Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has not received any information regarding the delivery of a BE FAST stroke awareness campaign; therefore, no assessment has been made.

The Scottish Government does not hold a central record of all financial support provided to credit unions. Where funding has been provided, it has generally been through broader third sector or financial inclusion programmes such as those delivered by Social Investment Scotland, rather than as ongoing, dedicated support to credit unions. For example, in total SIS has awarded:

Scottish Government officials met with the Association of British Credit Unions Limited in December 2024 (and are due to meet them again in August) and with the Scottish League of Credit Unions in February 2025. Officials and Ministers have also met with individual credit unions over that time and representatives of the credit union sector attended the June meeting of the Financial Services Growth and Development Board (FISGAD). Discussions covered the current operating environment for the sector, opportunities to strengthen resilience and sustainability, and ways in which the Scottish Government and industry can work together to improve access to financial services. Topics also included ongoing engagement on policy developments, the promotion of ethical and affordable financial products, and the role of the sector in supporting financial inclusion across Scotland.

There are no devolved elements of the UK Government’s delivery plan on ME/CFS. It covers the population of England only.

We are unable to formally endorse the Plan due to differing healthcare systems and statutory structures.

However, the 2025-26 Scottish Budget includes an additional £4.5 million to deliver new specialist support across the country for long COVID, ME/CFS and other similar conditions. We want this money to have maximum impact and we are working closely and carefully with health boards across Scotland to allocate it as quickly and effectively as possible.

The provision of healthcare services is the responsibility of NHS health boards. In commissioning boards’ plans for this funding we have stressed the importance of ensuring that services are informed by current clinical best practice, such as National Institute for Excellence in Healthcare (NICE) guidelines NG:206 and NG:188– which are available to clinicians across the UK - and that care is delivered in line with the relevant recommendations, wherever applicable.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office (CSO) funded with other health research organisations the James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership that has published priorities for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) research. In addition, CSO with other research funders have developed a toolkit for researchers to guide them on funding streams that provide opportunities for ME/CFS research. These streams include CSO’s open competitive grant and fellowship schemes that fund applied health research across a wide remit, inclusive of ME/CFS research as well as National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) programmes that can also fund ME/CFS research in Scotland with CSO’s financial contribution to NIHR opening these programmes to applications from researchers in Scotland. Applications submitted to these schemes are assessed through independent expert peer-review with funding recommendations made by independent expert committees.

There are no devolved elements of the UK Government’s delivery plan on ME/CFS. It covers the population of England only.

We are unable to formally endorse the Plan due to differing healthcare systems and statutory structures.

However, the UK Government shared anonymised responses to its public consultation on the draft Plan from stakeholders living in Scotland with the Scottish Government. We are taking these views into account as we progress our ongoing work on ME/CFS.

The 2025-26 Scottish Budget includes an additional £4.5 million to deliver new specialist support across the country for long COVID, ME/CFS and other similar conditions. We want this money to have maximum impact and we are working closely and carefully with health boards across Scotland to allocate it as quickly and effectively as possible.

The Scottish Government is supporting work to encourage young people to develop good financial habits and increase engagement with credit unions. This includes collaboration with partners on initiatives aimed at improving financial education in schools and helping young people access suitable financial products.

Current work focuses on piloting approaches in selected areas to test how best to increase account ownership among school leavers and reduce financial exclusion, with progress being monitored to inform future policy and potential wider rollout.

The number of credit unions in Scotland is publicly available through the Bank of England’s annual statistics, which are published online.

The Scottish Government does not currently have an estimated cost for the provision of a 24/7 thrombectomy service.

The Scottish Government remains committed to implementing a high quality and clinically safe thrombectomy service that is available across Scotland whenever people need it.

Scottish Government officials and NHS planners have been asked to work at pace on developing a plan for the next steps for service expansion.

While there is not a specific date for publication, we expect the next steps for service expansion to reflect work to align the governance and delivery of thrombectomy with similar national programmes. This alignment with wider health service planning aims to support oversight of thrombectomy planning for the NHS Chief Executive Group and encourage greater collaboration between NHS Boards in delivering this vital service. This work will include developing costings for further service expansion.

The Scottish Government is responsible for setting the strategic policy direction for NHS Scotland and its workforce, including interventional neuroradiologists.

Operational matters, including the staffing of individual services, are the responsibility of each NHS Scotland Health Board. At a local level, the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 places duties on Health Boards to ensure that suitably qualified and competent individuals are working in such numbers as are appropriate for the health, wellbeing and safety of patients, the provision of high-quality care and the wellbeing of staff.

It should be noted that the North of Scotland thrombectomy service utilises Interventional Radiologists, whereas the West and East of Scotland services utilise Interventional Neuroradiologists.

Workforce statistics across NHS Scotland, can be found at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence