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It is for Glasgow City Council as the statutory housing and planning authority to set out local housing requirements. The Glasgow Local Housing Strategy 2017 sets a Housing Supply Target of 15,000 new homes over five years, including 7,500 new affordable homes. Scottish Government published new housebuilding statistics, based on private-led completions data provided by Glasgow City Council along with social sector housing association new build completions data from the Affordable Housing Supply Programme, and these show a total of 4,923 all-sector completions over the four year period 2017-18 to 2020-21, with more than half of these being social sector housing association homes.

The Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown significantly impacted the construction sector across Scotland with associated delays to delivery of homes.

The cost crisis represents an unprecedented challenge to which the UK Government must respond.

The Scottish Government is taking action to prioritise support for Scotland, within the constraints of its limited budget and powers. On 7 September I wrote to the Finance and Public Administration Committee and I set out our progress to Parliament, including the savings taken to date. Here is a link to the Committee letter - Cost crisis: letter to Scottish Parliament committee .

The Scottish Government’s Emergency Budget Review is an ongoing budget process and I have committed to publishing its outcome within two weeks of the UK fiscal event planned for later this month.

The Scottish Government is working on a package of measures in relation to cladding that will provide direct support to homeowners and details will be published in the coming months. We are taking steps to ensure a potential scheme has the appropriate funding and delivery model to adapt to demand.

Scottish Government officials assess whether each bidding organisation to the Just Transition Fund is “headquartered, or demonstrate[s] a strong connection to at least one of Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen City or Moray". Only proposals that meet this criteria are considered for funding.

Aberdeenshire Council, Moray Council and Aberdeen City Council were all able to bid into the fund. They can count as the partner that is based or has operations in the region, however that is not mandatory and any private organisation can be considered as the local partner organisation.

The Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme report, published on 28 June, includes data from the Scottish Stroke Care Audit (SSCA). The SSCA measures quality of care of stroke services in each acute hospital, grouped by NHS board against the Scottish Stroke Care Standards.

The 2021-22 season has seen the UK’s largest outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) to date, which has affected wild bird populations, including some internationally important seabird populations.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) carries out year-round highly pathogenic avian influenza surveillance of dead wild birds reported to Defra’s GB national helpline, which captures information on the general location and strains of avian influenza that are present in wild birds. To date, there have been no confirmed findings of avian influenza in European storm petrels in Scotland. More information on the programme and findings in wild birds is available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/avian-influenza-outbreaks/#wildbirds .

In addition to the GB Dead Wild Bird Surveillance Scheme, NatureScot and other relevant parties have been carrying out monitoring at key seabird colonies across Scotland to collect data on bird numbers and any mortality events. This surveillance and monitoring has not recorded any mortality of European storm petrels.

While the full extent of the impact of the current avian influenza outbreak on seabirds, is unknown, some colonies have clearly been affected. A Scottish Avian Influenza in Wild Birds Task Force has been established to co-ordinate activity to monitor and minimise the impact of avian influenza on wild bird populations in Scotland. This will involve identifying surveillance, monitoring and related research needs, which will allow a better understanding of the current and likely future impact of the disease on wild bird populations.

Furthermore, NatureScot will be collecting samples from European storm petrel nesting boxes in Mousa over the next few weeks, as part of the FluMap programme, to improve understanding of the transmission of avian influenza in wild birds. Colony surveys will also be undertaken during the 2023 breeding season to assess the status of seabird colonies potentially impacted by the current HPAI outbreak.

The Scottish Government and senior officials engage regularly with business leaders, representative organisations and industry bodies. During those conversations business have called for measures relating to the cost crisis including: energy price cap for business, VAT reduction, improvements to the occupation shortage list to tackle staff shortages and support in handling business debt.

As the powers to act on these requests fall within reserved responsibilities, I wrote to the UK Government on 8 August to urge it to act in response to these business concerns. I also called for the introduction of an energy price cap for SMEs and support for businesses to prevent closures, as well as investment in economic stimulus to minimise the scale of the projected recession.

The First Minister also wrote to the new Prime Minister in similar terms.

Business organisations have also suggested ways in which Scottish Government can help, including an easing of regulatory burdens; affordability of commercial rent; encouraging continuation of prompt payment; incentivising investment in renewable technologies coupled with improvements to the planning process to accelerate that investment; a freeze on non-domestic rates; capital investment for those businesses who are able to invest for the future; and a resilience fund to support the most extreme cases of hardship and where the business has a viable future.

We will set out the outcome of our Emergency Budget Review to Parliament in due course

The latest available information on the number of people convicted for ‘stalking offences’ is provided in the following table.

Number of people proceeded and convicted for stalking offences (where main crime) in Scottish courts, 2018-19 to 2020-21.

Following the first Oversight Group meeting in June, David Strang, former chair of the Drug Death Taskforce, has accepted my offer to become Chair of the group, ensuring its independence from government. I will of course continue to attend as a member of the group. This will begin from the next meeting scheduled for 22 September 2022.

To ensure independence from government, a steering board of members has been nominated to co-ordinate the agenda for Oversight Group meetings.

Circularity Scotland Ltd is a private, not-for-profit business. As such, the Scottish Government does not have access to this information.