Current status: Answered by Angela Constance on 19 June 2026
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the recent report by Carers Week, Building Carer Friendly Communities, which found that 45% of people currently caring in Scotland do not feel that their role as an unpaid carer is understood or valued by their community, what action it plans to take to encourage communities to be more carer friendly.
The Scottish Government invests over £88 million per year in local carer support through the Carers (Scotland) Act, enabling local authorities and their partners to deliver local carer strategies, information and advice services, and community-based support that helps raise awareness of carers and their rights at a local level.
We support a national network of local carer centres, including funding of £600,000 in 2026-27, which play a key role in community outreach, helping people to identify themselves as carers, increasing local understanding of caring roles and building more carer-friendly communities. In addition, we fund the Shared Care Respitality programme, which helps local carer centres build relationships with hotels, B&Bs, restaurants and leisure providers to offer donated breaks and experiences for unpaid carers within their communities.
To improve understanding and access to support, the Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland have launched a dedicated package of online and printed resources, including 'Help if you're a carer' and Social Security Scotland - Helping hand for carers - stakeholder resources to support wider awareness and signposting within communities.
Our National Carers Strategy has driven cross-government action to improve recognition and valuing of unpaid carers, including strengthening carer involvement, improving awareness of carers’ rights, and promoting carers as equal partners in care across public services and communities.
We also fund national engagement and awareness-raising activity, including the annual Carers Parliament and the Scottish Young Carers Festival, which give carers a platform to share their experiences with decision-makers and help increase wider understanding of caring roles across society.
In addition, through the Carer Positive employer scheme, we continue to encourage more supportive and carer-aware workplaces, helping to embed understanding of unpaid carers within communities across Scotland, with more than half a million employees now working in Carer Positive organisations.
Looking ahead, provisions in the Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 will further strengthen our approach. New duties will require relevant authorities to take steps to actively promote awareness and improve uptake of support for carers, helping ensure that carers are more visible, better understood, and able to access the support available to them. Alongside our work to establish a right to breaks for carers, this will help protect carers’ wellbeing and sustain caring relationships.
Together, these actions support greater recognition of unpaid carers and help encourage communities to become more understanding and carer friendly.