Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. Local authorities are responsible for setting budgets for street cleansing within their council area.

As chewing gum is a problematic form of litter that is difficult to remove, a UK-wide Chewing Gum Taskforce has been established which has two main objectives – cleaning up historic gum staining and changing behaviour so gum is disposed of correctly. Since 2021, the Taskforce has been responsible for dispersing up to £10 million of funding from chewing gum manufacturers. Grants of up to £27,500 are provided to local authorities to remove chewing gum and promote correct disposal. More information about the work of the Taskforce, including information on the councils that have received funding and reports on the first 3 years of activities, is available on the Keep Britain Tidy website.

All applications for planning permission are decided on their own merits and, by law, must be determined in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. The development plan consists of both National Planning Framework 4 and the local development plan for the area. It would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to make comment about decisions made by a planning authority.

Through the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, the Scottish Parliament legislated to allow planning authorities to designate short term let control areas (‘control areas’). Under these provisions, City of Edinburgh Council has designated the entirety of its administrative area as a control area. Within control areas, certain changes of use from a dwellinghouse to short-term letting are automatically deemed to be material changes of use requiring planning permission. It is for the planning authority to consider on a case-by-case basis whether changes of use that occurred before the designation of a control area constitute material changes of use requiring planning permission.

The planning system and the licensing system have different and distinct regulatory purposes. The purpose of planning is to manage the development and use of land in the long term public interest, whereas the purpose of short-term let licensing is to ensure the safety of guests and safeguard Scotland's reputation as a high quality tourist destination. Scottish Government guidance encourages anyone who is considering using a house or flat as a short term let to check with the relevant planning authority whether planning permission is required.

Part 9 of the Community Empowerment Act (Scotland) 2015, which updated and simplified allotment legislation, placed a number of duties on local authorities in relation to allotments including a duty to prepare a Food Growing Strategy and annual allotment reports. Part 9 came into force on 1 April 2018.

To date, the Scottish Government has not collated the data contained from the published annual allotment reports as there is neither a statutory obligation for local authorities to update Scottish Ministers on the publication of their annual allotment plans or for the Scottish Government to collect these data. The data is not held in a consistent format to allow for monitoring at a national level.

Therefore, the Scottish Government does not hold historic data on allotment provision or waiting lists.

The Scottish Government does not provide Scottish domiciled students with doctoral research loans.

Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of Scottish domiciled students accessing doctoral loans for universities out with Scotland.

The Scottish Government recognises that Scotland’s world class university research and its key outputs of new knowledge and insights, including the researchers who contribute to this excellence, are fundamental to Scottish society, economy and the environment.

We have prioritised funding to continue to support high-quality research and innovation across Scotland, increasing the investment in HE core funding for research by £11.3m (3.6%) for Academic Year 2025-26 to £328.5m to maintain and strengthen our research excellence. This includes investing £39.1m (increase of 3.1%) in the form of the Research Postgraduate Grant, providing an underpinning of support for institutions to attract, develop and nurture the next generation of world-class research talent in Scotland. Universities can use this grant to:

• Invest in a collaborative environment for research training and development that values positive culture, inclusivity and exposure to high-quality research as central to the postgraduate research experience; and
• Secure a pipeline of skilled postgraduate researchers, including at doctoral level, and support their career development in a way that meets the needs of academia, industry and society.

We are also investing money to support a critical mass of excellence by investing in a series of Alliances for Research Challenges, Innovation Centres, Interface and Converge, providing long-term support to the research sector in driving industry engagement, leveraging investment and promoting research skills development/ career development.

At this time the Scottish Government has no plans to review or revise our funding model for doctoral level study.

Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of postgraduate places that have been offered at Scottish universities.

Information on the number of students enrolled on postgraduate courses is published by the Scottish Funding Council annually. Latest publication: Higher Education Students and Qualifiers at Scottish Institutions 2023-24 - Scottish Funding Council.

The circumstances in which independent GP contractors can charge their patients for services not covered by their contracts are set out in schedule 5 of the National Health Service (General Medical Services Contracts) (Scotland) Regulations 2018 (box brackets and ellipsis denote edits to the text of the schedule for the sake of clarity):

1. The contractor may demand or accept a fee or other remuneration—

(a) from any statutory body for services rendered for the purposes of that body’s statutory functions;

(b) from any body, employer or school for a routine medical examination of persons for whose welfare the body, employer or school is responsible, or an examination of such persons for the purpose of advising the body, employer or school of any administrative action they might take;

(c) for treatment which is not primary medical services or otherwise required to be provided under the contract and which is given—

(i) pursuant to the provisions of section 57 of [the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978] (a) (accommodation and services for private patients); or

(ii) in accommodation provided by a care home service which is not providing services under the Act,

if, in either case, the person providing the treatment is serving on the staff of a hospital providing services under the Act as a specialist providing treatment of the kind the patient requires and if, within 7 days of giving the treatment, the contractor or the person providing the treatment supplies the Health Board, on a form provided by it for the purpose, with such information about the treatment as it may require;

(d) under section 158 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (payment for emergency treatment of traffic casualties) (b);

(e) when the contractor treats a patient [who claims to be on that contractor’s list of patients, but the contractor has reasonable doubts about that person’s claim], in which case the contractor is entitled to demand and accept a reasonable fee … for any treatment given, if the contractor gives the patient a receipt;

(f) for attending and examining (but not otherwise treating) a patient—

(i) at the patient’s request at a police station in connection with possible criminal proceedings against the patient;

(ii) at the request of a commercial, educational or not-for-profit organisation for the purpose of creating a medical report or certificate; or

(iii) for the purpose of creating a medical report required in connection with an actual or potential claim for compensation by the patient;

(g) for treatment consisting of an immunisation for which no remuneration is payable by the Health Board and which is requested in connection with travel abroad;

(h) for prescribing or providing drugs, medicines or appliances (including a collection of such drugs, medicines and appliances in the form of a travel kit) which a patient requires to have in their possession solely in anticipation of the onset of an ailment or occurrence of an injury while they are outside the United Kingdom but for which they are not requiring treatment when the medicine is prescribed;

(i) for a medical examination—

(i) to enable a decision to be made as to whether or not it is inadvisable on medical grounds for a person to wear a seat belt; or

(ii) for the purpose of creating a report—

(aa) relating to a road traffic accident or criminal assault; or

(bb) that offers an opinion as to whether a patient is fit to travel; or

(j) for prescribing or providing drugs or medicines for malaria chemoprophylaxis.

It is a matter for independent GP contractors to decide whether or not they want to carry out this private work and how much to charge for it.

The Scottish Government does not collect or hold this data centrally.

We expect children and young people who need inpatient mental health care to be looked after in age-appropriate specialist facilities. However, there may be occasions when it isn’t possible for a young person to be admitted to a specialist child and adolescent bed – for example, a crisis admission out of hours where there are concerns for the young person’s safety, or where a specialist facility might be a considerable distance from family support which may aid recovery.

When young people need to be admitted to a non-specialist ward, clinicians will work with the young person and their family to make the most appropriate decision regarding the treatment and support that a young person requires.

On occasions where young people are placed within an adult ward this will be monitored and reviewed regularly to ensure that the young person is receiving the most appropriate treatment and care.

The table below contains the requested data concerning the number of children and young people who have received treatment for an eating disorder in each year from 1999-2023, broken down by NHS Board. The latest year in the time range is 2023, which is the most recent year for which data has been finalised.