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Serco Caledonian Sleepers Limited (SCSL) chose to submit a rebasing proposal in accordance with the provisions of the Franchise Agreement. An alternative commercial proposal was also submitted. Following careful analysis, review and negotiation with SCSL, a financial position which represented value for money to Scottish taxpayers could not be presented; subsequently neither proposal was accepted.

The Promise made it clear that adoption has an important role in providing a permanent, loving nurturing home, and that an adoption placement should not be the conclusion of the help available to adoptive families.

The Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 gives adoptive families the right to request support from their local authority that best meets the needs of their family at a time that is right for them. A local authority who is approached is required to carry out an assessment and provide assistance to address any needs identified.

The Scottish Government provided £98,000 in 2022-23 for Adoption UK Scotland’s Therapeutic Education Support Services in Adoption (TESSA) programme which provides support to adoptive families.

We have also committed to providing £500 million in Whole Family Wellbeing Funding, over the course of this Parliament, to help transform services that support families, include those who have adopted children and young people, to ensure that they can access the support they need, where and when they need it.

ScotRail novated several contracts for the provision of Ticket Issuing Systems, across all retail channels, to ensure continuity of service and a smooth transition from Abellio ScotRail to ScotRail Trains Limited.

At this time no definitive timetable for a future procurement exercise has been agreed. ScotRail Trains Limited will work with its holding company, Scottish Rail Holdings, to ensure services are procured as required to meet ScotRail’s needs going forward. I will raise this matter directly with SRT when we next meet.

The Scottish Government has no plans to create through its agencies a capital funding stream for community services and community spaces. It is for agencies to determine how best to apply allocated funding from Government, including capital and some of them do fund community oriented activity and infrastructure. Examples would include South of Scotland Enterprise Agency, Transport Scotland and Forestry and Land Scotland.

In the letter of direction I issued to delivery partners on 23 June 2022 on implementing the MAT Standards, I asked for timed, specific plans for implementing the standards to be submitted and published. I also requested a lead officer be nominated to take responsibility for driving the necessary changes and reporting on progress for each area across the country.

I can confirm that a lead officer has been nominated by delivery partners for each of their Health and Social Care Partnership areas.

We are now scrutinising the submitted Implementation Plans to ensure they will deliver the standards and, we will be asking each area to publish their plans, which will detail the position of lead officers for each area.

As set out in our public consultation we are considering how to address health inequalities and promote equitable access to cancer services. We have outlined ‘reducing inequalities’ as one of our main aims in the consultation. With over 250 responses received we have now commissioned independent analysis of the responses and anticipate the results to be published shortly. The results will inform the cancer strategy.

In addition, we held a series of workshops with patients and key stakeholders in September 2022 to help us gain further insight into the consultation responses and hear directly about peoples’ experiences of cancer and inform the development of the cancer strategy.

Measures to combat crimes of this nature are an operational matter for Police Scotland.

Since 2012-13, crimes of dishonesty, which includes theft of a motor vehicle, theft from a motor vehicle and a number of other kinds of theft and dishonesty have reduced by 32%. However, that should not detract from the seriousness of these incidents when they do occur.

Supporting Police Scotland to keep our communities safe remains a priority for the Scottish Government. Policing services have been maintained and improved and we have invested over £10 billion in policing since the creation of the single service in 2013.

We will continue supporting the vital work of Police Scotland in delivering effective and responsive policing across Scotland.

The Scottish Government hopes to be able to announce the successful bids jointly with the UK Government soon.

The Scottish Government is always happy to work with stakeholders and fully intends to continue to engage with environmental stakeholder groups going forward. Officials have met with the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland a number of times, most recently on 12 October, and will continue to engage with them and other stakeholders as we look to strengthen our compliance with the requirements of the Aarhus Convention.

The Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee has previously welcomed significant progress made by Scotland in strengthening compliance with the requirements of the Aarhus Convention. Work is in progress or planned in relation to the areas of concern which were raised in decision VII/8s. The Scottish Civil Justice Council has been asked to undertake a review of court rules relating to Protective Expenses Orders, and this is currently underway. Following a public consultation which closed in March this year the Scottish Government has introduced an exemption for court fees for Aarhus Convention cases in the Court of Session. This exemption is now in force. Work is underway on planning for a new Human Rights Bill for Scotland, which will include a commitment to a right to a healthy environment. The Scottish Government is committed to introducing legislation to reform legal aid in the course of the current Parliament, informed by ongoing engagement with stakeholders. The Scottish Government is committed to strengthening compliance with the requirements of the Aarhus Convention.