Seòmar agus comataidhean

The First Minister emphasised his Government’s commitment to Scotland’s independence in his first call with the Prime Minister earlier this month. The Scottish Government stands ready to engage at any point with the UK Government to begin talks about the change to the Scottish Parliament’s powers to allow the Scottish people to choose their future.

Since 2011 Scottish Ministers have invested over £65 million in public EV charging. Scotland now has over 5,000 public EV charge points and is on target to have 6,000 public EV charge points by 2026, through a combination of public and increasing private sector investment. Scotland has the best provision of public EV charge points per head of population of anywhere in the UK, outside of London, and the most rapid charge points per head of population of any region in the UK.

Transport Scotland has also to-date provided £5.7 million to support the installation of 18,861 domestic charge points and £10.8 million to support 1,432 higher powered workplace charge points, complementing the public network.

In June 2023 the Scottish Government published its Vision for Scotland’s Public Electric Vehicle Charging Network, highlighting the need for a transition towards a public charging network that is largely financed and delivered by the private sector. In 2024, the private sector is forecast to invest £40 million to £55 million in public EV charging in Scotland.

The Government is investing a further £30 million through our EV infrastructure fund, supporting Local Authorities across Scotland, and prioritising areas of Scotland that are less likely to attract private investment, including rural and island communities.

Since 21-22, the Scottish Government has provided over £15 million of financial support to Local Authorities to support the installing of public EV charge points.

I have written to chairs and chief executives of public bodies, in which I have reminded those bodies listed in Schedule 8 to the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 that they have a duty to comply fully with responsibilities set out for them in the Act.

Public bodies listed in the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 have a duty to comply fully with responsibilities set out for them in the Act. I expect them to discharge these duties, including in relation to the publication of financial and other transparency details.

There is a wide range of transformation work underway within the Scottish Government, much of which has built upon the foundations of the Corporate Transformation programme I established in my previous government role.

Transformation activity is now being directed by the ‘In the Service of Scotland’ framework, which sets out the mission, vision, improvement priorities and values for the core Scottish Government, and has the broad aim of creating an organisation that can deliver effectively and efficiently for ministers and the people of Scotland in any future operating environment.

The improvement priorities are:

• creating an empowering and enabling culture.
• building a sustainable and outcomes-focused organisation.
• nurturing respectful and trusting partnerships.
• developing high quality business processes.
• providing a flexible workplace, enabling technology and usable data.

Examples of current work include a shared services programme that will implement Oracle Cloud, transforming the HR, finance and purchasing function for Scottish Government and public sector customers; a programme of work to implement a People Strategy; a range of initiatives to upskill civil servants, such as the Scottish Digital Academy which provides high quality professional learning to public and third sector staff to build digital capability; and the Single Scottish Estate, which is identifying opportunities to efficiently co-locate some public services and support our transition to Net Zero.

Public bodies listed in the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 have a duty to comply fully with responsibilities set out for them in the Act. I expect them to fulfil these duties, including in relation to the publication of financial information.

Scottish Government’s responsibilities for its public bodies include taking appropriate steps to ensure that the landscape is appropriate. This does not require an independent review.

The City of Edinburgh Council is responsible for commissioning homelessness services in its area and assessing the impact of decisions on service provision. The Scottish Government cannot intervene in those decisions. The council has provided assurance that all three supported temporary accommodation facilities will remain operational and disruption to existing residents and staff will be minimised.

The reuse of brownfield, vacant and derelict land is strongly supported through National Planning Framework 4, which was adopted in February 2023. Since then, it has been part of the statutory development plan, influencing planning authorities preparation of local development plans and their decisions on planning applications, with the intention to maximise the use of existing assets. There are no plans to incur additional costs to the public purse by creating another public body to do this work.

The Scottish Vacant and Derelict Land Survey Information Hub will be published soon. It will map out all the sites in the most recent survey, allowing users to easily source more information on vacant and derelict land in their areas.

In 2024/25, an investment of £6.8 million has been committed for projects supporting the reuse of vacant and derelict land through the Vacant and Derelict Land Investment Programme (VDLIP).

Scottish Government recognises that Citizens’ Assemblies are an important and effective method to involve the public in policy and decision making.

Our longer term commitment to using Citizen’s Assemblies remains unchanged, and any Citizens’ Assembly will be targeted to help tackle some of Scotland’s most difficult issues.

As outlined in our response to the Institutionalising Participative and Deliberative Democracy working group, to ensure any future Citizens’ Assemblies build upon the learnings of previous Citizens’ Assemblies delivered in Scotland, a key first step in our approach will be to undertake an impact assessment of the Citizens' Assembly of Scotland and Scotland’s Climate Assembly.

Budget to deliver participatory work is dispersed across policy areas, which currently allocate funds and undertake activities as required. The financial situation facing the Scottish Government continues to be the most challenging since devolution, and we set out the limitations that budget constraints have posed to the delivery of Citizens’ Assemblies to the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions committee in October 2023 (see page 4, paragraph 6).

We will update Parliament in due course when we arrange for the next Citizens’ Assembly to be convened.