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Scottish Ministers have written to UK Ministers on 3 occasions regarding the impact of P&O Ferries actions, including asking UK Ministers to coordinate a 4 nations ministerial meeting to consider the wider implications in supply chain resilience and seafarer employment protection across the UK. UK Ministers have refused to do so.

Scottish Ministers and Transport Scotland officials communicate regularly with key stakeholders in the Scottish ports sector about a wide range of issues, including the implications of the UK Government's response to P&O Ferries recent actions. The Member may wish to note that the UK Government Transport Secretary has repeatedly refused to meet with me on this matter.

Summaries of the first two papers in the Building a New Scotland series have been translated into 17 languages, including British Sign Language, Arabic, Gaelic, Polish and Ukrainian. Audio and Easy Read versions have also been produced to support accessibility. We have no current plans for a full translation of Independence in the Modern World .

The Scottish Government is committed to improving safety on our trunk roads including the A77. While there are no road improvement schemes or upgrades planned for the A77 in 2022, £6.75m has been allocated for the A77 through our provisional road maintenance programme for financial year 2022-23.

The Scottish Government has invested over £105 million on the A77 since 2007 to March 2022 to ensure its safe and efficient operation. In addition, we have spent approximately £64 million on five separate road schemes on the A77 including the recent completion of the £29m Maybole bypass which opened in January 2022 .

CalMac has noted that it is not possible to measure unmet demand using booking systems, including the eBooking solution being delivered by the Ar Turas Programme. We understand the desire to measure bookings “not made” for a specific set of reasons, principally vessel capacity on peak-demand sailings.

CalMac has been running a working group with a number of CalMac Community Board members during the last 18 months to help clarify and support understanding of measures that can be tracked. The group has explored a range of ideas and CalMac has developed a number of reports designed to support enhanced understanding of how and when vehicle bookings are made, amended, cancelled and the resulting impact on capacity. These requirements have been taken-forward for delivery against the improved data that the new system will capture.

A number of these items have already been made available in monthly Ferry User Group performance reporting packs.

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

The average recorded number of complaints per period for previous years is as follows:-

2019-2020 - 1,664 complaints

2018-2019 - 2,064 complaints

The figure for 1 April to 30 April 2022 is 1,144. The figure of 2,006 complaints for May 2022 is higher than April 2022 as this May period was when several services were impacted due to driver shortages and the subsequent temporary timetable that was introduced on 23 May 2022. The temporary timetable that was in place until 20 July 2022 aimed to provide the best possible service to as many passengers as possible with the available resources.

ScotRail do not record staff complaints and therefore the information is not available.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-09455 on 27 July 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 does not hold this information.

Transport Scotland has now awarded a Multiple Supplier Framework Agreement for Maritime Consultancy Services. More information can be found on Public Contracts Scotland at https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=JUN451348 .

As our joint ASL action plan shows, the Scottish Government, COSLA and the Association of Directors of Education (ADES) are committed to including and involving children and young people in policy development, including those from armed forces and veteran’s families.

This includes publication last year of the vision statement for success for children and young people with additional support needs which was created by young people from the Young Ambassadors for Inclusion network with the support of ASLIG.

Work is also progressing to develop a measurement framework, seeking to value and increase visibility of the diverse achievements that young people achieve and develop a mechanism to ensure that these are fully recognised and celebrated.

We are working closely with the ADES National Transitions Officer, Forces Families Federations and other third sector partners to ensure that the children and young people from armed forces and veterans’ families are included in this on-going work.

We have also provided funding to Forces Children Scotland through this year’s Scottish Veterans Fund. This will support their Mindful Connections work exploring the lived experiences of veterans’ families, including children and young people, with the aim of enhancing their transition into civilian life and integration into communities.