes are taken forward in places across Scotland.

Along with the other large household surveys that rely on face-to-face interviews, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) was suspended in March 2020 to restrict social contact during the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, no SCJS interviews were conducted during 2020-21 and no report will be published for that year. In recognition of the evidence gap opened up by the suspension, the Scottish Government introduced the Scottish Victimisation Telephone Survey as a discrete and additional collection to the SCJS. This asked people about their experiences and perceptions of crime, safety and policing during the COVID-19 pandemic, with findings available at: Coronavirus (COVID-19): Scottish Victimisation Telephone Survey 2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Fieldwork for the SCJS resumed in late 2021, with a full year’s worth of interviews due to be complete by December and findings published in mid-2023.

Place directors are not appointed - these roles are voluntary positions taken on by civil servants at deputy director and director level, alongside their day-to-day responsibilities. A list of current place directors and their local authority and Community Planning Partnership areas can be found on the Scottish Government website, under Community Planning [ Community planning - Improving public services - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ].

The 2022-23 local government finance settlement of almost £12.7 billion represents an increase of over £1 billion or 9.2 per cent in cash terms compared with 2021-22.

It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on reducing vehicle emissions, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government provides support for lower income households and small businesses to get prepared for Low Emission Zones. The LEZ Support Fund offers financial support towards the disposal of non-LEZ compliant vehicles and offers ‘Travel Better’ grants to help households to switch to more sustainable modes of transport. Administered by Energy Saving Trust, the LEZ Support Fund provides people and micro-businesses with financial support to travel more sustainably and comply with forthcoming measures to improve air quality and protect public health. The LEZ Support Fund awarded £1.7 million in grants In 2020/21, and £3.85 million in 2021/22; with a further £5 million made available in 2022-23.

The Scottish Government has also made LEZ retrofit grants available to micro business owners (including taxi operators) which cover up to 80% of the capital costs for the retrofitting of non-compliant vehicles to the latest Euro 6 emissions standard. The fund also provides an incentive of a cash grant (up to £2,000) for the safe disposal of a non-compliant vehicle. To date, LEZ Support funding has resulted in over 2,000 non-LEZ compliant vehicles being disposed of or retrofitted with cleaner technology. Since 2019, over £4 million has been received by business operators through the fund, comprised of approximately £2 million in disposal grants for micro-businesses, and approximately £2 million for taxi retrofitting.

On rail, the Scottish Government has made a commitment to decarbonise rail passenger services by 2035, removing diesel trains that will improve the air quality across Scotland’s cities and communities.

To support bus and coach operators with the financial costs associated with engine and exhaust retrofitting to meet LEZ standards, the Bus Emission Abatement Retrofit (BEAR) grant funding has been offered by Scottish Government since 2018. BEAR Phases 1, 2, 3 and 4 provided £18.4 million funding to support the costs of retrofitting of 1143 buses and coaches to Euro VI standard in Scottish Air Quality Management Areas from 2018 to 2022. An additional £2.65 million has been made available for BEAR 5 in 2022/23, with further funding also currently under consideration.

On 10 August 2022, the Scottish Government opened the Zero Emission Bus Market Transition Scheme, which makes funding available to transport providers and local authorities to develop new business models for a rapid decarbonisation of bus transport. This fund – worth £500,000 – is open for applications until 09 December, or until all funding has been awarded, whichever occurs first.

Further details of these, and other recent schemes designed to enable local authorities and transport operators to reduce emissions is available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. Number 63670)

Scottish Government Ministers and officials meet regularly with CERG members to discuss a range of issues on how to accelerate delivery of climate action, including how to decarbonise our transport systems and cities.