Questions and answers

Question reference: S6O-04098

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 11 November 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government to address the issue of testing.

Question reference: S6W-30743

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 11 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-30360 by Alasdair Allan on 9 October 2024, what funding is being made available to support work in the Central Lowlands, beyond the northern areas.

As I set out in response to S6W-30360 we are providing a range of support and funding to work that aims to promote red squirrel populations. Alongside the support detailed in my previous answer, we have also recently awarded the Eastern Lowlands Red Squirrel Group a development grant of £59,500 through the Scottish Government Nature Restoration Fund. The funding will be used to create a conservation strategy dedicated to protecting and restoring the red squirrel population across the eastern lowlands.

The grant will support a year-long initiative to get a better understanding of population sizes of both red and grey squirrels across Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan-shire, and identify key challenges and opportunities for safeguarding Scotland's beloved native red squirrels in the face of growing environmental pressures.

Question reference: S6W-30775

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 8 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to settle the full £6.9 million sum claimed by Angus Council under the Bellwin Scheme and, if so, when.

Question reference: S6W-30938

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 7 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the current level of resources directed towards household recycling is sufficient to meet its household recycling targets.

Although SEPA official statistics for 2023 show that Scotland’s household recycling rate increased slightly to 43.5%, we know that there is more to do to accelerate progress to meet our circular economy aims.

The Scottish Government’s Recycling Improvement Fund has now awarded over £63 million to 25 local authorities to increase the quantity and quality of recycling across Scotland and we expect to see those projects deliver significant results locally in the coming years.

We are also in the early stages of the co-design of the new Household Recycling Code of Practice. This will deliver new statutory recycling standards and more consistent and easy to use services for households across Scotland. The co-design will enable national and local government to identify if additional resources are needed to achieve our ambitions to drive up reuse and recycling rates.

Question reference: S6W-30937

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 7 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the level of progress in household recycling during 2023.

The Scottish Government welcomes the news that recently released statistics from SEPA show that in 2023 both the amount of household waste generated, and the carbon impact of Scotland’s household waste, were at their lowest levels since records began in 2011.

The small increase in the household recycling rate of 0.15% to 43.5% in 2023 shows there is work to do to increase recycling and to support our sustainable resource and climate goals. This is why our Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 and draft Circular Economy and Waste Route Map set out numerous measures to increase Scotland's reuse and recycling rates.

Question reference: S6W-30946

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 7 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it has disposed of electric vehicles (EVs) in its fleet, and how much it has (a) spent on new EVs and (b) obtained through the sale or other means of disposal of older EVs, in each year since it purchased its first EV.

All electric vehicles disposed from the fleet have been sold through motor auctions.

We first purchased electric vehicles in 1999 however records are no longer held.

A breakdown of expenditure on new electric vehicles and income received from sale through motor auctions from 2010 are provided in the following table.

Year	Total cost of procurement	Total income from sales
2010-11	£163,121	0
2011-12	0	0
2012-13	£21,367	0
2013-14	£36,281	0
2014-15	£62,467	£3,546
2015-16	£0	0
2016-17	£0	0
2017-18	£0	0
2018-19	£0	£6,298
2019-20	£361,186	0
2020-21	£383,920	£4,298
2021-22	£833,031	0
2022-23	£182,195	£37,720
2023-24	£0	£0
2024-25	£0	£0

Question reference: S6W-30740

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 7 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many fault reports have been submitted by members of the public in relation to the public electric vehicle charging network in each month of the last three years.

We can only provide information relating to the Scottish Government funded ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) public electric vehicle (EV) charging network. The commercial sector does not make their own charge point fault information readily available to third parties.

Overall reliability across the CPS network is typically very good with charge points being available for use 95% to 97% on average each month. Most faults on the CPS network are short-lived in nature and in the majority of cases require no physical intervention. Typically around 90% of faults are resolved within 48 hrs with the ChargePlace Scotland helpdesk remedying most faults remotely.

Please note, ‘faults’ cover many different scenarios and do not necessarily relate to issues that affect the operation of the charging infrastructure itself, for example, it could relate to lighting at the site. Some faults may be reported by more than one member of the public and therefore each recorded fault is not necessarily a unique instance. The following table shows the total number of ‘faults’ logged by members of the public.

