The Future Farming Investment Scheme was a pilot scheme and we are now looking at what we do in the future, taking on board the concerns raised, to make sure we continue to support the agriculture sector. We will review the scheme to better understand what worked and where improvement to any potential future scheme could be made, to ensure it is more tightly targeted for any future rounds.

Social Security Scotland does not publish information on payments made to people not normally resident in Scotland. The total amount paid by benefit is published in Official Statistics publications and is available on our website About statistics - Social Security Scotland.

Individuals must generally be ordinarily resident in Scotland to be eligible for Scottish benefits. Individuals of any nationality can be eligible if they meet the residency criteria, including holding a valid immigration status if required.

As you will already be aware, responsibility for the UK’s telecommunications network is reserved to the UK Government, with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology being the lead government department.

The move to digital-based services is an industry-led decision and process. The decision to upgrade the legacy PSTN network is driven by the increasing fragility of the 40-year old analogue landline technology and the increased difficulty in maintaining the current network, due to reduced availability of replacement parts and the reduction of expertise in these analogue systems.

Universal Service Obligations

It is worth noting that the PSTN migration does not affect the Universal Service Obligations set in the Electronic Communications (Universal Service) Order 2003, which require the designated providers to offer telephony services throughout the UK, and providers will remain bound by their existing statutory responsibilities.

Ofcom, the independent telecoms regulator, has issued guidance on how telecoms companies can fulfil their regulatory obligation to ensure that their VoIP customers have access to the emergency services in such circumstances. This guidance states that providers should have at least one solution available that enables access to emergency organisations for a minimum of one hour in the event of a power outage in the premises. The solution should be suitable for customers’ needs and should be offered free of charge to those who are at risk as they are dependent on their landline.

You can read Ofcom’s full guidance at the following links:

Guidance: Protecting access to emergency organisations when there is a power cut at the customer’s premises - Ofcom

Moving landline phones to digital technology: what you need to know - Ofcom

Customers who are not eligible for a free resilience solution should be able to request one but their provider may charge for it. Customers who are moving to VoIP services and are reliant on their landline should discuss their situation and requirements for a back-up solution with their provider before they are moved on to VoIP services.

Shared Rural Network

UK-wide initiatives will also bring coverage improvements in Scotland. The Shared Rural Network (SRN), led by the UK Government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and the UK’s main network operators (O2, EE, Vodafone and Three) will make significant investments in 4G coverage: up to £1Bn to increase 4G access on at least one network to 95% of the UK’s landmass (which equates to around 91% of Scotland’s geography). This is a substantial increase on coverage levels of around 44% when the programme commenced in 2020. Ofcom’s most recent Connected Nations 2025 report states that as of July 2025, 90% of Scotland’s landmass had access to at least one mobile operator.

SRN is structured around two distinct but complimentary projects: the operators worked collaboratively to improve partial not-spots- those areas where 4G is only available on one or two providers – collectively investing in excess of £500 million on a commercial basis. This Partial Not-Spot project completed last summer.

Building on this, the UK Government is funding a second phase which is currently working to address 'total not-spots', areas where there is no coverage from any network provider and no likelihood of commercial investment. Further information about SRN is available at Shared Rural Network, including a high level map showing which areas will benefit from new Total Not Spot masts. Initial locations for Total Not Spot masts met strong opposition from groups such as the National Trust for Scotland, Scottish Land and Estates, the John Muir Trust and others over concerns for the impact on sensitive ‘wilderness’ landscapes and biodiversity. We brokered discussion among the mobile industry, UK Government and representatives from these groups to identify a mutually agreeable compromise solution.

In addition to this, BT recently announced it would address mobile not-spots through further investment. In the past 12 months, they’ve improved mobile coverage in more than 500 areas across the UK. BT will look to extend coverage in a further 900 locations by 2024.

Although the telecommunications sector is reserved to the UK Government, we understand the importance of increasing telecoms resilience, particularly in rural areas, which is why we invested £28.75 million in our multi award winning Scottish 4G Infill Programme (S4GI) programme.

Through S4GI we built and activated 55 future-proofed masts across Scotland, from Shetland to the Scottish Borders, to improve mobile telecoms resilience by increasing the overall network coverage in Scotland. All 55 masts are now live. The Scottish Government remains in close contact with UK Government-led initiatives such as the Shared Rural Network and the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme, which will also increase access to 4G services in rural, remote and island areas across Scotland. Both programmes make full use of our S4GI infrastructure further enhancing the impact of our investment and ensuring programmes achieve mutual aims. We continue to seek opportunities for further alignment.

