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The Scottish Government fleet is made up of 187 vehicles, all vehicles are outright purchased and we don’t currently lease any vehicles.

The total cost of operating the fleet from 1 April 2024 to 31 December 2024 was £334,706.

As operator, CalMac have estimated 44tonnes (this equates to two HGV tankers) of LNG per week during vessel operation. However this is being reviewed as part of the network trials which are currently being undertaken.

Developing a National Flood Advisory Service to improve Scotland’s flood resilience and embed best practice on a nationwide scale is one of the actions in Scotland’s first National Flood Resilience Strategy. The Service will provide support and advice on building flood resilience to delivery partners and communities and provide the governance framework for progressing high value flood actions such as flood protection schemes.

The implementation plan for the Strategy will focus on the six priority action areas, starting with the establishment of the Flood Advisory Service. That plan will be developed with partners over the coming months.

In addition to existing Scottish Government funding commitments to support Local Authorities with flood resilience, £15 million has been provided in the draft 2025-2026 Scottish Budget to support the delivery of the Strategy’s actions, wider flooding resilience and coastal adaptation work.

Other than Brussels, Scottish Government international network offices outside the UK are based in the corresponding British Embassy or High Commission. Scottish Government staff in these locations regularly engage with their UK Government counterparts, sharing information to ensure opportunities for collaboration are maximised and to avoid any risk of duplication. All our offices prepare business plans setting out priorities and activity for the year. Where possible we seek to collaborate around key Scottish events in the diplomatic calendar including Burns Night and St Andrew’s Day. Similarly, our teams based in Scotland regularly engage with the FCDO’s devolution unit and with various operational teams and governance structures to ensure a good flow of information.

Local authorities can use Experimental Traffic Regulation Orders (ETROs) as set out in The Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Procedure) (Scotland) Regulations 1999. As with all other Traffic Regulation Orders, local authorities are under no obligation to inform the Scottish Government when they use these measures and as such, we do not hold an accurate record of how many have been deployed during this time period.

Details of Traffic Regulation Orders published by local authorities, including ETROs, can be found on Tell Me Scotland's website at: Public Information Notices for Scotland | Tellmescotland.

In the last 5 years, from January 2020 – January 2025, 144 jars of honey have been received and sold in the Parliament shop, each weighing 227g. The shop was completely closed from March 2020 – April 2022 and no honey was received or sold in that period. No honey was received in 2023.

The beeswax isn’t harvested by the Parliament, it remains the property of our beekeepers, and therefore, we do not have the cost information.  The beeswax is harvested by the beekeepers who provide the wax for the Great Seal of Scotland under a separate contract.

The works referred to in your question is part of an existing project to upgrade the Parliament’s Building and Energy Management System (BEMS). The BEMS is a business-critical tool which provides visibility and control of building services, principally the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and domestic hot water systems in all areas of the Holyrood site.  The new BEMS replaces an existing system which was installed 20 years ago and at end of life.  

The estimated total value for the BEMS project is £3,900,000. This information is published on the Scottish Parliaments Contracts Register under the contract reference NIC-SER-486 at the following link - Contract register | Scottish Parliament Website.

The total cost of maintaining the Parliament’s bees on-site for the last five years in total is £20,219.68. This includes the installation and maintenance of 15 beehives since March 2020.

The costs per year are given in the table below:

The general maintenance of hand driers is included within the Building Maintenance Contract and the only spend is on replacement parts or replacement hand driers if they fail. Below is spend for last 3 financial years and note on current year.

·        21/22 – No Spend

·        22/23 – No Spend

·        23/24 – £1560.87 – Spend is on parts & machines only as labour is included within planned maintenance.

·        24/25 – No spend to date.