Chamber and committees

The provision of appropriate firefighting kit is the responsibility of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS). SFRS is committed to introducing a new generation of lightweight PPE certified for wildfire and other operational activities.

The Chief Fire Officer has provided assurances to the Scottish Government that firefighter safety is an absolute priority, that all specialist wildfire PPE and existing standard PPE in place is safe, and that the service is fully prepared and equipped to respond to wildfires.

The Scottish Government has increased the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) capital budget by £10.5 million in 2024-25, by £4 million in 2025-26, and by a further £1.4m in 2026-27, bringing the total annual budget to £48.4 million.

The Scottish Government will continue to work closely with SFRS to identify the capital funding it needs for buildings, fleet, and equipment.

This is a matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. The information requested is not held centrally. The member may wish to contact the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service directly.

Funding in 2026-27 to procure artificial intelligence technology to support thrombectomy service expansion has been approved by the Scottish Government. There are ongoing discussions to finalise the award to a supplier.

There are many causal factors influencing Operational Response Times and their change in recent years. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is supporting work being carried out by Northumbria University looking at why response times to incidents in Scotland are changing, and what this means for people and communities in Scotland. This is fundamental academic research – it is about improving the understanding of patterns and causes.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) is an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government and has responsibility for operation of prisons including staffing.

SPS provides a comprehensive range of occupational health, wellbeing and psychological support interventions for staff experiencing workplace stress and exposure to traumatic incidents. These include workplace stress risk assessments, Occupational Health services, confidential counselling, specialist trauma support, Mental Health First Aid training, wellbeing and resilience support, and digital wellbeing resources.

SPS has also implemented a Post Trauma and Resilience Policy, developed the Lifelines Prison Service resource in partnership with NHS Lothian's Rivers Centre for Traumatic Stress, and established a dedicated Senior Leader Wellbeing Support Programme.

Teachers’ terms and conditions of service, including maternity pay, are matters determined through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT), which comprises teaching unions, local government employers and the Scottish Government.

Maternity pay arrangements, alongside a broader range of family-friendly policies, are currently being reviewed through ongoing discussions within the SNCT.

This review is intended to ensure that these policies continue to meet the needs of a modern workforce, while taking account of equality considerations, service delivery requirements and affordability.

Any changes to maternity pay arrangements would require agreement between all SNCT parties.

The Scottish Government supports the principle of a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. We will update Parliament shortly on our intentions in this area.

There is no publication date set for the remand outcomes project because the project is in the scoping stages only.

Scottish Government (SG) analysts receive a subset of information from the records held by Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) to produce the Criminal Disposals Dashboard. SG analysts also receive a subset of information from the prisoner records held by Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to produce the official statistics on the prison population. On their own these datasets do not allow the tracking of outcomes in cases where individuals are held on remand.

To address this gap in analysis, SG analysts have been developing a research project to link the data in these subsets to determine outcomes in cases where the accused was held on remand during proceedings. Scoping work has revealed challenges. Individuals held on remand can have multiple charges across different criminal cases, so determining if and how the outcomes for specific charges or cases relate to time spent on remand is not straightforward.

If analysts are able to reach a suitable method for linking the data and producing meaningful outputs, notification of intent to publish will be provided here: Official statistics: forthcoming publications - gov.scot.

The previous Cabinet Secretary for Housing wrote to COSLA on 13 March 2026 setting out the Scottish Government’s expectations regarding use of Section 315 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 by local authorities.

Officials have discussed the Scottish Government’s expectations of local authorities with COSLA, specifically Section 315 which sets out the duty on local authorities to provide proper accommodation for seasonal workers.