The Scottish Government is committed to supporting stronger regional working. In the Programme for Government we provided that we would:

Work with regional and local partners to identify how best to formally devolve further elements of decision-making and delivery to Regional Economic Partnerships (REPs), and present options before the end of this Parliament.

Officials undertaking this work are engaging with a range of partners across the public, private and third sectors, as well as further and higher education partners, the UK and Welsh governments, and regional groupings elsewhere in the UK in order to understand how best to empower regional partners.

The Scottish Government is also working with COSLA on the Local Governance Review to consider how power and resources should be shared between national and local government and with communities. From the extensive engagement to date, there has been no specific proposals to introduce elected mayors or provosts.

The views of Local Government would inform any future changes to Local Government’s structure or governance arrangements. This is in line with the Scottish Government’s commitment to respecting Local Government’s democratic mandate as part of the Verity House Agreement.

The Scottish Government Planning Application Statistics (PAS) asks planning authorities to indicate the number of planning applications they have decided for major housing developments (50 or more dwellings or a site area that is or exceeds two hectares) and local housing developments (less than 50 dwellings or a site area of less than two hectares). This is expressed as a number in the published statistics, but it can also be expressed as a percentage.

The PAS does not include the number and percentage of new homes approved in each reporting period. However, the Scottish Government does publish statistics on the number of new build properties completed in its Housing Statistics for Scotland Quarterly Update: New Housebuilding and Affordable Housing Supply to end March.

The methodology used to collect Scottish Government Planning Application Statistics (PAS) is an Excel-based survey which is completed biannually by planning authorities. The production of PAS uses a combination of manual and automated methods including Excel without macros, Excel with macros, R programming and Word. The PAS are Scottish Government official statistics meaning they are quality assured to a very high standard and they have been reviewed by Office of Statistics Regulation (OSR) which is independent of Scottish Government.

The amount paid to polling companies in each of the last five years for which data is available is set out in the following table. Spend information for 2024-25 is currently not held and will be available later this year. Data on which topics the polls were held could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The UK Government App is available for all UK residents including those in Scotland providing access to information on GOV.UK. The Scottish Government App will focus on offering services provided by Scottish Government and Scottish public sector organisations to the residents of Scotland.

A collaborative relationship has been established with the UK Government App team to support mutual learning and the reuse of knowledge where this is beneficial in terms of functionality, efficiency, and speed of delivery.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-39434 on 11 August 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

This information is not held centrally. You may wish to contact NHS Highland, NHS Western Isles, NHS Orkney, NHS Shetland and NHS Grampian who may be able to provide this information.

Revenue expenditure from the Housing Revenue Account in North Ayrshire Council is detailed in Table 1. Revenue expenditure is the cost of delivering services each year and includes loan charges, supervision and management, repairs and maintenance, allowances for bad debts and other expenditure.

Table 1 - Housing Revenue Account Revenue Expenditure Summary, North Ayrshire, Year Ending 31st March, £ Millions.

The Scottish Government welcomes the Lancet Commission’s research, which highlights that up to 60% of liver cancer cases are preventable through reducing alcohol consumption, tackling obesity, and increasing hepatitis vaccination.

Preventing more cancers is a key ambition of our 10 year Cancer Strategy for Scotland 2023-2033 and Cancer Action Plan for Scotland 2023 – 2026. We are taking actions to reduce the consumption of alcohol, to promote healthy weight, increase hepatitis vaccinations and to address health inequalities – all key contributors to liver cancer risk.

These include delivering on the 20 actions within our Alcohol Framework which sets out our priorities for preventing alcohol-related harm, developing an implementation plan of preventative actions to improve Scotland’s food environment and continuing to target support for babies born to hepatitis B positive mothers. Encouragingly, Public Health Scotland (PHS) published data shows strong uptake of the hepatitis B vaccine in children (over 94%).

We are also working with PHS and NHS Boards to strengthen adult vaccination uptake, improve data systems, and reduce inequalities in access to vaccination.

Cancer remains a national priority, within the Scottish Government and across NHS Scotland. Our 10 year Cancer Strategy for Scotland 2023-2033 and Cancer Action Plan for Scotland 2023 – 2026 set out a comprehensive approach to improving cancer outcomes, with earlier and fast diagnosis a key ambition.

We are working in partnership with Alcohol and Drug Partnerships and NHS Boards to increase awareness of liver disease and support for early detection and treatment. This includes developing a nationwide model for the early detection of alcohol-related liver disease, building on learning from the innovative intelligent Liver Function Testing (iLFT) pilot pioneered by NHS Tayside and the Scottish Government through the National Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD).