Chamber and committees

The information requested on how much each NHS board has spent on temporary staff engaged through staff banks in each of the last 10 years can be found on the TURAS Public Services Delivery Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence (Bank and agency tab).

The Scottish Government allocates funding to territorial NHS Boards based on the NRAC formula, rather than on a population basis. The NRAC formula takes into account factors including relative deprivation and need for healthcare in different NHS Board areas, as well as population.

NHS Board’s baseline revenue allocations are published annually in the Scottish Budget. In addition, resource and capital spending limits are reported in each Board’s annual report and accounts.

Between 2016-17 and 2026-27, NHS Boards’ overall resource budget increased by 24.5% in real terms and 71.6% in cash terms.

Data held by the Scottish Government on the number of NHS apprenticeships has been provided in the following tables. While this Management Information provides an indication of apprenticeship activity within NHS Scotland, the figures across years should be treated with caution because of the changes in collection method, coverage and definitions. The data records the number of individuals who have been recruited or started on an apprenticeship programme in the reporting year, rather than the total number of apprenticeships delivered.

Data for the total number of apprenticeships recruited is not held by the Scottish Government for 2016-2017 and there is no data for 2019-2020 to 2021-2022, as no annual Staff Governance Monitoring return was undertaken during COVID. Apprenticeship data is not yet available for 2024-25 or 2025-26 but will be collected via NHS Anchors Metrics.

The Scottish Government published a review of clinical nurse specialist and nurse practitioner roles in Scotland in August 2021. Public Services Delivery Scotland is currently working on updating this report, focusing on education and professional development within clinical nurse specialist roles.

One of the recommendations from the report was achieved in May 2026, when Public Services Delivery Scotland published the first Clinical Nurse Specialist workforce statistical report since 2018.

The digitisation of records is managed operationally by individual Health Boards and GP practices, information on implementation of digitisation projects within each Health Board is not held centrally.

As part of an annual update on Primary Care Improvement Plans (PCIP), the Scottish Government (SG) publishes information on workforce numbers for the General Practice Multidisciplinary Team (MDT), which support delivery of the 2018 GP contract. Community Link Workers (CLWs) are a key part of the MDT and detailed information on their workforce numbers can be accessed at: Primary care improvement plans: implementation progress reports - gov.scot. Please see the below table for a breakdown of WTE CLWs in post from 2017 to 2026.

The Scottish Government last year consulted on potential new permitted development rights for the installation (and subsequent repair and maintenance) of underground pipework and associated apparatus for the purposes of connecting individual buildings to a heat network. The Scottish Government decided not to make changes to permitted development rights at that time. We have recently committed to further explore improving permitted development rights, including for small-scale renewable energy production.

Social care reform and the implementation of the Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 are a central focus for this Government. In our first 100 days, we are prioritising action to improve key areas within social care. This includes support for unpaid carers, work force conditions and access to services.

We are investing over £2.3 billion in social care and integration in 2026-27. This investment includes an uplift to adult social care pay as well as providing support to deliver improvements to wider terms and conditions for workers, such as maternity and paternity pay and also to help with payment of PVG checks for workers.

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-00791 on 12 June 2026. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.