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Reducing emissions from our homes and buildings is one of the most important things we can do to help end Scotland’s contribution to climate change, and communities have a key role to play within this.

The Scottish Government’s £300 million Heat Network Fund offers capital grant funding for the rollout of new zero emission heat networks and communal heating systems, as well as the expansion and decarbonisation of existing heat networks across Scotland.

At the start of December, our Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) launched the Community Heat Development Programme. This programme will work with eligible community organisations and groups of householders to help develop their ideas for locally-generated, low and zero carbon heat project ideas.

Scottish Government officials had discussions with the Existing Homes Alliance during 2022 as part of the Alliance’s work to develop a Rural Homes Just Transition Package .

ScotWind is at the very early stages, with Option Agreements setting out a potential development of 27.6GW. We are also awaiting the results of Crown Estate Scotland’s evaluation of the INTOG applications, which could deliver a further 5.7GW of targeted oil and gas decarbonisation projects. The need for future offshore wind planning and leasing rounds will be subject to ongoing evaluation of the current programme and the outcome of supporting assessments, such as the Iterative Plan Review, that take into account the further development of a just transition, new and emerging technology and our net zero commitments.

The Green Heat Finance Taskforce meets on a bi-monthly basis with the last meeting taking place on 2 November 2022. All meeting summaries and action points of the Green Heat Finance Taskforce are published on the Green Heat Finance Taskforce webpage following confirmation of Member's approval at the following meeting. Therefore, the action points of the November meeting will be made available on the website in January 2023.

All households occupying a new home warranted after 1 April 2024 will be impacted by the proposed prohibition on the installation of Direct Emissions Heating Systems, including gas boilers, from that date. We will publish details on the projected number of new build homes and conversions impacted by the Standard as part of our Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) which will be made available alongside the regulations in spring 2023.

Under The Strategic Framework for a Cyber Resilient Scotland , the Scottish Government works closely with our delivery partners to improve the cyber resilience of Scottish businesses.

Between January 2021 and July 2022, 3,410 businesses that received the Scottish Government Business Gateway Digital Boost Programme funding undertook a Cyber Health Check, where qualified assessors performed a pre-assessment of their critical technical controls, in line with Cyber Essentials (considered a national standard by the National Cyber Security Centre).

In 2022, the Scottish Government was notified of 12 cyber incidents under our Notifiable Scottish Public Sector Cyber Incidents Policy and Procedure.

The Scottish Government will not provide further details as this would likely cause substantial harm to the effective conduct of public affairs and the secure delivery of our public services.

This, combined with other publicly available information, would likely allow identification of the organisations that reported cyber incidents under the procedure. It would therefore undermine the confidentiality of the policy procedure and adversely affect the trust and openness with which organisations currently report incidents and participate in the reporting process.Making further information on the timing of past cyber incidents publicly available would have a negative impact on the cyber security and resilience of the public sector.

In Scotland, there is a range of financial and practical support available to adopted and fostered children and young people, and their families. This year, the Scottish Government has provided funding of over £500,000 to third sector organisations, including Adoption UK Scotland and the Fostering Network, to provide the help that adoptive and foster families may require.

The Scottish Government has no plans to introduce an adoption/foster care box of essentials for families. Adoptive parents and foster carers are, however, eligible to register for a Baby Box through their appointed social worker if they are caring for a child between 0 – 6 months.

The Scottish Government remains committed to introducing a high quality and clinically safe thrombectomy service in Scotland. As a result of the Emergency Budget Review, the thrombectomy service was not reduced, rather the expansion of the service was paused.

The budget for thrombectomy and development of a refreshed stroke improvement plan has been increased from £8.6 million for 2022-23 to £12.5 million in 2023-24. Prior to the 2023-24 budget announcement, the delivery of a national thrombectomy service had already received over £16 million of investment.

Work is ongoing to establish the most effective means of further expanding access to thrombectomy, including how the increased budget will be best used in recruiting staff to maximise the number of patients able to benefit from this treatment.

We are also in discussions with National Services Division, to ensure that decisions taken on potential expansions of the thrombectomy service consider the wider access requirements of patients across Scotland and ensure access is as equitable as possible.

We have reached an agreement with social landlords on below-inflation rent increases for the next financial year.

Organisations representing social landlords have announced their members’ plans for average rent increases for 2023-24, which will keep rents significantly below private market levels.

Under the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) Act 2022, rents are effectively frozen in the social rented sectors until 31 March 2023. Decisions on future plans for the private sector rent freeze, as well as other measures contained in the Act, will be announced in the coming weeks.