For customers who don’t or can’t yet access broadband at home, Openreach have introduced a new dedicated landline service as an interim solution. This won’t require any in-home changes and will continue to provide access to a powered line.

Civil Contingencies

As previously mentioned, the responsibility of both telecoms and energy resilience rests with the UK Government. Both telecoms outages as well as power outages, affecting telecoms, can and do happen anywhere, at any time for a variety of reasons including severe weather or technical failures.

The Scottish Government work closely with the responder community on a variety of risks including those relating to telecoms outages.

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places duties upon statutory responders to plan, co-operate, share information, assess risk, develop business continuity and warn and inform the public. The Scottish Government does not direct responders in how to fulfil their legislative duties under the act. However, resilience partnerships are formed by the statutory responder agencies who come together to prepare for civil emergencies.

The Scottish Government is also active in facilitating information briefing sessions between BT Openreach and Scottish Stakeholders including Regional Resilience Partnership members, to ensure they have the most up to date information to allow them to prepare for how their services will run when this telecoms switchover is completed.

Additionally, we continue to work with industry, UK Government, the regulator (Ofcom) and other devolved governments through the Electronic Communications – Resilience and Response Group (EC-RRG) whose aim is to develop and maintain cooperation between the Communications Sector and Government on issues regarding resilience and emergency planning.

As you will already be aware, responsibility for the UK’s telecommunications network is reserved to the UK Government, with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology being the lead government department.

The move to digital-based services is an industry-led decision and process. The decision to upgrade the legacy PSTN network is driven by the increasing fragility of the 40-year old analogue landline technology and the increased difficulty in maintaining the current network, due to reduced availability of replacement parts and the reduction of expertise in these analogue systems.

Universal Service Obligations

It is worth noting that the PSTN migration does not affect the Universal Service Obligations set in the Electronic Communications (Universal Service) Order 2003, which require the designated providers to offer telephony services throughout the UK, and providers will remain bound by their existing statutory responsibilities.

Ofcom, the independent telecoms regulator, has issued guidance on how telecoms companies can fulfil their regulatory obligation to ensure that their VoIP customers have access to the emergency services in such circumstances. This guidance states that providers should have at least one solution available that enables access to emergency organisations for a minimum of one hour in the event of a power outage in the premises. The solution should be suitable for customers’ needs and should be offered free of charge to those who are at risk as they are dependent on their landline.

You can read Ofcom’s full guidance at the following links:

Guidance: Protecting access to emergency organisations when there is a power cut at the customer’s premises - Ofcom

Moving landline phones to digital technology: what you need to know - Ofcom

Customers who are not eligible for a free resilience solution should be able to request one but their provider may charge for it. Customers who are moving to VoIP services and are reliant on their landline should discuss their situation and requirements for a back-up solution with their provider before they are moved on to VoIP services.

PSTN Charter

You may be pleased to learn that on the 18 December 2023 a number of Communications Providers signed a Public Switched Telephone Network charter, where signatories (full list at link below) commit to the following:

1. We will not undertake any non-voluntary migrations to digital landlines, until we have full confidence that we are taking all possible steps to protect vulnerable people through the migration process.

2. No telecare users will be migrated to digital landline services without us, the customer, or the telecare company confirming that they have a compatible and functioning telecare solution in place.

3. Where battery back-up solutions are provided, we will work to provide solutions that go beyond the Ofcom minimum of 1 hour of continued, uninterrupted access to emergency services in the event of a power outage.

4. We will collectively work with Ofcom and Government to create a shared definition of vulnerable customer groups that require greater support, specific to the digital landline migration.

5. We will conduct additional checks on customers who have already been non-voluntarily migrated to ensure they do not have telecare devices we were unaware of, and if they do, ensure suitable support is provided.

Public Switched Telephone Network charter - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

We continue to work with industry, UK Government, the regulator (Ofcom) and other devolved governments through the Electronic Communications – Resilience and Response Group (EC-RRG) whose aim is to develop and maintain cooperation between the Communications Sector and Government on issues regarding resilience and emergency planning.

As you will already be aware, responsibility for the UK’s telecommunications network is reserved to the UK Government, with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology being the lead government department.

The move to digital-based services is an industry-led decision and process. The decision to upgrade the legacy PSTN network is driven by the increasing fragility of the 40-year old analogue landline technology and the increased difficulty in maintaining the current network, due to reduced availability of replacement parts and the reduction of expertise in these analogue systems.

Critical Systems

The Scottish Government continue to work across the full range of SG Directorates to ensure all sectoral areas and their relevant stakeholders are informed and have plans in place to mitigate any potential impacts of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) switch off.

