Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-38780

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W- 38271 by Alasdair Allan on 12 June 2025, and in light of the commitment in its 2025-26 Programme for Government to simplify the Home Energy Scotland application process, when it expects the detailed analysis of average application and claim processing timescales relating to the Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan Scheme to be published, and whether it plans to set a target date for publication of such analysis.

Question reference: S6W-38721

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 16 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 14 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-32419 by Fiona Hyslop on 17 December 2024, when it plans to publish an updated Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan.

Question reference: S6W-38659

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 26 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Rural Housing Fund has received any expressions of interest relating to projects in Fife, and, if so, how many.

Question reference: S6W-38661

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 26 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many houses have been built or renovated through the (a) Rural and (b) Islands Housing Fund in each year of its operation.

Question reference: S6W-38660

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 26 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been (a) allocated to and (b) spent by the (i) Rural and (ii) Islands Housing Fund in each year of its operation.

Question reference: S6W-38271

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 12 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what performance reporting information it holds regarding the Home Energy Scotland service, specifically in relation to the transparency and accessibility of the customer journey for individual applications for grants and loans, and what opportunities are available for the public to review or track any such journeys.

The application, claim and repayment processes for the Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grant and Loan Scheme are currently administered by Energy Saving Trust (EST) via a competitively tendered contract. EST report their performance to the Scottish Government monthly against set Key Performance Indicators, which is monitored closely.

The Scottish Government is working to collate new data which will provide more detailed analysis of average application and claim processing timescales to assess the impact of recent and future streamlining improvements. This will be published in the longer term once it has been assured for accuracy.

Applicants to the scheme are able to track their journey and progress at any point through the application and claims portal.

Question reference: S6W-38279

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 11 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many applications for Carer Support Payment that were completed in each month since it was launched took (a) 51 to 60, (b) 61 to 70, (c) 71 to 80, (d) 81 to 90, (e) 91 to 100, (f) 101 to 110, (g) 111 to 120 and (h) 121 or more working days to process, expressed as a (i) total number and (ii) percentage.

Social Security Scotland routinely publishes information on application processing times for Carer Support Payment as part of official statistics releases.

The latest statistics covering the period to 31 March 2025 were published on Tuesday 13 May and can be found at https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications/statistics.

Supplementary analysis, based on the latest published statistics, is provided in the following tables.

Table 1 - The number of applications processed for Carer Support Payment by financial year and processing time .

Processing time	Total	Financial year 2023-2024	Financial year 2024-2025
Total applications processed	10,375	430	9,945
Applications processed in 41-50 working days	800	35	765
Applications processed in 51-60 working days	575	10	565
Applications processed in 61-70 working days	380	5	375
Applications processed in 71-80 working days	240	5	240
Applications processed in 81-90 working days	140	0	140
Applications processed in 91-100 working days	80	0	80
Applications processed in 101-110 working days	55	0	55
Applications processed in 111-120 working days	35	0	35
Applications processed in 121 or more working days	45	0	45

Table 2 - The percentage of applications processed for Carer Support Payment by financial year and processing time.

Processing time	Total	Financial year 2023-2024	Financial year 2024-2025
Total applications processed	10,375	430	9,945
Applications processed in 41-50 working days	8%	8%	8%
Applications processed in 51-60 working days	6%	2%	6%
Applications processed in 61-70 working days	4%	1%	4%
Applications processed in 71-80 working days	2%	1%	2%
Applications processed in 81-90 working days	1%	0%	1%
Applications processed in 91-100 working days	1%	0%	1%
Applications processed in 101-110 working days	1%	0%	1%
Applications processed in 111-120 working days	0%	0%	0%
Applications processed in 121 or more working days	0%	0%	0%

Question reference: S6W-38280

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 11 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many applications for Carer Support Payment that were completed in each month since it was launched took (a) between six and nine months and (b) nine months or more to process, expressed as a (i) total number and (ii) percentage.

Social Security Scotland routinely publishes information on application processing times for Carer Support Payment as part of official statistics releases.

The latest statistics covering the period to 31 March 2025 were published on Tuesday 13 May and can be found at https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications/statistics. It is important to note that, following a staggered pilot launch, Carer Support Payment was rolled out nationally on 4 November 2024.

Supplementary analysis, based on the latest published statistics, is provided in the following tables.

Table 1: The number of applications processed for Carer Support Payment by financial year and processing time.

Processing time	Total	Financial year 2023-2024	Financial year 2024-2025
Total applications processed	10,375	430	9,945
Applications processed in 121-180 working days	40	0	40
Applications processed in 180 or more working days	5	0	5

Table 2: The percentage of applications processed for Carer Support Payment by financial year and processing time.

Processing time	Total	Financial year 2023-2024	Financial year 2024-2025
Total applications processed	10,375	430	9,945
Applications processed in 121-180 working days	0%	0%	0%
Applications processed in 180 or more working days	0%	0%	0%

Question reference: S6W-37922

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 10 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many current vacancies there are in local authority planning services.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of vacancies in local authority planning services. The resourcing and staffing of planning services is a matter for individual local authorities.

Recognising the financial and capacity pressures on the planning system, the National Planning Hub is offering support to authorities including capacity and access to expertise to help them determine applications for renewable energy and housing projects.

Question reference: S6W-37920

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 4 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the current average time taken for a decision to be made on planning applications is.

The average time taken to determine planning applications not subject to processing agreements for the first two quarters of 2024-25 in Scotland was as follows:

• for local developments: 11.1 weeks in Q1 and 11.9 weeks in Q2; and

• for major developments: 35.5 weeks in Q1 and 35.2 weeks in Q2.

Statistics for the average length of time to determine planning applications subject to processing agreements are not held centrally. For those applications, statistics are published on the number and percentage of decisions meeting the timescales agreed through processing agreements.

The average time taken to determine planning applications for Q1 and Q2 of
2024-25 for each local authority can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/planning-application-statistics-2024-25-april-2024-september-2024/.

The planning application statistics for Q3 and Q4 of 2024-25 and the annual statistics are not yet published. These will be available on the Scottish Government website at: https://www.gov.scot/collections/planning-statistics/.