Social Security Scotland publishes benefit specific information on overpayments in their Annual Report and Accounts. It does not publish data on the number of occasions, or the amounts, where individual recipients of Pension Age Disability Payment have been required to repay either part or all of the payment. As such, this information is not available broken down by year or local authority area.

Social Security Scotland publishes benefit specific information on overpayments in their Annual Report and Accounts. It does not publish data on the number of occasions, or the amounts, where individual recipients of the Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment have been required to repay either part or all of the payment. As such, this information is not available broken down by year or local authority area.

Social Security Scotland publishes benefit specific information on overpayments in their Annual Report and Accounts. It does not publish data on the number of occasions, or the amounts, where individual recipients of Best Start Foods have been required to repay either part or all of the payment. As such, this information is not available broken down by year or local authority area.

Social Security Scotland publishes benefit specific information on overpayments in their Annual Report and Accounts. It does not publish data on the number of occasions, or the amounts, where individual recipients of Job Start Payment have been required to repay either part or all of the payment. As such, this information is not available broken down by year or local authority area.

Violence and abuse against public sector workers are completely unacceptable. Everyone deserves to feel safe at work, especially when serving the public.

A range of criminal laws protect public sector staff. The Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 allows for up to 12 months’ imprisonment for assaulting emergency workers. More serious offences can be prosecuted under common law, with penalties up to life imprisonment. Courts have strong powers to address threats and abuse.

Employers play a key role in promoting staff safety. Public sector workers provide vital services, and we fully support law enforcement in using their powers to prosecute offenders. We encourage all incidents to be reported to employers and the police.

Violence in schools is also unacceptable. National guidance on managing behaviour, co-produced with teaching unions and headteachers and published in June 2025, supports staff in using their professional judgement. Additional guidance on risk assessments helps schools respond to violent or aggressive behaviour.

The Scottish Government and COSLA have jointly urged Directors of Education to review and update local behaviour policies this academic year.

We’ve invested £1.64 billion in Police Scotland this year—£90 million more than in 2024–25—and increased local government funding by over £1.1 billion. Since 2023, over £6 million has supported the Violence Prevention Framework, including work by the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit and Medics Against Violence. Up to £26 million will also be available from March 2026 for the next phase of the Cashback for Communities Programme, supporting projects that help young people avoid crime.

Latest available data suggests that reducing food waste remains a significant and growing challenge in Scotland. The latest Scottish food waste data estimate for 2021 suggests that over 1 million tonnes of food were wasted in Scotland during 2021. In comparison to the 2013 baseline, in 2021 – despite a 1% per capita decrease in food waste at the household level –there was a total 2% per capita increase and an overall 5% increase in the tonnage of food wasted. The reasons behind this are complex and partly reflect changed consumer behaviour since the COVID-19 pandemic. Scotland is not alone in facing this challenge and higher food waste levels have been observed across the UK.

Given these challenges, I am taking action to reset the Government’s approach and the Circular Economy and Waste Route Map sets out how we will deliver more targeted action to support householders and businesses.

The ‘2021 Scottish Food Waste Estimate’ is available on Zero Waste Scotland’s website at: https://cdn.zerowastescotland.org.uk/managed-downloads/mf-cdtg7vnr-1696942041d.

Applications are determined in line with the relevant legislation, including the Electricity Works (EIA)(Scotland) Regulations 2017, together with advice from consultees. These processes ensure that potential impacts on the environment, including on private water supplies, are fully considered. Scottish Ministers also impose conditions on the consent which are designed to control the development and ensure it is consistent with the application and the proposed mitigation measures outlined in the application and recommended by consultees.

Under Class 33 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992, local authorities have permitted development rights (PDR) to carry out works for the erection of dwellings, provided that such works conform with the adopted local development plan. Use of the PDR is a matter for individual local authorities. There are no PDR specifically for registered social landlords.

The Scottish Government is exploring whether PDR can play a greater role in helping to address the housing emergency. The recent public consultation on Permitted development rights to support provision of new homes sought views on simplifying planning processes to encourage the provision of new homes in rural areas and town and city centres. The consultation closed on 27 October and feedback from respondents will help inform the formation and refinement of any proposals for new or amended PDR.

The 2025-26 direct mental health programme budget remains as originally published at £270.5 million. There is no reduction to that budget. In keeping with normal practice, some of this budget is transferred to other portfolios for mental health projects and, for example, to NHS Boards to support improvement activity and local mental health provision. However, the reference to a £120 million internal transfer to Local Government is a transfer from another budget which supports a wide range of social care activity and bears no relation to the mental health services direct programme budget.

The Scottish Public Service Ombudsman (SPSO) has a statutory function in relation to complaints handling for most public bodies. If children and/or their representatives are not content with the way a public service within SPSO’s jurisdiction has dealt with their complaint they can escalate it to SPSO. When required to investigate complaints, SPSO highlight mistakes and failures in the complaints handling process and make recommendations to remedy those. SPSO also have legal powers to make a declaration of non-compliance if the public authority has failed to ensure their procedures are consistent with a model complaints handling process.

With extra funding from the Scottish Government, SPSO have created child friendly complaints handling principles and child friendly complaints handling process guidance to help public bodies under their jurisdiction to implement a model complaints handling procedure in a way that upholds children’s rights under the UNCRC.

The Scottish Government is also working with external stakeholders to co-develop data collection to help understand children and young people’s experiences of raising an individual rights issue to identify if and where children and young people encounter barriers and gaps in support, information, and services that they need to claim their rights.