Scottish Government have not transferred any electronic messages to the National Records of Scotland for archive since the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister.

In April 2022 increased planning fees came into effect, providing much needed additional resource to Planning Authorities. Whilst the use of this additional resource is a matter for individual authorities, some authorities have reported that the fee increase has allowed them to retain or recruit new members of staff.

Improving the resourcing and performance of the planning system are important priorities and we continue to work with Heads of Planning Scotland, the Royal Town Planning Institute and other stakeholders to implement the recommendations of the Future Planners Project Report which focuses on supporting the growth of entrants into the planning profession.

Through the work of the Building Standards Futures Board, work is being undertaken to support the Local Authority Building Standards Workforce through the development and implementation of a three year workforce strategy. In addition, the Board is overseeing a number of recommendations that aim to strengthen the building standards system. These will require investment in the system and workforce and a public consultation on building warrant fees will be undertaken over the summer.

The Scottish Government does not hold records for all mobile phones purchased in the last 5 years as they are purchased by individual business areas and agencies to meet their requirements. However, our central mobile voice & data contract which will be used by the majority of staff, does not have provision to purchase pre-paid mobile phones.

The Scottish Government does not hold centralised records for the number of mobile phones purchased in the last 5 years as they are purchased by individual business areas and agencies to meet their requirements. In terms of mobile spend, the spend via the Scottish Government’s mobile voice and data contract is as follows:

January 2022 to December 2022 - £717,288.05

January 2021 to December 2021 - £903,220.11

January 2020 to December 2020 - £1,538,112.41

January 2019 to December 2019 - £1,163,311.25

January 2018 to December 2018 - £1,218,978.37

All costs are ex VAT.

Please note:

1. The above figures include all mobile contract spend; it is not possible to separate this out into just mobile phones.

2. The above figures include other Scottish central government bodies to whom Scottish Government provides IT shared services. These costs will have been recharged to that organisation at the time.

The Scottish Government does not hold records for all mobile phones purchased in the last 5 years as they are purchased by individual business areas and agencies to meet their requirements. However, through our mobile voice & data contracts we have purchased various models of mobile phone including those from Apple, Motorola and Samsung.

For the past 5 years the Scottish Government has had a mobile voice and data contracts with Vodafone UK.

A contract was in place from 20 January 2016 to 20 September 2020. This was replaced with a new contract via https://www.gov.scot/publications/mobile-voice-and-data-services-framework-2020/ from 21 September 2020 to 20 September 2023.

A small number of connections have also been with EE over the last 5 years.

The new National Public Energy Agency – Heat and Energy Efficiency Scotland (HEES) –which is operating in virtual form in-house within the Directorate for Energy and Climate Change aims to work in partnership with a range of key stakeholders, including local government, to provide strategic leadership and co-ordination to accelerate both the pace and scale of heat and energy retrofit across domestic, non-domestic and public sector buildings in Scotland. To support this aim, one of the roles of the Agency will be to improve overall coordination including how it can most effectively work with local government.

COSLA are represented on the HEES independent Strategic Board which has been established to provide support to the design of the future Agency and also more widely on how the virtual Agency can accelerate the roll out of zero emissions heating and evolve our delivery approaches.

The virtual Agency continues to have ongoing engagement with COSLA and local authorities on specific delivery programmes. Since 2013 the Area Based Schemes funded by the Scottish Government and delivered by local councils have helped over 100,000 fuel poor households to benefit from warmer homes and lower energy bills. We have allocated £64 million for energy efficiency improvements through these schemes this year and continue to build upon our partnership approach to delivery.

Scottish Universities are autonomous institutions and as such, except for controlled subjects, the Scottish Government and Government Ministers do not set a student cap or direct individual universities on the number of funded places for individual subjects, available for eligible Scottish and EU domicile students.

Universities are allocated a finite amount of money and it is for universities themselves to decide how to distribute these places between faculties; the courses they offer; and how many of the total funded places will be available on each course. To give universities additional flexibility in student recruitment, the Scottish Funding Council allows universities to recruit up to 10% above the number of funded places awarded.

The Scottish Government firmly believes that access to university should be based on the ability to learn and not the ability to pay, however there is a need to exert a level of control over the higher education budget, which means that the number of students able to access a funded place is not unlimited. Despite these constraints and the cost of living crisis our investment in university education ensures that Scottish domiciled students benefit from free tuition at our world-class universities in near-record numbers.

This means that, unlike elsewhere in the UK, Scottish students studying in Scotland do not incur additional debt of up to £27,750, and that average student loan debt for Scottish students is the lowest in the UK. Even in an environment of secure investment by the government, we still recognise that we have more to do, and all institutions have to work hard to ensure that students from deprived areas receive opportunities to achieve their potential.

The Scottish Government is committed to accelerating private capital investment to meet our Net Zero targets and capture the economic opportunity the Just Transition represents.

The Scottish Government has recognised the challenge with navigating the net zero funding landscape and we are working to simplify and streamline it through a funding alignment programme that commenced in 2022.

We also published a directory of climate change funding for public sector organisations in August 2022. This helps local authorities and other public bodies to identify funding to support their delivery of net zero. It highlights opportunities in a range of areas including transport, heat and waste and provides key contacts and links to information on accessing the funding. The directory is available on the Sustainable Scotland Network website and will be reviewed this year to ensure the information is up to date and to consider any improvements that can be made to make it easier for local authorities and other public bodies to navigate.

As referred to at the debate held on 14 March on the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee's Inquiry Report on ‘The role of local government and its cross-sectoral partners in financing and delivering a net-zero Scotland’, we are pleased to confirm that we are taking forward plans with local government partners to establish a Climate Intelligence Service for local authorities this year.

The Climate Intelligence Service will provide local authorities with the data, tools and skills to help ensure that they are on the right trajectory for net zero and to embed climate impact into local decision making.