The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 and ensuring that Scottish Ministers are complying with their duties under the Act. The Act covers a wide range of areas, many of which involve complex implementation activity. On that basis, the Scottish Government has approached the commencement of provisions in the Act - and the duties on Scottish Ministers in those provisions - in stages.

A number of provisions are already in force: The Children (Scotland) Act 2020 (Commencement No. 1 and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2020.

• Section 13: promotion of contact between looked after children and siblings
• Section 14: duty to consider contact when making etc. compulsory supervision order
• Section 15: clarification of order-making power
• Section 23: funding for alternative dispute resolution (commenced to allow Scottish Ministers to make reports on progress with implementation)
• Section 24: pilot of mandatory information meetings on alternatives to court (commenced to allow Scottish Ministers to make reports on progress with implementation)
• Section 25: opportunity to participate in hearing
• Section 26: appeal against relevant person decision
• Sections 32, 33, 34, 35: final provisions

Sections 23 and 24 are not yet implemented for remaining purposes, but six progress reports on have been laid in the Scottish Parliament to date.

A number of provisions have been commenced for certain purposes in The Children (Scotland) Act 2020 (Commencement No. 2) Regulations 2021:

• Section 7(3) and (4): register of solicitors where person prohibited from conducting their own case [superseded by Part 3 of the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform Bill]
• Section 9: register of child welfare reporters – for purposes of making regulations
• Section 10(1) and (3): regulation of child contact services
• Section 17(1) and (3): register of curators ad litem – for purposes of making regulations

In terms of the duties contained in those provisions:

• Section 7 will be repealed and replaced by provisions in Part 3 of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform Bill and will be implemented following enactment of the Bill.
• An update on timings in relation to section 9 of the 2020 Act was provided to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee on 24 June 2025 [see below]. Implementation of the register of curators ad litem under section 17 will be carried out at the same time.
• Scottish Ministers plan to lay secondary legislation to regulate child contact services in the coming weeks, but intend to use powers in the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, rather than section 10 of the 2020 Act.

We made a further set of commencement Regulations on 22 May 2025: The Children (Scotland) Act 2020 (Commencement No. 3 and Saving Provision) Regulations 2025 covering:

• Section 1(2): on the views of the child being considered when parents are making major decisions.
• Section 30(1), (3), (4), (5), (6) and (7): on delay in children’s hearings and adoption and permanence proceedings.

We plan to make a further set of commencement Regulations in October 2025 as committed to at a meeting of the Committee on unimplemented legislation on 24 June 2025: Official Report (see columns 10 to 14).

Forestry and Land Scotland received independent professional advice prior to the purchase of Glen Prosen from their appointed advisers. That advice informed the decision to make an offer and its level.

The Scottish Government meets with the Scottish Ambulance Service regularly in the form of Operational Meetings, Mid Year and Annual Reviews where performance is discussed. The Scottish Government also receives weekly performance reports which are analysed and if performance is a concern, it is escalated to the Scottish Ambulance Service executive team.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. The member should refer to each operator, CalMac Ferries Limited and NorthLink Ferries.

Scottish Ministers are occasionally given prints and artwork as gifts. I have included a breakdown of the data you are seeking below:

Ministers may have received artwork or prints up to the value of £140 as gifts. Gifts under the value of £140 are not recorded by Scottish Government.

Relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the school curriculum in Scotland. RSHP education focuses on equipping children and young people with the knowledge, skills and values to make informed and positive choices about forming relationships. This includes understanding of issues like consent, appropriate relationships and boundaries.

RSHP teaching guidance is specific about the need for children and young people to gain knowledge appropriate to their age and stage of education. The curriculum in Scotland is not statutory and therefore it is for teachers to decide the on the development and implementation of the curriculum. As such, teachers in Scotland have the flexibility to include content on non-fatal strangulation, for example as part of learning about abuse in relationships or on the impact of pornography, as part of RSHP lessons.

We are also funding Time for Inclusive Education’s Digital Discourse Initiative, which provides training for teachers and educators to address the effects of online hate and disinformation on children and young people.

In addition, the 2025-26 Programme for Government committed the Scottish Government to carrying out a comprehensive assessment of the law in relation to non-fatal strangulation to determine if there is further action that needs to be taken beyond existing provisions in law that could be used to tackle this issue.

While, this is an operational matter for train operating companies, the Scottish Government expects that all operators in Scotland provide best possible assistance to all passengers, as appropriate.

For ScotRail specifically, the Scottish Government continues to specify a requirement that all its services should have a second staff member on board to assist passengers. This may include embarking or alighting from a train for passengers with mobility issues. This applies to all journeys at any time of day, evening and night.

The Scottish Government were aware of concerns that the link between health professionals and Police Scotland has not always been clear when victims of spiking present to emergency departments.

Through the collaborative work of the multi-agency Spiking Roundtable, the Scottish Government has been exploring a range of initiatives with partners from policing, victims organisations and COPFS, as well as representatives from colleges and universities, community safety groups, and the night-time economy sector to ensure our response is robust and effective.

To address these concerns it was recently announced here: Public urged to be vigilant against spiking ahead of summer events on 11 July 2025 that the Scottish Government, in collaboration with NHS 24 and Police Scotland, has developed a consistent narrative for health professionals. The guidance ensures that victims receive clear and uniform advice regarding the roles of health professionals and the police when they report incidents of spiking. This approach has been endorsed by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

As part of this multi-agency national response, Scotland’s 111 service has also been updated to include spiking-related guidance, helping to better identify and support victims.

Additionally, the NHS are introducing changes to their digital system which will allow recording of those who present to emergency departments as potential victims of spiking. This will provide invaluable data on previously unrecorded incidents and will allow for a better understanding of the extent to which these lead on to formal police reporting.

The Forum, established as part of our Equally Safe Delivery Plan commitment to develop a collaborative programme of support to enable local and national partners to adopt a public health approach to preventing violence against women and girls (VAWG), has met twice to date, with a third meeting scheduled for October 2025.

The Forum is facilitated by the Improvement Service and seeks to enable collaboration between local and national partners to identify ways of embedding a public health approach in practice, identifying and overcoming barriers to implementation, sharing local experience, and supporting its wider application.

With the purpose of the Forum being identifying and overcoming barriers to implementation, sharing local experience and supporting its wider application, no formal recommendations have been issued. However, early learning from the Forum includes recognition of the challenges in shifting resources towards prevention, the importance of engaging a broad range of policy areas, and the value of identifying tangible, evidence-based actions that stakeholders can take within their own services.

The Forum continues to provide a collaborative space for peer support and shared learning, helping to embed a public health approach to ending VAWG across systems and sectors.

We have undertaken a literature review and engaged with a range of specialist organisations to understand the issue and what is required to address it. We are currently developing a policy definition of extended family abuse, including exploring how it interacts with intimate partner abuse and honour based abuse and other forms of VAWG.

We will continue to work with specialist organisations and academics in the Addressing Violence Against Minority Ethnic Women and Girls Network, and mainstream services including Social Work Scotland, Police Scotland, COPFS, NHS Scotland and local authorities to inform our work. We will share the draft policy definition with partners in Autumn 2025.