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Education Scotland will continue to work with local authorities and external partners to promote themed weeks. Dates will be promoted from August 2024, through our networks (Computing Science and Primary Computing Science networks on Glow, Local Authority National Technologies Network, professional networks such as ADICOS, Computing at Schools and CompEdnet), stakeholders and Education Scotland and Digilernscot social media.

Education Scotland will hold another Computing Science Event in November 2024. This year there will be 2 weeks – week 1 (4 to 8) will be targeted at computational thinking / no code/low code creative computing activities focusing on ELC and Primary and week 2 (11 to 15) will be focussed on coding activities for primary and secondary. Education Scotland will also be hosting 3 Computing Science Conferences (West, Central and North locations tbc) on 16 November 2024.

The Scottish School of Primary Care will be evaluating the role the Golden Hello scheme plays in supporting GP retention.

The impact assessments for the Housing (Scotland) Bill will be published in tranches. The first of these to be published was the Equality Impact Assessment, published on 21 June 2024 on the Scottish Government website, and the remaining impact assessments including the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment will be published in the coming weeks.

The implementation update will be published later in July instead of June. I also refer the member to the answer to question S6W-27717 on 4 June 2024 in relation to the monitoring work. 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

Due to the large number of consultation responses received, we now expect this report to be published in Autumn 2024.

The six islands making up the Carbon Neutral Islands Project have seen significant successes since the last progress report was published on 19 January 2023. An annual report is currently being drafted in collaboration with key stakeholders which we plan to publish later this year.

Scottish Ministers are focused on ensuring a reliable and resilient ferry service, including six new vessels in service by 2026. We fully recognise the need to support our island businesses and that is why we are offering 100% relief in 2024-25 for hospitality businesses located on islands or in specified remote areas, capped at £110,000 per business.

The package of measures announced on 24 May 2024 also provides a further £5m support across our island communities.

The British Medical Association has used data from the latest General Practice Workforce Survey , published by NHS Education Scotland in December 2023, which collects data on vacancies throughout the year. This report notes data quality concerns over vacancy status and advises caution when referring to vacancy rates published from the survey, which are likely an overestimation. It further suggests that the particularly high vacancy rates for island boards are unlikely to be an accurate reflection of the current staffing situation.

Improving recruitment and retention of GPs and other doctors is vital in all localities, including rural and island areas. The Scottish Government provides a range of supports to the GP workforce, including a rural specific graduate entry medical degree (ScotGEM), Golden Hello payments for harder to fill posts mostly in remote and rural areas, as well as bursaries for GP Speciality Training aimed at attracting GPs to work in rural Scotland. NHS Education for Scotland (NES) also provide a Rural GP Fellowship for those interested in working in general practice in rural and island Boards.

The Scottish Government funds the National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care which focuses on recruitment and retention, education and training, research and evaluation, leadership and good practice.

We will publish a Remote and Rural Workforce Recruitment Strategy by the end of 2024.

Mairi Gougeon: The transfer test will provide an opportunity for Scottish Ministers to consider potential transfers of landholdings over 1000 hectares. Potentially, this could lead to some landholdings being lotted into smaller parts, if that may help local communities.

In setting the appropriate thresholds for these proposals, I have considered both the policy aims of the proposals and the risk of disproportionate impacts following from these additional requirements, particularly in relation to smaller businesses.

The size threshold for the transfer test requires to be set at a level at which there could plausibly be concentration of landownership in the relevant area with impacts on land availability and supply. When land is transferred at scale this can restrict who can purchase land due to the size and value. This can contribute to the supply of land being insufficient in particular areas, which can be detrimental to the sustainability of those communities.

The Scottish Land Commission, in its discussion paper on Legislative proposals to address the impact of Scotland’s concentration of land ownership, said that when considering at what scale of landholding for transfer such a test should apply to, suggested that “the aim should be to establish a threshold that would ensure that family farms and small businesses would not fall in scope, but that modest estates that could pose risks would. It may be reasonable to expect that, for example, holdings over 10,000ha would always be in scope, while those under 1,000ha would always be exempt.”

This advice has been taken into account, alongside other Scottish Land Commission research, data on land transactions and land ownership in Scotland, the consultation on the Bill and stakeholder engagement, in determining the 1000-hectare size threshold for this proposal.