Chamber and committees

The information requested is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government estate is under review to allow us to plan for affordable, inclusive, accessible, modern, secure, energy efficient buildings of the right size to meet our changing needs and net zero ambitions, as well as to ensure best value for taxpayers’ money.

The Scottish Government is aware of concerns that have been raised on this important matter. We ran a consultation between December 2024 and February 2025, to seek views on how best to further regulate non-surgical cosmetics procedures. Over 2200 responses were received which the Scottish Government is carefully analysing.

We have also already engaged with, and will continue to engage with, a range of stakeholders including healthcare professionals as we consider the evidence gathered to date.

Our proposals aim to be both robust and proportionate, protecting the public and our precious NHS whilst supporting reputable business to operate safely.

We will publish the analysis and announce next steps which I have committed to doing before the Scottish Parliament’s summer recess in late June.

The Scottish Government established a small team of civil servants in the months following the publication of the 2019 Programme for Government until 18 March 2020 which had work to update Scotland’s Future as part of its remit. We cannot provide you with a specific figure on the costs of that work as a full financial year was not completed.

The staffing costs of the Constitutional Futures Division (CFD), for the years that a full financial period was completed, have previously been published in response to an FOI request and in response to question S6W-22623:

2022/23 - Written question and answer: S6W-22623 | Scottish Parliament Website

2023/24 - Various questions relating to Independence: FOI release - gov.scot

The CFD disbanded on 17th January 2025 and therefore, as advised above, we are unable to provide details of staffing costs as a full financial year was not completed.

The table below show the occupancy levels at Scottish Government (SG) core office buildings for which there is an available data set. The average daily desk occupancy rate has been calculated by dividing the number of unique building pass users recorded over a 24 hour sample period by the number of available desks. A sample is taken on one day of each week and totalled together with the other sample days in the year then divided by how many weeks occurred.

No. This information is not proactively published. Information on running costs for Scottish Government buildings has been previously provided, under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

The allocation of resources within the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) is an operational matter for the Chief Fire Officer and SFRS Board. Scottish Government has not allocated funding to SFRS for the specific purpose of tackling wildfires, the £422.2 million budget is allocated to support the whole range of SFRS functions.

The budget for 2025-26 provides SFRS with an additional £18.8 million in support of front line services.

Scottish Government is supportive of the SFRS Wildfire Strategy which was launched in 2023 and is supported by a planned spend of around £1.6 million over the course of three years. SFRS responds to wildfires using a tiered system of fire stations which include the latest technology and techniques to safely bring any incident to a conclusion.

SFRS remains ready and able to respond to any instance of wildfire that occurs across Scotland.

SFRS remains ready and able to respond to any instance of wildfire that occurs across Scotland. I have received assurances from SFRS that they had the resources needed, along with working with partners, to deal with recent wildfires.

The budget for 2025-26 provides SFRS with an additional £18.8 million in support of front line services, which will bring the total budget to £412.2 million. Decisions on the allocation of the SFRS budget are a matter for the SFRS Board and Chief Officer.

Recruitment and retention of Wholetime and On Call firefighters is a matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) Chief Fire Officer and Board.

In common with other fire and rescue services both across the UK and internationally there are recognised challenges to the recruitment and retention of firefighters in rural areas. Scottish Government is supportive of the work that SFRS is doing to enable recruitment in these areas.

SFRS continues to recruit all year round and actively recruit for on call firefighters across local areas by holding community open days and events. Within many areas across Scotland, SFRS has targeted recruitment campaigns on a variety of platforms and many of these highlight the local people who are already helping their community.

The allocation of resources within the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) is an operational matter for the Chief Fire Officer and SFRS Board.

The SFRS is currently conducting a Service Delivery Review, which aims to ensure that SFRS staff, stations and appliances are matched to operational risk and demand across Scotland. SFRS is now in the final stages of an options appraisal process which will lead to a full public consultation exercise, planned for the summer 2025. Any changes to SFRS station footprint or how SFRS delivers core emergency services is subject to this full public consultation and final decision by the SFRS Board.