Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government takes the safety of the public very seriously. Sex offender notification requirements apply to an individual, irrespective of what name they use, and Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements documentation includes the recording of any aliases. Sex offenders must inform the police of a name change within three days and failure to notify such a change can result in a prison sentence.

We are aware that the Crime and Policing Bill, recently introduced to the UK Parliament, contains legislative change in this area. A Legislative Consent Memorandum (LCM) was lodged on 16 May 2025 recommending that the Scottish Parliament consents to the legislative provisions around sex offender management contained in the Bill. We await the outcome of the Parliamentary process which will determine whether or not consent is given to the provisions.

A total of £2,826,472.75 over two years has been allocated to the University of Strathclyde (who submitted a bid in partnership with the Coalition of Racial Equality and Rights) to host and support the Anti-Racism Observatory for Scotland.

Statistics on 'additional support needs teachers’ are published in the teacher census supplementary statistics. This is available on the Scottish government website here Teacher census supplementary statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

In addition, statistics on school support staff are also published on the Scottish Government website and are available here School support staff statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Spending on additional support for learning by local authorities reached a record high of over £1 billion in the last financial year. This year, in addition to that spend, the 2025-26 budget provides £29m investment for additional support for learning. This will support the recruitment retention and training of the ASN workforce at a local level, and will help to enhance professional learning on inclusion for all teachers, at all stages of their careers.

Scottish Government monitor the performance of NHS 24 and regularly engage with the service to discuss any performance related issues. We are satisfied that the Service continue to meet their statutory and clinical obligations and are committed to continuing to support them to enhance the service they provide to patients.

The Scottish Government is committed to driving key efficiency programmes such as Scottish Single Estates, Commercial Value for Money (CVfM), Collaborative Procurement frameworks, the Intelligence Automation Centre of Excellence, and Digital programme. There has been strong progress across these programmes which are expected to reach up to £280 million of cost avoidance and cash releasing savings over a two-year period by the end of 2024-25. This figure is not related to pay costs for board members of public sector or other non-departmental bodies.

The Scottish Government has already published the estimated financial contribution made to public spending by the voluntary Ministerial pay freeze since it was established on 1 April 2009. Between 1 April 2009 and 31 March 2025, Ministers made an estimated £2.2 million available for public spending from their own pay packets. This is public funding that would not have been available had Ministers not voluntarily decided to return a proportion of their pay. In 2024-25, Ministerial pay was 30.4% below where it would otherwise have been. From 1 April 2025, the MSP element of the pay of all Ministers except the First Minister was equalised with that of all other MSPs, while the freeze on the Ministerial element of their pay continues for a seventeenth consecutive year. In 2025-26, Ministers will make an estimated £166,000 available for public spending from their own pay packets and, as such, public funds this year will again be higher than they would have been without the pay freeze. This is the point that the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport was making.

Calls to the 111 service can go unanswered for a variety of reasons, including callers choosing to end their call after being connected to the automated messaging service and hearing the options available to them – including an NHS 24 callback service during busier periods.

Other options include accessing self-care advice via the NHS Inform website or contacting another area of the health service which may be more appropriate to meet their needs.

We continue to support NHS 24’s ongoing work to help reduce unanswered calls, including recently revising NHS 24’s key performance indicators to better reflect and understand the current demands on the service.

This work allows the Service to capture any unmet demand, and any potential risks where callers have made multiple attempts to access 111 without success.

In addition, over the past two financial years NHS 24 has received additional funding of £28.3m to support their wider role in the re-design of unscheduled care. This has allowed the service to boost their staffing numbers with 22 WTE additional clinicians recruited this year and the Service now almost at desired capacity in terms of call handlers.

The Scottish Government remains committed to reducing class contact time, and we will continue to explore with COSLA and the teacher unions, through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT), how best to deliver this commitment.

Local Government are also undertaking local scoping and modelling work to inform delivery of this commitment. This work is scheduled to be completed by summer 2025.

Implementation of the reduction of class contact time requires agreement through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT).

The Scottish Government remains committed to reducing class contact time, and we will continue to work with COSLA and the teacher unions, through the SNCT to agree our approach to delivering this important commitment at pace.

The intention behind the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 is that we have an inclusive approach to Education with a needs-led approach in Scotland.

The Scottish Government remains committed to the inclusive approach to meeting the needs of all young people, in-line with the principles of Getting it Right for Every Child.

The nature of ASN is individual to each child or young person, highly varied, and encompasses a wide range of needs; therefore, some variation should be expected in how this is reported. All children and young people with identified needs which require additional support are entitled to this, they do not require a diagnosis to receive this.

The Audit Scotland review into ASL recommended that the Scottish Government and councils fundamentally evaluate, both nationally and locally, how ASL is planned for, funded and staffed as part of core education provision.

In partnership with our local authority colleagues, we are giving careful consideration to the recommendations set out within the briefing and I am meeting with the Auditor General in the coming weeks to discuss in more detail.