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Recruitment of any staff group to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) is a matter for the SFRS Board. The Scottish Government is aware of the challenges of recruiting and retaining Retained and Volunteer Duty System (RVDS) firefighters as fewer people live and work in the same location. The Scottish Government has invested an additional £9.5m in the 2022-23 budget for service delivery and modernisation of SFRS. How that money is spent is a matter for the SFRS Board.

SFRS now has 58 full time manager positions in rural locations to help with availability and recruitment of RVDS firefighters and is currently reviewing RVDS arrangements to assess what more can be done to help the situation.

New homes built to a standard which delivers lower energy demand and emissions than are achieved under current regulations would have a positive impact on reducing both domestic energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions.

Accordingly, consideration of the performance and processes of Passivhaus and similar standards remains a topic within the ongoing review of Scottish building regulations. We intend to publish revised standards in April, which will apply from October this year. Discussion on further change beyond 2022 will also continue.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people are able to access the right support for their mental health without stigma, including medication where this is the most appropriate intervention.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the numbers of children and young people aged 19 and under who were prescribed antidepressants in conjunction with psychological therapy in 2019-20.

NICE guideline NG134 sets out the procedures for clinicians treating children and young people who may be experiencing instances of depression. The guidance is clear that psychological therapy and other therapeutic interventions are the first recommended treatments for children and young people experiencing mild to moderate depression. The guidance also makes clear that antidepressant medication should only be offered to a child or young person with moderate to severe depression in combination with a concurrent psychological therapy.

The numbers of children and young people being prescribed with antidepressant medication is extremely small. The latest Public Health Scotland data, shows that in 2019-20, in the 0–19 age category, 1.8% of children and young people in Scotland were prescribed anti-depressants.

The Scottish Government is taking robust action to ensure that women feel safe by improving our laws, encouraging more victims of recent and historical cases to come forward and improving support. That is why our Equally Safe strategy continues to have a decisive focus on preventing violence and tackling the underlying attitudes that perpetuate it. Our new two-year Delivering Equally Safe fund will award £38 million to projects which focus on early intervention and prevention.

We have established an independent Misogyny and Criminal Justice in Scotland Working Group, chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC. The Working Group’s report will be published in February 2022 and will inform the further policy decisions we take to further address the many forms of violence, transgression, and abuse experienced by women.

Police Scotland's new verification procedure, following the murder of Sarah Everard, has a clear message that the onus is on the service to provide reassurance to women. However, effectively tackling and challenging gender based violence is not just the responsibility of women or frontline organisations. It is incumbent on men to take action to prevent such behaviour and make communities safer places.

The design of the Just Transition Fund is currently being developed through discussion with regional partners to ensure that together we secure maximum impact. This work will also be supported by the engagement that is being undertaken to support the development of the draft Energy Just Transition Plan. An update on plans will be given in due course.

We expect the first £20 million of the Fund to be allocated within this financial year (2022-23).

The Energy Saving Trust publishes information on the typical range of installation costs for heating and micro renewable systems.

Installation costs for these technologies are affected by a variety of factors, including dwelling characteristics, locally available resources (such as proximity to a river) and local availability of suppliers and materials. The fact of a home being on or off the gas network does not in itself affect upfront costs for these technologies. However, the factors that do influence costs tend to be differently distributed between urban and rural areas. For example, the average floor area of rural homes is higher than for urban homes (meaning higher capacity heating systems may be required on average), and transport requirements or weather disruptions can add costs in remote rural and island settings.

We recognise the distinct challenges remote rural and island communities face in the transition to zero emissions heating. Our Heat in Buildings Supply Chain Delivery Plan will include a specific focus on developing local supply chains particularly in our islands and remote communities to help bring costs down. We will set out more details of our approach to decarbonisation in island settings in the forthcoming Islands Energy Strategy.

Through Home Energy Scotland, the Scottish Government funds interest-free loans for homeowners with cashback grants of up to £7,500 for zero emissions heating plus up to £6,000 for energy efficiency measures.

The Energy Saving Trust’s running cost information can be found at:

(a) high heat retention electric heating systems: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/electric-heating/

(b) air source heat pumps: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/air-to-water-heat-pumps/

(c) ground source heat pumps: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/ground-to-water-heat-pumps/

(d1) micro-hydro: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/hydroelectricity/

(d2) micro-wind: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/wind-turbines/

The Scottish Government’s national fuel poverty scheme Warmer Homes Scotland offers low-carbon alternatives, where these are technically appropriate for the property. These include High Heat Retention Electric Heating Systems, Air Source Heat Pumps, Ground Source Heat Pumps, Micro-hydro and Micro-wind systems. We have also extended the range of measures we fund through local Area Based Schemes to include zero/low carbon heating and microgeneration measures, as well as targeting hard to treat properties requiring external or complex cavity wall insulation.

Households that are not eligible for help as part of our fuel poverty programmes can apply for a Scottish Government loan via Home Energy Scotland. Help is available with the costs of purchasing and installing a heat pump worth up to £10,000 (this is made up of £2,500 loan and £7,500 cashback). Households can also apply for up to two home renewables systems per home as part of an overall loan package worth up to £17,500. More information about the cashback and loans available from the Scottish Government is published on the Home Energy Scotland website.

£200 million in grant funding is also available over the next five years through the Social Housing Net Zero Fund (SHNZF) to accelerate the delivery of energy efficient, zero emission heating systems to social housing projects across Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s national fuel poverty scheme Warmer Homes Scotland offers eligible households High Heat Retention Storage Heating systems where these are technically appropriate for the property. Households may also be offered micro-generation measures, such as Micro-hydro, Micro-wind or Solar PV and/or domestic battery storage systems where these are technically feasible. Local councils can also provide high heat retention storage heaters and microgeneration measures as part of their Area Based Schemes.

Households that are not eligible for help as part of our fuel poverty programmes can apply for a Scottish Government loan via Home Energy Scotland. Help is available with the costs of purchasing and installing an electric heating system (warm air units or high heat retention electric storage heaters). Loans of up to £5,000 are available (£4,600 loan plus £400 cashback). Households can also apply for up to two home renewables systems per home as part of an overall loan package worth up to £17,500.

In addition we offer funding for energy efficiency measures up to £15,000 (including a maximum cashback amount of £6,000). More information about the cashback and loans available from the Scottish Government is published on the Home Energy Scotland website.

The Scottish Government welcomed the recommendations of the Overton Report on Deepening Collaboration on Food and Drink in Scotland, including the recommended physical co-location of key personnel within food and drink industry leadership bodies and the public sector. These recommendations have informed how the Scotland Food and Drink Partnership has evolved over time and helped foster deeper collaboration and integration across the public and private sectors to achieve common goals. Scotland Food and Drink and Seafood Scotland are now co-located at Ratho Park.

While the impacts of COVID have created a demanding operating environment for businesses, home and hybrid working arrangements have also facilitated much closer working between the bodies that make up the Partnership and removed physical location as a barrier to collaboration.

During the COVID-19 pandemic we prioritised work on the Short-term lets Licensing Order and Amendment Regulations for short-term let control areas. This enabled the statutory instruments for these to be considered by the Scottish Parliament in this session and meant the review of the tax treatment of short-term lets was deferred.

We intend to recommence the tax treatment review in the coming months to ensure that short-term lets make an appropriate contribution to the communities they operate in.