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The Heads of Terms for the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal were signed on 20 July 2017 and we will continue to work with partners to establish the details with a view to setting these out in the final Deal document. The arrangements for the Transport Appraisal Working Group and initial discussion around how the work of the group will feed in to the STPR process will be part of these more detailed discussions.

Scottish Ministers welcome the aims of the Hansford Review to facilitate investment and improve efficiency of infrastructure delivery, and are considering how these could apply in Scotland. We will continue to work with the rail industry in Scotland, including the ScotRail Alliance, to look at how we could deliver projects in a way which delivers high quality services for passengers and freight customers and maximises efficiency and value for money.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-10045 on 26 July 2017. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

It is not possible to identify a specific number of full-time equivalent staff contributing to the delivery of Getting the Best From Our Land: A Land Use Strategy for Scotland 2016-2020. This is a cross-portfolio strategy and a wide range of officials in policy areas, such as environment, land reform, environmental quality, planning, agriculture and climate change, contribute to the delivery of the policies and proposals.

Around £200m of the £255m announced by the UK Government is expected to result in an increase to Whitehall departmental allocations, on which there should be Barnett Consequentials. The remaining £55m was previously announced at the 2015 UK Spending Review and is specifically for 5 English cities with air quality issues. Details of any consequentials should become clear once actual plans are detailed in the UK Autumn Budget.

The Scottish Government made significant changes to the law on non-native species in 2011, introducing a new regime of species control agreements and orders under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. This enables relevant bodies (Scottish Ministers, Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Forestry Commission Scotland) to make agreements or orders setting out measures that must be taken to control or eradicate an invasive non-native animal or plant.

Last year, the Scottish Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee considered Petition PE01586 which asked the Scottish Government to create further statutory powers to force landowners to destroy invasive non-native species that grow on their private property. The Committee noted that many stakeholders were satisfied that the existing legislation provides adequate powers to address the issue and, on that basis, closed the petition.

Scottish Natural Heritage is using its statutory powers to support the control of giant hogweed within priority river catchments.

In common with other Boards across Scotland, NHS Forth Valley has experienced some challenges in providing sufficient GP cover for its out-of-hours service over the summer months. Whilst no formal discussions have taken place with NHS Forth Valley, the Board has kept the Scottish Government fully apprised of the situation and indeed has engaged positively with local MSPs on this matter.

The Shaping Surgical Services Programme for Tayside has been under development by the Board for a number of years. During this time Scottish Government officials have met with Board officials to offer advice and guidance in relation to good practice in carrying out public engagement and consultation.

The proposals went out to public consultation on 3 August 2017 and are scheduled to be completed on 3 October 2017.

No decisions have been made and as the proposals constitute major service change, Ministers will ultimately have the final decision on any recommendations approved by the NHS Board.

The Heads of Terms for the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal were signed on 20 July 2017 and we will continue to work with partners to establish the details with a view to setting these out in the final Deal document. The arrangements for the Transport Appraisal Working Group will be part of these more detailed discussions.

The time taken to deal with planning appeals is largely dependent on a number of factors including the volume of information submitted and the complexities that need to be addressed as part of the consideration.

The average weeks taken for planning appeal decisions made in the period 21-08-2016 to 20-08-2017 was 22.61 weeks