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The Scottish Government does not hold data on the number of fixed penalties issued for the offence of littering, nor information on how many of these have been paid.

This detailed information can be obtained by contacting individual issuing authorities. Authorised officers from Local Authorities, Police Scotland and Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park can issue Fixed Penalty Notices for the offence of littering.

Confucius Classroom Hubs do not receive funding directly from the Scottish Government or the Chinese Government. Hubs in local authority schools are funded by the Confucius Institute for Scotland’s Schools (CISS) via local authorities. Specialist classrooms (such as at Edinburgh Zoo), and Jordanhill School receive their funding directly from CISS.

In 2021-22, the Scottish Government provided CISS with a grant of £490,573. CISS publishes a joint annual report with Scotland’s Centre for Languages (SCILT) which includes information about funding and spending (available at: About Us (scilt.org.uk) ) . According to the 2021-22 annual report, approximately £400,000 was allocated from China in that year.

It is the responsibility of local authorities and schools to choose which languages to teach, and to determine what resources to draw on and partners to work with in order to support learning. Schools and teachers also remain responsible for curriculum making and the teaching in the classroom.

The Scottish Government recently consulted on proposals for our new National Litter and Flytipping Strategy, including measures to strengthen enforcement measures.

The Scottish Government aims to deliver a strong and consistent enforcement model across Scotland that is fit for purpose, promotes positive behaviours and acts as a proportionate deterrent and effectively stops people from littering and flytipping

We will publish the final Strategy later this year, taking account of consultation responses.

The Scottish Government recently consulted on proposals for our new National Litter and Flytipping Strategy, including measures to strengthen enforcement measures.

The Scottish Government aims to deliver a strong and consistent enforcement model across Scotland that is fit for purpose, promotes positive behaviours and acts as a proportionate deterrent and effectively stops people from littering and flytipping.

We will publish the final Strategy later this year, taking account of consultation responses.

This information does not fall within the scope of data gathered through the National Improvement Framework. The 11 key NIF measures assess progress towards closing the attainment gap using indicators from pre-school to school leavers. These are supplemented by 15 sub-measures that reflect the key stages of the learner journey and the breadth of issues that can impact on attainment. Together these provide a wide range of measures covering school leaver attainment and literacy and numeracy but also other, broader, measures such as health and wellbeing, school attendance rates and school leaver destinations.

My officials give priority to cases with repossession orders and where a trustee is forcing the sale of a property, the requirement for secured loan payments to be 3 months in arrears will be waived. The Scottish Government does not hold data relating to the number of these types of applications that have been processed.

An internal review of the Home Owners Support Fund began in the Spring and will complete later this year. If Ministers decide to make any changes to the eligibility or operational arrangements for the scheme updated guidance will be published.

The following table shows Home Owners Support Fund (HOSF) budget and expenditure for each of the last six years broken down by Mortgage to Rent (MTR) and Mortgage to Shared Equity (MTSE). HOSF is a demand led scheme and any difference between budget and actual spend reflects demand in that year and so there is no underspend or carry forward.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10177 on 7 September 2022. 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 .

The Scottish Government monitors trends in arrears and repossessions data published by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and UK Finance which is collated in the quarterly Scottish Housing Market Review Scottish housing market reviews - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The Home Owners Support Fund is a last resort scheme aimed at properties at the lowest 20% of the housing market. Applicants must have either mortgage arrears or have an interest only mortgage that has reached the end of its term and have no appropriate option to either repay the loan or to re-mortgage. There are a range of protections, advice and support services already in place for homeowners and not all of those affected by the current cost of living crisis will apply to the scheme.