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The National Theatre of Scotland does not manage any buildings fitted with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete.

Questions regarding day-to-day operational matters of Scottish Opera, including information relating to any repair and maintenance works, are best answered directly by Scottish Opera.

I have asked Scottish Opera to respond directly to the member with a full reply to his question in writing.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra does not manage any buildings fitted with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete.

Given the importance of sandeel to the wider ecosystem and the subsequent benefit in aiding long-term sustainability and resilience, it remains an overarching Scottish Government position, which is reflected in Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy, not to support fishing for sandeel in our waters.

There are several measures in place for the protection of sandeel stocks through the network of Marine Protected Areas. Furthermore, the Northeast UK closed area in sandeel management area 4 has been in place since 2000 and, the UK has not allocated sandeel quota to UK vessels since 2021.

However, recognising a commitment to consider what additional measures could be put in place to manage the sandeel fishery, in May 2023 I announced that the Scottish Government will be undertaking a public consultation this summer on potential measures to manage fishing for sandeel in Scottish waters. I refer the member to the answer to S6W-18244 on 19 May 2023. 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 .

I met with the Chair of the Scottish Sentencing Council on 17 May. At that meeting, we discussed a range of matters relevant to the work of the Council. This included the approach that the Council plans to take to the review of guidelines that it produces. It was outlined that when reviewing offence or offender-specific guidelines, the Council will carry out an interim review when a guideline has been in effect for a year, considering data on relevant cases and engaging with sentencers to assess whether the guideline has had the intended effect and identify any unintended consequences. This will be followed by a full review after three years which the Council will publish, setting out the impact of the guideline in the medium term. The review of sentencing guidelines is a role that the Council undertakes independently.

As set out in the answer to S6W-13149 on 10 January 2023, which can be found at Written question and answer: S6W-13149 | Scottish Parliament Website , the available information on average rents across the private rented and social rented sectors is as follows.

The latest Scottish Government Private Sector Rent Statistics, Scotland, 2010 to 2022 , published on 29 November 2022, presents average private rents by property size and Broad Rental Market Areas between 2010 and 2022 (years to end September), based predominantly on advertised rent data. This is the lowest level of granularity available for the Scottish Government Private Rent Statistics, as the data collection method used has not been designed for the purpose of providing local authority level results. In addition, data is not held for the years prior to 2010. The next publication covering the period 2010 to 2023 (years to end September) is planned for November 2023.

Information on average local authority rents is included in the Scottish Government Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Statistics publication, which contains a time series from 1997-98 onwards of average weekly rent by local authority area (Table 8), with the average rent figures presented being based on each Council’s total standard rental income being divided by total HRA stock.

Separate information on average social sector rents is published by the Scottish Housing Regulator, based on average rent figures collected from individual social landlords as part of the Charter Data collection. Results are available in the Scottish Housing Regulator Statistical Information webpages , with social landlord level average rent figures available from 2013-14 onwards, and local authority area level average rent figures published as part of the stock dataset for the most recent two years 2020-21 and 2021-22.

In addition, summary figures on average housing association rents by local authority area across the earlier years 2005-06 to 2012-13 are available in an archived Scottish Government Housing Statistics publication table .

Local authorities have statutory responsibility for undertaking assessments of housing need and demand which form a shared evidence base for Local Housing Strategies and Local Development Plans.

The Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA) Tool contains Household projection data prepared by National Records of Scotland (NRS) which captures trends in household formation including where adults are living with their parents. Any trend, upwards or downwards, in the incidence of adult children living with parents, will, along with many other factors that drive change in household numbers, be captured and projected forwards in the projections. The HNDA tool data can be supplemented with robust, local information.

Following the Covid-19 pandemic, the Education Scotland Improving Gender Balance and Equalities team developed new methods for achieving strong engagement with practitioners, as well as adapting to the new and unprecedented needs of schools, settings and local authorities.

In addition to engaging directly with practitioners and education settings, the team developed a national professional learning offer that could be accessed remotely by practitioners.

The national professional learning offer includes a mixture of remote delivery, online courses, podcasts and YouTube videos. As part of this approach, six podcasts were created and released from August 2021 – November 2021. The podcasts have 6,069 views.

As of Friday 9 June, 45 members of staff were working in the Deposit Return Scheme Division. The FTE is 43.2

We do not hold information on how many staff have worked on DRS each year since development began as DRS sat within a wider division with staff covering a range of issues. A separate division for DRS was created in March this year.

Details of the infrastructure improvements to be constructed as part of the Aberdeen Central Belt Journey Time Improvements Project will be contained with the Outline Business Case for the project, which will be available once complete.