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It is the responsibility of the college unions and employers to negotiate pay, terms and conditions, not the Scottish Government.

While the Scottish Government respects the right of trade unions to take industrial action, we remain concerned about the potential impacts this action will have on students.

That is why the Scottish Government continues to encourage unions and employers to reach a resolution that is fair and affordable and brings this action to a close.

The First Minister wrote to the UK Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition on 18 April to make the Scottish Government’s position clear, the UK Government must respond in a timely manner to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s recommendations, by committing to a fair compensation package for the women born in the 1950’s affected by the changes to state pension age.

State pensions remain reserved to the UK Government. Should the UK Government decide to accept the recommendations from the PHSO report and pay compensation we will work closely with the UK Government to understand if there are any implications for the payment of Scottish social security benefits.

The Scottish Government is aware of this matter and appreciates the distress this will have caused to those affected.

The Scottish Government encourages those with concerns to seek advice from the Law Society of Scotland or the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. If a client is dissatisfied with the service or conduct of a Scottish solicitor, they have the right to complain. The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) is the gateway for all complaints about solicitors in Scotland.

The Law Society of Scotland have published an information page on their website to assist those affected. McClures Jones Whyte FAQs | Law Society of Scotland (lawscot.org.uk)

The Scottish Government has taken proactive steps to mitigate against such a situation in future. The Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill introduces the authorisation of legal businesses, bringing benefits such as greater consistency in regulating legal firms, enabling the Law Society of Scotland as the regulator to identify and address deficiencies early.

The Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Act made a number of important changes to how trusts are administered and how trustees are appointed or removed, to respond to the practical difficulties that co-trustees may have in removing a trustee who was appointed as a trustee in their professional capacity, and is no longer a member of their profession.

The Scottish Government established a Transmission Network short life working group with Transmission Owners in Scotland to consider the challenges around the consenting of electricity network developments. The group made recommendations for both industry and government, including steps to enable the determination of applications within 12 months. As part of this, we are working closely with the UK Government as they consider the scope of the review of Scottish consenting processes under the UK Electricity Act 1989.

We have also laid a statutory instrument in the Scottish Parliament which introduces new measures to simplify the planning process and extend the existing Permitted Development Rights (PDR) for electricity undertakings.

Scottish Enterprise has supported companies in the bus manufacturing supply chain, awarding Alexander Dennis Limited with funding to develop their zero emission bus technology including £13m in 2023 in addition to substantial grants in 2019 and 2015.

In addition, Scottish Enterprise is working with Alexander Dennis Limited to explore opportunities for export and access grant funding opportunities such as the UK Automotive Transition Fund.

The Scottish Government continues to support manufacturing in Scotland via the work on the Green Industrial Strategy and our ten-year National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET).

The forthcoming Transport Just Transition Plan we will set out, among other things, how the Scottish Government will support businesses to benefit from the opportunities and deal with the challenges arising from the move to a sustainable transport system.

The Scottish Government do not currently have any plans to introduce national regulations for electric vehicle (EV) charging.

In November 2023 UK-wide regulations were implemented to improve consumer experience of public charging. This includes improving pricing transparency so that all costs are presented in pence per kilowatt hour. All public EV charging networks in Scotland must comply with these new regulations including ChargePlace Scotland (CPS).

Overstay charges are applied at the discretion of the charge point owner or operator in order to encourage fair usage of public charging infrastructure. Overstay charges are most commonly applied to rapid and ultra-rapid charge points where a full or nearly full charge can be achieved quickly and therefore there is no need for a vehicle to dwell longer than 45-60 minutes.

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling the problem of antisocial behaviour in our communities. Local authorities (as landlords) and Registered Social Landlords have a wide range of powers to deal with antisocial behaviour by their tenants that occurs in, or in the vicinity of the tenancy. A breach of tenancy conditions could ultimately lead to eviction as a last resort where the circumstances are sufficiently serious.

Social landlords as part of their requirement to meet the estate management and antisocial behaviour related outcome in the Scottish Social Housing Charter work in partnership with other agencies, to help to ensure as far as reasonably possible that tenants and other customers live in well-maintained neighbourhoods where they feel safe.

We recognise that no single approach will tackle all antisocial behaviour. Our national strategy is based on prevention, early intervention and positive diversionary activities. Police Scotland and local authorities lead on responses, using powers and options available to them to prevent and tackle antisocial behaviour. We are committed to ensuring all agencies have the powers and resources needed to tackle antisocial behaviour and crime.

The Scottish Government has not had any specific engagement with the UK Government recently on the bus building industry in particular.

The Scottish Government is, however, actively engaged with UK Government on manufacturing opportunities across a number of sectors and signalled the desire to work collaboratively to progress shared interests in response to their Advanced Manufacturing Plan.

The responsibility for licensing and regulating operators of public service vehicles (PSVs) and local bus services sits with the Office of the Traffic Commissioner. It is for their office to take action against a vehicle operator, bus service operator or driver of a bus or minibus and they can impose financial penalties on registered bus service operators who are unable to maintain the conditions of the licence of the registered route including punctuality of services.

Transport Scotland also provides funding for Bus Users Scotland (BUS) to support this. BUS conduct compliance monitoring to check bus services are running where and when they should be. They also focus on working with government, local authorities, special interest groups, and bus companies to make sure the views and interests of passengers are properly represented.

Additionally, the Scottish Government’s recently published Bus Taskforce report outlines the positive steps taken by operators to address bus driver shortages which can be a factor impacting the reliability of services. The report can be found at https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/bus-taskforce-summary-report/

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (CCA) and the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Contingency Planning) (Scotland) Regulations 2005 is the legislation which identifies categorised responders, and their duty to prepare for civil emergencies within Scotland.

The CCA divides responders into two categories, category 1 and category 2. The CCA imposes a set of duties on each category of responders. It does not confer any powers upon the categorised responders.

Under the terms of the amendment regulations, the structure which supports multi-agency co-ordination is the Regional Resilience Partnership (RRP). Currently there are three such groups in the North, West and East of Scotland. Within each RRP area are a number of Local Resilience Partnerships (LRPs) determined by the RRPs themselves.

The RRPs and LRPs bring together all the relevant organisations in an area to develop an effective approach in dealing with emergencies in accordance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.

The Scottish Government does not currently have any plans to review the accompanying regulations to the CCA to include MSPs as a categorised responder under the CCA.