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Design and assessment work on both the medium and long-term solutions are progressing at pace. We also continue to explore methods to reduce the timescales to bring forward these improvements as soon as possible, whilst continuing to maximise the availability of the existing A83.

Clearly market conditions have changed in the past few years - the pandemic, Brexit and inflationary pressures have all played their respective parts in changing the procurement and delivery landscape across Government. However, we will continuously review the impact of current inflationary pressures and market conditions for both the medium and long-term measures.

No date has been set for the electrification of the full extent of the East Coast Main Line between Aberdeen and Edinburgh. However, in line with the Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan, this route is under consideration for future electrification by Transport Scotland, with plans at an early stage of development.

The Decarbonisation Action Plan commits to all passenger diesel trains being replaced; the order and programme in which that is done will depend on business cases and available budgets. The Plan itself is intended to be dynamic, with regular updates.

We recognise the vital work that services like Fife Rape and Sexual Assault Centre do day in, day out to support women and girls. We also understand the difficult circumstances that the Covid pandemic and the cost of living crisis continues to put on front line services.

The 100 Days (Covid emergency) funding provided frontline services for women and girls affected by gender-based violence with an additional £5 million to deal with additional pressures that occurred during the pandemic. Rape Crisis Scotland was awarded £2,250,000 over two years, for network members. We are working with Rape Crisis Scotland to ensure that there is an extension to their 100 days funding beyond September 2023 until the end of this financial year. We are also supporting them beyond this bridge funding to diversify their funding base.

The CashBack for Communities fund is a unique programme that reinvests money recovered from the proceeds of crime to support young people across Scotland.

The 29 organisations that successfully applied for Phase 6 funding were notified about the award in March 2023. Four community groups that previously received indirect funding in Phase 5 were successful in applying for direct funding in Phase 6.

Other previously funded community and youth groups have been informed about the availability of continued funding through Phase 6. This information was circulated in March 2023 by the partners that previously supported groups in Phase 5.

Details of all the Phase 6 CashBack partners were announced on 13 March 2023 and are available on the CashBack for Communities website:

https://cashbackforcommunities.org/

The Scottish Government has not requested a progress update from the Scottish Civil Justice Council on its review of court rules in relation to Protective Expenses Orders. The Scottish Civil Justice Council is an independent body. Publicly available minutes of meetings of the Costs and Funding Committee on 26 May 2022 and 31 October 2022 record that detailed discussions took place about the court rules governing Protective Expenses Orders and drafting instructions were to be issued.

Full dualling of the A77 was not recommended by the South West Scotland Transport Study (SWSTS), because of the significant cost and environmental impacts when compared with the other transport options for improving travel on this route. In addition, full dualling does not align well with the Sustainable Investment Hierarchy as defined in the second National Transport Strategy.

Only once an intervention is recommended at the Case for Change stage, as the SWSTS represents, would the costs and benefits or disbenefits of not building an option be considered as part of the later stages of the business case process.

No finance options have been explored given that full dualling of the A77 was not recommended as an outcome of the South West Transport Scotland Study published in January 2020. Instead, options for targeted improvements and road safety measures were recommended and these were subsequently appraised and formed the basis of Recommendation #40 of the second Strategic Transport Projects Review published in December 2022.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of reports received by Police Scotland of scammers calling at people’s homes or targeting people online.

(a)Some information on door-to-door scammers is available from a 2018-19 study into police recorded fraud in Scotland, the findings of which were presented within the Recorded crime in Scotland 2018-19 National Statistics .

This study suggested that ‘fraudulent selling’ accounts for approximately 12% of fraud crimes, equivalent to 1,160 crimes. This typically relates to where a victim has paid for a service or product (either in person or through the internet) that the perpetrator has no intention of providing. This could include through online transactions, or payments to bogus workmen. Further analysis of this group suggests that an estimated 270 crimes of recorded fraud (or 3% of all fraud) involved a perpetrator knocking on the victim’s door, taking money and not providing a service.

(b) In general, the data received from Police Scotland for producing the National Statistics on Recorded Crime, is a simple count of the number of crimes and offences which the police have recorded and cleared up. As such we are unable to separately identify back to 1999 which recorded crimes of fraud were committed online.

However we recently introduced a new chapter within the National Statistics, which estimates the volume of recorded cyber-crime in Scotland based on a sample of police records. Under this approach, the number of recorded frauds which involved the use of cyber technology in any way are shown below.

Police recorded fraud in Scotland that was estimated to be cyber-enabled.

The role of the Scottish Government, since the three approved schemes began operating in July 2012, is to monitor each scheme for compliance with the Tenancy Deposit Schemes (Scotland) Regulations 2011 . This includes being satisfied that SDS and the other tenancy deposit schemes have clear and substantial processes in place that meet the requirements laid out in the regulations.

As part of this monitoring, the three schemes quarterly performance reports were analysed and measured against the key performance indicators to ensure these were adhered to. These include response times to customer enquiries and complaints, return of undisputed deposits and dispute resolution. The latest quarterly performance reports indicate all KPIs have been met.

The table below shows a percentage average, of instances in which performance is achieved, for each financial year for KPI 5 - Return of deposit following notification of dispute resolution decision.

Curriculum for Excellence is a flexible curriculum with defined experiences and outcomes that allow for teaching and learning of a very wide range of topics. This ensures that schools are able to deliver a curriculum that is best suited to their learners in their circumstances and local context.

Learning for Sustainability, which is an entitlement for all learners, provides the general curricular theme on sustainable development education, social justice, climate change, global citizenship, children’s rights, equality and outdoor learning.

There are experiences and outcomes across the curriculum that cover learning on material extraction and end product use such us: Sciences SCN 4-04b: “Through investigation I can explain the formation and use of fossil fuels and contribute to discussions on the responsible use and conservation of finite resources”; Social Studies SOC 4-08a: “I can discuss the sustainability of key natural resources and analyse the possible implications for human activity”; and Technology TCH 2-06a “I can analyse how lifestyles can impact on the environment and Earth’s resources and can make suggestions about how to live in a more sustainable way”.