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The responsibility for dealing with nuisance gulls on private property lies with the property owner, although local authorities can provide advice and assistance, and have powers under environmental protection legislation to tackle nuisances.

Local authorities are expected to respond to statutory nuisance complaints on council owned property, such as where the deposit of bird droppings may have an effect on public health.

The Scottish Government's priority is to provide safe, comfortable accommodation and a wraparound support offer to the displaced people from Ukraine who have arrived in Scotland, and to those who may still arrive.

The MS Victoria I has a total of 305 Sea View Cabins and 434 inside cabins. Whilst on cruise ships some cabins have no windows we are working with our partners to address any additional wellbeing risks when living in this type of accommodation.

The MS Victoria I has been well received by people on board, and is ensuring we are providing accommodation that is safe and sustainable whilst we match people with suitable longer term accommodation.

The number of passenger complaints received by ScotRail, through their official complaints process, is set out on the following table for the period 1 July to 31 July 2022. The complaints may involve incidents that occurred before 1 July 2022.

The figure for 1 July to 31 July 2022 is 1192. This complaints figure is likely to reflect the point in time when several services were impacted due to driver shortages and the subsequent reduction in services as a result of the temporary timetable in place from 23 May to 20 July 2022. In this period there was also a GB-wide strike by Network Rail staff on 27 July which significantly impacted services in Scotland, with ScotRail only able to run a very limited service as a result.

The temporary timetable that was in place until 20 July 2022 aimed to provide the best available service to as many passengers as possible.

Complaints from staff are not included in figures due to these being customer relation figures. However, ScotRail do have a system in place to record staff grievances within their HR team.

I can confirm that this legislative commitment will be delivered. From 1 August 2023, if a parent of a child that is still 4 years old on the date they are eligible to start school (i.e. children with birth dates on or between the day after the school commencement date in August – last day in February) defers their entry to school for a year, they can automatically access an additional year of funded early learning and childcare.

In August the average processing time was 8 days and the longest processing time was 10 days.

Demand for the Home Energy Scotland (HES) Advice service has risen significantly since the recent energy bill rises and other cost of living pressures have started to put pressure on households.

Earlier this year, we committed to expanding the HES service by 20% and this increase will be fully operational from October. HES capacity has increased in the last three years with the number of households targeted for advice and support rising from 77,000 in 2020-21 to 132,000 this year - an increase of 12,000 on 2021-22.

We recently allocated additional funding for energy advice services in the face of rising bills - £1.2 million to ensure households and businesses get support. This includes £280,000 to expand the Home Energy Scotland Advice Service and a further £198,000 for Home Energy Scotland to provide training to third sector organisations on energy efficiency.

We have also augmented the Home Energy Scotland Energy carer service which visits and supports extremely vulnerable households who would struggle to engage over the telephone or online. This type of work broadens and strengthens the capacity of the advice network but does not generate pro rata increases in numbers of households supported because the level of support required for these households is very intense.

We will continue to monitor demand for the Home Energy Scotland service to ensure it has the capacity to meet demand.

The total full time equivalent staff employed on Home Energy Scotland at the end of July is 208. This figure includes:

• All staff within each Home Energy Scotland advice centre working on Home Energy Scotland activity, and teams and specialists managed directly by the Energy Savings Trust including the Extended Hours team, renewables specialists and private sector landlord advisors.
• All staff within Energy Saving Trust who are covered by Home Energy Scotland funding.
• Management time within the centres and Energy Saving Trust allocated to management of Home Energy Scotland.

The number of Home Energy Scotland Loans that were accepted/rejected in 2020-21 and 2021-22:

As at August 2022, the number of Home Energy Scotland Loan applications currently awaiting processing is 303.

The number of Home Energy Scotland Loan applications received during 2020-21 and 2021-22 were: