Chamber and committees

The tax sites in Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport were designated in April 2024 and those of Forth Green Freeport in June 2024. Since then, both Green Freeports have been working up their full business cases, which were signed off in autumn 2025, whilst also promoting the tax sites to investors. This has been showing early signs of success, including for example Sumitomo's £350 million new subsea cable factory at Port of Nigg and Quantum Capital Group's £300 million financing for the development of the Ardersier Energy Transition Facility.

The current, early phase of Green Freeports programme is focused on site preparation and construction of facilities, like Sumitomo's factory. This results in the creation of short-term construction job opportunities, with long term job creation expected to follow thereafter.

Job creation by companies located in the tax and customs sites is monitored through bi-annual data collections from the Green Freeports, showing 32 new direct jobs created at Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport and one new direct job at Forth Green Freeport since the designation of the tax sites and 30 September 2025. The Green Freeports also report that construction work, with associated indirect employment (not captured in the formal monitoring), is underway at tax sites in Grangemouth, Rosyth, Nigg and Inverness. At the latter two, Green Freeports advise that approximately 250 construction staff are supporting delivery of the projects on site.

As part of the National Action Plan for relationships and behaviour in schools, the Recording and Monitoring Short Life Working Group are developing a set of principles to underpin recording and monitoring of behaviour in schools. The Principles will support consistency in approach and process in recording and monitoring across Local Authorities and schools. These principles are expected to be published in Summer 2026.

It is the Scottish Government’s expectation that all violent and abusive incidents against school staff should be recorded. Guidance published as part of the Relationships and Behaviour in Schools Action Plan 2024-27 has provided clear messaging to schools and local authorities about recording and monitoring incidents, including incidents affecting school staff. Information should be recorded in a way that supports it being utilised for monitoring of trends and patterns. This allows schools and organisations to assess the effectiveness of policy and practice and to ensure the necessary support is in place for children, young people, and for staff.

Scotland’s schools should be safe, consistent learning environments for everyone. While the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research (BISSR) (2023), which surveyed almost 4000 school staff, showed the majority of school staff think children and young people behave well most or all of the time, the Scottish Government recognises concerns about violent incidents in schools and is taking action through our Relationships and Behaviour in Schools Action Plan and wider investment in prevention.

Local Authorities are responsible for employment of staff in schools.

We published our Early Years Speech Language and Communication Action Plan in December last year. This plan sets out a preventative, system-wide approach to improving early speech, language and communication outcomes through leadership, support for families and a skilled workforce, at the earliest opportunity.

On behavioural psychologists, we are investing £1.9m per annum with local government in the training of educational psychologists to ensure that they are available across Scotland to support children and young people with additional support needs.

As regards Additional Support Needs (ASN), the Scottish Ministers are committed to improving the educational experiences of children and young people with ASN and recognise the vital role all staff play in this. 2026-27 budget set out a further £29m of investment for local and national programmes to support the recruitment and retention of the ASN workforce. We will also continue to work in partnership with local government support schools to develop positive learning environments and promote positive relationships and behaviour through the delivery of our Relationships and Behaviour in Schools Action Plan.

Public bodies are required to ensure delivery models achieve best value and meet the needs of the communities they serve. Decisions on whether services are delivered in-house or outsourced are a strategic matter for Scottish public bodies, taken through established commissioning and business planning processes.

While there is no single mandated public interest test in Scotland presently, the underlying principle of early, evidence-based assessment of delivery options are reflected in existing frameworks, with the Scottish Public Finance Manual and business case development processes supporting evidence-based decisions. These include consideration of value for money, affordability, risk, skills, capacity and wider impacts.

The Scottish Government keeps its approach to service delivery under review as part of its wider programme of public service reform. As part of this, we are currently exploring the opportunity to introduce a public interest test to further support make or buy decisions.

There are various national policies and guidance documents currently in place which require NHS Health Boards to appropriately record and report incidents of violence and aggression, including sexual assault. This includes the Work-related Violence and Aggression Policy, and accompanying guides, which details the responsibilities of staff and managers, the procedures for reporting incidents and the support available to those affected. We have also published the NHS Public Protection Accountability and Assurance Framework, which sets out exemplar evidence of high-quality, safe and effective services that promote the protection of adults and children. Where there is concern about potential harm to a child, the National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland makes clear that all concerns that a child has been abused or is at risk of abuse must be reported to the police or social work.

Sexual assaults occurring in our hospitals is unacceptable, and all Health Boards are expected to uphold their legal duties as employers to keep staff, patients and visitors safe. All crimes and instances of violent behaviour, including sexual assaults, should be reported to Police Scotland. The courts have extensive powers to deal robustly with sexual offending.

The Scottish Government respects the independence of Local Government and the role of individual local authorities – as independent corporate bodies with their own powers and responsibilities – to manage their own budgets and workforce, including in relation to outsourcing of specific roles or services. As such, the Scottish Government has not made any assessment of the impact of outsourcing by local authorities. However, the Scottish Government would expect all local authorities to make decisions that meet their responsibility to secure value for money.

Reports of rape and sexual assaults in hospitals are very concerning. Such incidents are abhorrent and we encourage all victims to report sexual crime to the police, including those that may have happened some time ago. Health Boards have legal duties to keep staff, patients and visitors safe. Health Boards are expected to record all incidences of assaults using their local reporting systems and escalate to Police Scotland, where appropriate.

Investigation of sexual assault and rape is an operational matter for Police Scotland who are accountable to the Scottish Police Authority.

The recording of information on the profile of sexual assault and rape perpetrators is an operational matter for Police Scotland, and any such incident should be reported to them to ensure victims can access the justice they deserve. Beyond this, Health Boards have a legal duty to record data on violence and aggression within their estates, and the Scottish Government expects them to have the necessary reporting systems in place to do this.