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Local authorities are responsible for and best placed to take decisions on contractual arrangements for the provision of waste services. The independent review of the role of incineration in the waste hierarchy recommended that when negotiating contracts for residual waste management, local authorities should specifically address the risks of lock-in.

Through Zero Waste Scotland, Scottish Government is providing additional support to help remaining local authorities secure appropriate residual waste contracts in preparation for the forthcoming ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste. This includes the provision of additional technical, legal and procurement advice.

The Scottish Government expects the Bank to publish its Gender Equality Strategy later this summer. As part of a wider Equality Strategy, we expect this to set out the Bank’s approach to advancing equality in Scotland across its activities and in line with legislative requirements, including those of the Scottish National Investment Bank Act.

This information has been placed in the Parliament’s reference centre (BIB number 63508 ).

Work to understand and tackle barriers to cervical screening is on-going. Public Health Scotland (PHS) has published Cervical Screening Toolkit (healthscotland.scot) , which aims to address falling attendance rates and increase understanding of cervical cancer and the benefits of cervical screening. The information aims to help professionals to better understand the barriers to attendance (especially with vulnerable groups) and to use tried and tested methods to increase attendance.

Scottish Government officials continue to engage with key stakeholders, including PHS and the National Screening Oversight (NSO) on the most effective method of implementing interventions. The £2 million screening inequalities funding that we are investing over 2021-22 and 2022-23 is supporting that wide ranging work nationally, including through a dedicated screening inequalities resource within NSO, and local funding across all Health Boards.

Additionally, we are funding Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust with £456,000 for cervical campaign work across Scotland to raise cervical screening awareness, and that includes targeted engagement with groups where attendance has been found to be lower. That follows on from a report we commissioned from Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust which looked at barriers to cervical screening: https://www.jostrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/report_on_scottish_cervical_screening_survey_-_final.pdf.

The Scottish Government expects all employers to take a fair and flexible approach that supports workers to attend all necessary medical appointments. For this reason, we do not engage with employers specifically around policies relating to cervical screening attendance. However, through our own direct marketing campaigns and support for third sector organisations, we continually work to ensure that the benefits of cervical screening are communicated to and understood by a wide range of audiences across Scotland.

We also remain committed to continuing to understand the barriers that discourage individuals from taking up their screening invitations, and to taking targeted action to overcome them.

The Scottish Government encourages all eligible individuals between the ages of 25 and 64 to take up their cervical screening invitations.

A key priority for the Scottish Government is to reduce inequalities in access to and uptake of screening programmes, taking into account the available evidence of screening inequalities based on age as well as deprivation, ethnicity and gender.

That is why the Scottish Government is investing over £2m over 2021-22 and 2022-23 to build a programme of evidence-based, sustainable and scalable projects that tackle inequalities in a systemic way. It also recognises that the pandemic is likely to have exacerbated screening inequalities.

The Scottish Government has also awarded £456,000 to Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust in support of cervical awareness campaign work which is being used to tackle key issues around access and uptake. This work has included the Cervical Screening Awareness Week which ran in June, and for a longer-term Cervical Cancer Screening and Prevention Awareness project. The project will raise awareness of cervical cancer screening and prevention in Scotland for the period 2022-2024 through Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust expanding operations in Scotland to develop and share best practice in raising awareness of cervical cancer screening and prevention.

Responsibility for the management of the police estate sits with the Scottish Police Authority and the Chief Constable.and as such are the holders of this information. The SPA’s Chief Executive, Lynn Brown, can be contacted at The Scottish Police Authority, 1 Pacific Quay, Glasgow, G51 1DZ.

The Police Scotland Estate Strategy, approved by the SPA in May 2019, provides a framework for planning the future of the police estate to support the long term vision of policing which includes enhanced partnership working, and seeks to respond to the changing needs of communities while maintaining public visibility and confidence.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any concerns being raised with it on how levels of recorded domestic and sexual abuse against men compare to the rest of UK. The operational recording of information on such incidents is a matter for Police Scotland, and as with any report of criminal behaviour, will be underpinned by the Scottish Crime Recording Standard (SCRS). The Standard sets out to ensure a more victim-oriented approach is taken to recording crime, and ultimate responsibility for compliance lies with the Chief Constable.

In general, it should be noted that there are significant differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK in the definitions used to collect data on domestic abuse and violence. The definition of domestic abuse used by Police Scotland focuses on partners (married, cohabiting, civil partnership or otherwise) or ex-partners, and has no age restrictions for those involved. The definition used in the rest of the UK extends beyond partners to other family members, and is limited to those aged 16 and over.

In addition, when considering crime data across the UK, recorded crime statistics are not directly comparable. The main principles for when a crime should be recorded are similar in all four nations. However, there are various differences between the respective Counting Rules, which specify each nation’s approach for counting the number of crimes that should be recorded as part of any single incident. Furthermore, differences in legislation and common law also have an impact on the comparability of recorded crime statistics between Scotland and the other UK nations.

The additional revenue funding provided to local authorities under the Bellwin Scheme in each year since 1998-99 is set out in a document that has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, Bib number 63530.

Scottish Government does not hold information on flytipping incidents in each local authority. This detailed information can be obtained by contacting local authorities directly.

There is no single dataset of all flytipping incidents in Scotland, as there is no legal requirement for duty bodies or landowners to report on flytipping externally.

The recent National Litter and Flytipping Strategy consultation covered proposals to improve data collection and reporting mechanisms, including mandatory reporting of flytipping incidents for statutory bodies. We are analysing responses in advance of publishing a final National Litter and Flytipping Strategy later this year.