Chamber and committees

Through the Colleges Tripartite Alignment Group, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), along with Colleges Scotland, regularly discuss issues in the sector, including funding. I value this collaboration and met with the Group in December.

The Scottish Government intends to publish a multi-year Scottish Spending Review (SSR), alongside the 2026-27 Scottish Budget on 13 January. Our focus in the SSR is to align government spending with the delivery of our four priorities: eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency, and ensuring high quality and sustainable public services. We recognise the benefit of providing longer term financial plans to support organisational planning across Scotland. We are keen to provide as much certainty as possible but must carefully balance this against the risk that spending plans may be disrupted by external events. We are carefully considering the level of detail provided in the SSR.

The Scottish Government is reforming the post-school education and skills system, including the introduction of a new Scottish Government-led approach to national skills planning, and strengthening regional skills planning, to ensure that post school provision becomes more responsive to Scotland’s strategic skills needs and priorities.

Alongside reform, we are taking targeted action to meet urgent skills needs in specific sectors. For example, we are investing up to £2 million to develop engineering skills in the Glasgow City Region through a programme led by Clyde Maritime Cluster, and the defence sector, with Skills Development Scotland. Member authorities, led by Inverclyde Council, are leading on engagement with local employability partnerships to identify individuals who would benefit; and offer training opportunities through interventions including Skills Academies, paid work experience and guaranteed interviews. We are also investing £3.5 million in colleges to provide courses in important skills in offshore wind and social care via the Offshore Wind and Care Skills Programmes, with the intention of creating industry-leading new courses and upskilling students across the country. These interventions are designed to support progression into sustainable employment and align with Fair Work and inclusive growth objectives.

Operational decisions such as curriculum delivery are the responsibility of individual colleges.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on staffing levels, operational decisions are for individual colleges to determine.

Colleges are responsible for making workforce-related decisions in line with legislative requirements, the Code of Good Governance for Scotland’s Colleges and the Scottish Funding Council’s Financial Memoranda. Such decisions are made in response to the changing needs of the local economy and industry skills demands, as well as ensuring the institution is financially sustainable.

Much of the law on prosecution and punishment of road traffic offences is reserved to the UK Government (UKG). However, the Scottish Government continues to discuss the importance of implementing Road Traffic Diversionary Course (RTDC) which includes Speed Awareness Courses, with the UKG.

Since this area of law is reserved, officials are actively engaging with the UK Government through a dedicated steering group to progress the development of proposals and to introduce these courses in Scotland.

While a date for the commencement of these courses has not yet been finalised, we are committed to working with the UKG to bring forward legislative change as soon as possible.

I met with the UK Minister for Energy Consumers most recently on 3 December during which the Warm Homes Plan was discussed.

In its advice to the Scottish Government on Scotland’s Carbon Budgets, the Climate Change Committee noted that “Making electricity cheaper, through rebalancing prices to remove policy levies from electricity bills, is a key recommendation the Committee have made to the UK Government and will be essential to delivering Scotland’s targets, in tandem with action by the Scottish Government.”

It is therefore legitimate that the Scottish Parliament should be able to consider the Heat in Buildings Bill in the context of the Warm Homes Plan and any UK-wide action that may be taken to make electricity cheaper. We will therefore continue to press the UK Government to share more information on the timing and content of the Plan in order to bring forward legislation whilst ensuring the transition to clean heat is affordable and deliverable.

My sympathies go to anyone bereaved after a loved one endured a long A&E wait. The Scottish Government recognises the link between prolonged waits and increased risk of harm. We monitor A&E performance through weekly data and operational reviews, analysing factors such as bed occupancy, delayed discharge, workforce pressures and seasonal demand. This informs actions to reduce delays and improve patient flow.

We acknowledge the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s modelling, which estimates excess deaths associated with long waits. While based on modelling rather than case reviews, it highlights the need to address underlying causes. Our analysis shows high bed occupancy and delayed discharge are key drivers, compounded by winter pressures. To tackle these, we have invested £220 million in 2025-26 to improve hospital flow, reduce waiting times and expand community care, including frailty services and Hospital at Home. I will meet RCEM later this month to discuss ongoing improvements.

We do not collect national data on patients waiting on trolleys in A&E. Our focus is on addressing the underlying causes of this practice, such as high hospital occupancy and poor patient flow.

We want to drive improvements and are working closely with health boards to ensure they have the support in place to cope with peaks in demand. Through the NHS Scotland Operational Improvement Plan, we are investing £220 million to reduce waiting times, improve hospital flow, and minimise delayed discharges.

As set out by me in the statement to Parliament on 13 November on winter preparedness and national planning, winter resilience planning is best undertaken by those delivering the services themselves. The Scottish Government supports this via the nationally agreed priorities and principles set out in the document “National Planning Priorities and Principles for Surge and Winter Preparedness in Health and Social Care” which was published on 13 November 2025.

The Scottish Government expects all NHS Boards and healthcare professionals to follow relevant clinical guidelines when assessing children and to refer them for testing where clinically necessary.

Decisions on testing are a matter for clinicians, guided by national clinical standards, and it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to mandate this. In May 2023, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence updated its diabetes guideline (NG18), which recommends that any child displaying symptoms such as excessive urination, thirst or tiredness should be referred immediately to paediatric diabetes services for diagnosis and care. This process includes appropriate testing to confirm diagnosis.

The Scottish Government expects all NHS Boards and healthcare professionals to follow relevant clinical guidelines when assessing children and to refer them for testing where clinically necessary.

We encourage parents and carers to contact their GP urgently if their child is displaying symptoms.

We remain committed to improving early diagnosis and awareness among healthcare professionals and will continue to monitor emerging evidence to inform future policy decisions.

The Scottish Government is taking steps to improve early detection of type 1 diabetes in children through research, awareness initiatives, and clinical guidance.

Scotland contributed to the UK’s largest screening trial for children with type 1 diabetes, the ELSA study, which screened 20,000 children aged 3 to 13 for early markers of the condition. The findings will help inform future policy decisions.

Our Diabetes Improvement Plan sets out priorities for early diagnosis and prevention and is overseen by the Scottish Diabetes Group, which brings together clinical leaders and stakeholders to drive improvements in care.

A key commitment within the Plan is raising awareness of type 1 diabetes in primary care to ensure clinicians can recognise early signs and symptoms and act quickly.

The Scottish Diabetes Group works closely with the Diabetes Managed Clinical Network-Managers and Leads group to ensure frontline perspectives inform policy and practice. National clinical guidelines are regularly discussed at Scottish Diabetes Group meetings to reinforce best practice.

At its next meeting in March, the Scottish Diabetes Group will consider a suggestion brought forward by the Scottish Government, to promote awareness of the 4Ts (Toilet, Thirsty, Tired, Thinner) which are key symptoms of type 1 diabetes in children. We remain committed to improving early diagnosis and will continue to monitor emerging evidence to inform future policy decisions on diabetes care for children and young people.