Chamber and committees

There is an administration fee of £650 charged to all buyers. This is collected after the Award Letter has been issued and no later than three weeks before the expected settlement date. If the transaction falls after payment of the fee, the fee is to be refunded to the buyer in full.

Any other costs incurred during the home buying process are not set by the Scottish Government.

Since the integration of health and social care, overall responsibility for the planning and delivery of adaptations, and for developing services to improve outcomes for people who require adaptations, lies with Integration Joint Boards through powers and budgets delegated from Local Authorities.

Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) are responsible for assessing the needs of their tenants including older tenants and disabled tenants, and RSLs will submit funding requests accordingly. The Scottish Government does not independently assess the funding requirements of individual RSLs. Instead, it seeks to distribute available funding in a fair and equitable manner across RSLs, with the aim of ensuring tenants can access necessary adaptations as promptly as possible.

As of 5 August 2026:

(i) 100% of the RSL adaptations budget has been committed

(ii) £1.358m of the RSL adaptations budget has been spent

(iii) 0% of the RSL adaptations budget remains unallocated

The Scottish Government remains committed to improving audiology services across Scotland and we continue to work closely with stakeholders to determine how best to move the provision of audiology care into community settings.

On 27 August 2026, I wrote to the Health, Care and Sport Committee to provide an update on my meeting with NHS Heads of Service, community audiology providers and other key stakeholders as part of this government’s 100 days prospectus. This meeting centred on a draft proposal for development of a Target Operating Model for audiology, and my letter sets out more detail on the Scottish Government’s immediate priorities for audiology services. It can be read in full here: 20260827 Minister for Community Care to Convener | Scottish Parliament Website

As this work is at an early stage and discussions with stakeholders are ongoing, a more detailed delivery plan will follow in due course.

The information requested on audiology waiting times is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Information on waiting times within individual NHS Health Board areas is held by, and is therefore a matter for, the respective NHS Health Boards.

The Scottish Government remains committed to improving audiology services across Scotland and we continue to work closely with partners to determine how best to move the provision of audiology care into community settings. On 27 August 2026, I wrote to the Health, Care and Sport Committee to provide an update on my meeting with NHS Heads of Service, community audiology providers and other key stakeholders as part of this government’s 100 days prospectus. This meeting centred on a draft proposal for development of a Target Operating Model for audiology, and my letter sets out more detail on the Scottish Government’s immediate priorities for audiology services. It can be read in full here: 20260827 Minister for Community Care to Convener | Scottish Parliament Website

The information requested on the number of NHS Boards that currently provide audiology services through community providers is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Audiology services are operated by NHS Health Boards, which hold information on their own service delivery arrangements.

For 2026-27, the Scottish Government has allocated an additional £1 million in funding for community audiology policy, increasing total funding to £1.2 million. This additional funding underlines our commitment to support community audiology policy development and the Service Renewal Framework vision to shift the balance of care to the community. This funding will also continue to fund the “Near You” service run by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID). The service is operating in five Scottish health board areas and provides hearing checks and after-care support to hearing aid users, including maintenance, battery replacement, sign-posting and peer support, and we have signalled our intention to go further in our manifesto.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the lives of people in Scotland in its first 100 days. I committed to opening the First Homes Fund during a parliamentary statement on 27 May and the Fund itself launched within 4 weeks on 24 June. This is a demand led fund where the criteria is first time buyers who have not previously owned a residential property and have a mortgage in principle. It is a scheme designed to support deposit top ups for first time buyers who are able to sustain a mortgage. All applicants are supported by the scheme administering agents who process applications through to settlement. We will publish First Homes Fund data in due course.

Workforce planning is undertaken collaboratively with NHS boards and relevant stakeholders, and officials continue to assess workforce capacity, recruitment and training requirements to ensure services can meet demand.

While no formal assessment has been made of the number of hearing care professionals required to reduce waiting lists, the Scottish Government remains committed to supporting the healthcare science workforce and has set out strategic direction for the profession, focused on education, workforce development, and the quality and safety of services. This is further supported by work being taken forward by Public Services Delivery Scotland, focused on mapping the skills and competencies required across healthcare science specialisms to inform future workforce planning.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of ensuring audiology services have sufficient workforce capacity required to meet service demand, both now and into the future. We continue to work closely with NHS boards and other partners to improve audiology services across Scotland and determine how best to move the provision of audiology care into community settings, aligned to strategic ambitions. On 27 August 2026, I wrote to the Health, Care and Sport Committee to provide an update on my meeting with NHS Heads of Service, community audiology providers and other key stakeholders as part of this government’s 100 days prospectus. This meeting centred on a draft proposal for development of a Target Operating Model for audiology, and my letter sets out more detail on the Scottish Government’s immediate priorities for audiology services. It can be read in full here: 20260827 Minister for Community Care to Convener | Scottish Parliament Website

The Scottish Government remains committed to improving audiology services across Scotland and we continue to work closely with partners to determine how best to move the provision of audiology care into community settings.

On 27 August 2026, I wrote to the Health, Care and Sport Committee to provide an update on my meeting with NHS Heads of Service, community audiology providers and other key stakeholders as part of this government’s 100 days prospectus. This meeting centred on a draft proposal for development of a Target Operating Model for audiology, and my letter sets out more detail on the Scottish Government’s immediate priorities for audiology services. It can be read in full here:

20260827 Minister for Community Care to Convener | Scottish Parliament Website

As this work is at an early stage and discussions with stakeholders are ongoing, a timetable for implementation will follow in due course.

The Scottish Government has protected the Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) Adaptations Programme budget, maintaining this at £20.9 million for 2026-27. This reflects our ongoing commitment to support social landlords to deliver necessary adaptations for older tenants and disabled tenants to ensure they can live safely and independently in their own home for as long as they choose to do so.

Demand for this programme is high, due to the increased need for adaptations to support people to live safely and independently at home, maintaining the significant increase to this budget for a second year reflects this.

All funding available to the Scottish Government is allocated through the annual budget process. It is not possible to attribute a specific funding source to a particular budget line.