CPS have published a Network Performance page on the CPS website Network Performance – Charge Place Scotland which provides a breakdown of ‘fault tickets’ by local authority from November 2022 onwards. Information prior to November 2022 has not been published on the website but is detailed in the following table.

Month	Faults reported by the public
Nov-21	696
Dec-21	734
Jan-22	765
Feb-22	675
Mar-22	795
Apr-22	922
May-22	753
Jun-22	588
Jul-22	550
Aug-22	509
Sep-22	434
Oct-22	556

ChargePlace Scotland notifies the charge point host and the supplier (the private company who sends out engineers to units) of faults. Members of the public can inform CPS of faults (for example, by phoning and advising that a charge point they have tried to use is not operational) but please note that separate data is not kept purely on reports submitted by members of the public.

Weekly data is kept on a tracker beginning 30th October 2022 which had 109 faults for the week.

The monthly figures thereafter are as follows:

DATE	FAULTS
November 2022	433
December 2022	525
January 2023	515
February 2023	425
March 2023	419
April 2023	409
May 2023	391
June 2023	408
July 2023	429
August 2023	318
September 2023	472
October 2023	471
November 2023	634
December 2023	603
January 2024	449
February 2024	366
March 2024	446
April 2024	471
May 2024	381
June 2024	500
July 2024	418
August 2024	534
September 2024	431

The full month of October 2024 has not concluded at the time this response was compiled. However the following weekly figures are available –

05-10-2024	99
12-10-2024	114
19-10-2024	101

Question reference: S6W-30741

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 7 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the proportion of zero-emissions vehicles in (a) its own fleet, (b) each of its agencies' fleets and (c) the public sector fleet as a whole has been in each of the last five years.

A breakdown of the Scottish Government fleet (including pool, Government Car Service and Transport Scotland) over the last 5 years is provided in the following table.

Year	Zero Emission %
2020-21	13%
2021-22	27%
2022-23	27%
2023-24	27%
2024-25 (1)	27%

Notes

1.Data range 01 April to 22 October 2024.

Transport Scotland holds information on the composition of the public sector fleet based on responses to surveys of vehicle type in 2020, 2022 and 2023, this information is summarised in the following table for Scottish Government agencies. Transport Scotland does not hold information for each of the last 5 years.

Executive Agencies	2020 Zero Emission %	2022 Zero Emission %	2023 Zero Emission %
Accountancy in Bankruptcy	No Fleet	No Fleet	No Fleet
Disclosure Scotland	No Data Held	No Fleet	No Fleet
Education Scotland	No Fleet	No Fleet	No Fleet
Forestry and Land Scotland	No Data Held	4%	15%
Scottish Forestry	0.14%	8%	17%
Scottish Pensions Agency	No Fleet	No Fleet	No Fleet
Scottish Prison Service	4%	2%	3%
Social Security Scotland	0%	50%	75%
Student Awards Agency for Scotland	No Data Held	Data Not Held	No Fleet

Data collected by Transport Scotland in 2020,2022 and 2023 indicates that there are around 30,000 vehicles in the public sector fleet, the following table shows the % of zero emission vehicles in the fleet in each of the years that data was collected.

Public Sector Fleet	% Vehicles that are Zero Emission
2020	5%
2022	12%
2023	17%

Question reference: S6O-03966

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 November 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what it anticipates the benefits to Scotland will be of a fully circular waste management system.

Question reference: S6W-30936

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 5 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers the increase in tonnage of waste incinerated, outlined in the 2023 household waste statistics, to be a positive or negative market signal for prevention and reuse efforts.

Scotland was the first UK nation to introduce a ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste, which comes into force on 31 December 2025.

The increase in waste incinerated reflects preparations for the upcoming ban which have already supported a decrease in the total amount of waste going to landfill in Scotland by half over the past decade.

As we continue to increase our reuse and recycling rates, we will produce even less waste, however we will still need an appropriate way to manage our unavoidable and unrecyclable waste – and continue to reduce the amount going to landfill. The development of the Waste Route Map with partners now the Circular Economy Act is in place will be critical in accelerating action in this area.

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