Additionally, we have ensured that external responder agencies and categorised responders are appropriately briefed on the potential impacts by facilitating information sessions with telecoms operators.

We continue to work with industry, UK Government, the regulator (Ofcom) and other devolved governments through the Electronic Communications – Resilience and Response Group (EC-RRG) whose aim is to develop and maintain cooperation between the Communications Sector and Government on issues regarding resilience and emergency planning.

Telecare

Since 2018 we have had a local government programme under way to navigate and support migration of the telecare provision to 140,000 citizens across Scotland, in advance of the PSTN migration from analogue to digital.

Telecare providers across local authorities and housing associations have made excellent progress with more than 60% of lines and equipment now being fully digital. All telecare providers are engaged with the national programme and progressing their individual update programmes. In addition to this, a national call handling platform for telecare is being deployed, using the latest digital and cloud technology. As of November 2025, 18 organisations with more than 90,000 connections in total are delivering call handling services through this solution. While there is currently no concern with the migration plans of any telecare provider, the Digital Telecare Programme remains alert to the potential risk to the individual telecare users, who are often considered very vulnerable. There is a raised risk profile for those telecare users in rural areas for whom SIM-enabled devices may not be an option for continued telecare service from January 2027. Early mitigation of this, or alternative solutions, are being explored continuously.

Following years of pressure from stakeholders and the Scottish Government, the UK Government has finally scrapped the two child limit. I can therefore confirm that we will not proceed with our regulations that would have, subject to Parliamentary approval, seen us launch our payment in March 2026. As the First Minister made clear back in January, we will be reinvesting funding freed up to contribute to our mission to eradicate child poverty.

This will include continuing to mitigate the benefit cap which the UK Government is keeping in place, with the result that Policy in Practice estimates one in ten children impacted by the 2 child limit won't benefit from its abolition, and a further one in ten will only benefit partially. Officials continue to engage with the Scottish Fiscal Commission to help inform its forecasts including on the benefit cap and increased caseload on the Scottish Child Payment following the end of the Two Child Limit. Our spending decisions will be set out in the Scottish Government Budget on 13 January.

I am pleased to say that the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability, known as DESC, completed roll out across all Police Scotland divisions in September 2025. DESC provides a secure platform for collecting, storing, and sharing digital evidence, replacing outdated physical media.

DESC has stored over 400,000 pieces of evidence and saved an estimated 55,000 police officer hours, freeing officers for frontline duties. It enables faster case resolution, reduces the need for victims and witnesses to attend court, and improves justice outcomes. DESC is a UK first, delivered through collaboration with Scottish Government and justice partners.

The Scottish Government will today publish the Early Years Speech, Language and Communication Action Plan.

This sets out a bold national vision to ensure every child in Scotland has the strongest possible foundation in speech, language and communication from the earliest stages of life. The Plan reflects our commitment to prevention, equity and partnership, recognising that early support is crucial to improving outcomes for children and reducing inequalities.

Supporting our Programme for Government commitment to reduce developmental concerns at the 27–30 month review by a quarter by 2030, the Action Plan outlines how we will embed speech, language and communication as a national priority, strengthen support for families and communities, and build a skilled and confident workforce across health, education and social care. Together, these actions will help ensure that all children, particularly those in our most disadvantaged communities, benefit from high-quality support for their early development.

The Early Years Speech, Language and Communication Action Plan will be available shortly at: https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781806430925.

The Scottish Government plans to introduce an amending bill to Parliament early in the new year. If passed, the Bill will still allow local authorities to charge a percentage based visitor levy, but for those that require a different model the Bill will introducing additional flexibility to set either a single fixed amount or a range of fixed amounts for different purposes or areas. It will also include provisions to support the implementation of local schemes, including clarifying how the levy is to be charged in third party sales.

Provisions in Part 5 (homelessness prevention) of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 must commence 3 years from Royal Assent, if not already commenced. Royal Assent was given on 6 November 2025. The cost of implementation of the ask and act duties is therefore not a consideration for the 2026-2027 budget.

The learnings collected from the pilots will provide valuable data on prevention activities undertaken and volume of ‘asks’ and ‘acts’ by relevant bodies, including referrals to local authorities. These will be combined with findings uncovered from stakeholder engagement across relevant bodies and sectors, and with costs provided by local authority housing departments, so as to iterate and ratify the financial memorandum.

The findings of the pilots will also inform the drafting of guidance and regulations to help ensure effective implementation of the duties by named relevant bodies.