- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Thursday, 25 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 9 October 2025
To ask the Scottish Government when it will bring forward legislative instruments to amend Parole Board rules, following the passing of section 29H of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill.
Answer
The Government are taking forward work on the legislative requirements necessary to make changes to the Parole Board Rules following the passing of the Victims Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. The Government intend to lay the required instruments in early 2026, with a view to changes from section 29H coming into force in spring 2026.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Thursday, 25 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 9 October 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it (a) has had and (b) plans to have with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service regarding a review of processes and procedures, following the passing of section 29ZB in the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill.
Answer
Following Royal Assent, the Scottish Government will engage with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, as well as other stakeholders, in respect of implementation of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill, including the provisions in section 29ZB.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Thursday, 25 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 9 October 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it (a) has had and (b) plans to have with victim support organisations regarding the effect and promotion of the regulations relating to exclusion zone conditions, as set out in section 29J of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill.
Answer
I, with officials, recently met with victims who have an interest in the regulations and changes that will be made to exclusions zones in licence conditions. The Government will also, and shortly, engage further with Victim Support Scotland, and other stakeholders to promote and encourage views on how best to develop these changes into operational practice.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Thursday, 25 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 9 October 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had or plans to hold with the Parole Board on the plans to provide victims with a summary of reasons behind its decisions, as set out in section 29GD of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill.
Answer
The Government have held discussions with the Parole Board for Scotland (PBS) on the changes set out in section 29GD of the Bill. The Government will continue to engage with PBS, and other stakeholders, over the coming months to jointly develop robust operational plans to deliver upon this commitment.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Thursday, 25 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 9 October 2025
To ask the Scottish Government when it will bring forward legislative instruments to amend Parole Board rules, following the passing of section 29I of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill.
Answer
The Government are taking forward work on the legislative requirements necessary to make changes to the Parole Board Rules, following the passing of the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. The Government intend to lay the required instruments in early 2026 with a view to the changes from section 29I coming into force in spring 2026.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 28 October 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the suggestion in the paper, Scotland’s Future High Streets The Scottish Retail Consortium’s Manifesto for Town and City Centres, that a directly elected Provost should be established for Glasgow to help drive economic growth in the city.
Answer
Answer expected on 28 October 2025
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 28 October 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the suggestion in the paper, Scotland’s Future High Streets The Scottish Retail Consortium’s Manifesto for Town and City Centres, that a directly elected Police and Crime Commissioner be elected to replace the Scottish Police Authority.
Answer
Answer expected on 28 October 2025
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi McAllan on 10 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the average waiting time for households applying to the Warmer Homes Scotland Scheme to move from initial application to installation, broken down by local authority area in each year since 2018.
Answer
The Warmer Homes Scotland scheme has a key performance indicator (KPI) recording the percentage of customer journeys, from referral by the Energy Saving Trust to completion of installation for full jobs, completed within 65 working days.
We do not have analysis of average customer journey times by region but instead use this KPI, to record the numbers of jobs completed within the specified target time. This KPI is performance based and linked to payment. A reduction in the KPI performance will automatically result in a reduced payment to Warmworks thereby continually incentivising a consistent performance standard.
Warmworks submit a monthly performance report and scorecard, detailing delivery volumes and performance against KPIs and service levels across six regions. One key target is for 95% of installations to be completed within the 65-day timeframe. While performance is tracked regionally, data is not broken down by individual local authorities but a table showing which local authorities are represented by each area is included in this response.
It is important to note that performance in 2020-21 and 2021-22 was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. More recently, the 2023-24 and 2024/25 periods have seen extended waiting times due to a high volume of referrals following the launch of the new WHS2 scheme in October 2023. This surge in demand and the resulting delays were anticipated and communicated to customers in advance.
The tables below show Warmworks' performance for the referral to completion (RTC) KPI from April 2017-18 to 2025-26 (to end of July 2025), The dates requested cover both Warmer Homes Scotland phase 1 (WHS1) and 2 (WHS 2) and were reported on separately for the period of 2023-24.
The following table outlines which Local Authorities map to each KPI region:
| |
| North Ayrshire (excluding islands) East Ayrshire South Ayrshire Dumfries and Galloway |
| Fife Edinburgh Midlothian East Lothian West Lothian Scottish Borders |
| Glasgow Renfrewshire East Renfrewshire Inverclyde East Dunbartonshire West Dunbartonshire Clackmannanshire North Lanarkshire South Lanarkshire Stirling Falkirk |
| Moray Aberdeen City Aberdeenshire Perth and Kinross Angus Dundee City |
| Argyll and Bute (excluding islands) Highland (excluding islands) |
| Eilean Siar (Western Isles) Shetland Islands Orkney Islands (and all other islands: Skye, Arran, Bute etc) |
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 9 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides for schemes that assist people leaving prison to reintegrate into the community, and how much funding it has allocated to any such programmes in each of the last five financial years.
Answer
The Scottish Government currently provides funding to Upside, the national voluntary throughcare service. Upside launched on 1 April 2025, replacing the previous Public Social Partnerships ‘New Routes’ and ‘Shine’, which had been in place for 12 years and 10 years respectively prior to Upside launching. Upside supports men and women leaving a period of remand or a short-term prison sentence (less than 4 years) without statutory supervision requirements. It is a partnership of third sector organisations, which provides person-centered support including help to access sustainable housing, healthcare, social security and employment opportunities.
The Scottish Government also provides funding to Justice Social Work, through payments to Local Authorities, to deliver both statutory and voluntary throughcare. Local Authorities have autonomy to direct this funding to meet statutory justice services and local priorities which are aimed at reducing reoffending. This funding covers long term prisoners, short term prisoners released on a statutory supervision order, and community payback orders.
Table 1 details the amount of funding which has been provided to each programme to support people leaving prison to reintegrate into the community in each of the last five financial years.
Table 1: Funding for throughcare services 2021-22 to 2025-26. To note, all figures in the table have been rounded off.
Programme/Organisation | Financial Year |
2021-2022 | 2022-2023 | 2023-2024 | 2024-2025 | 2025-2026 |
Upside | - | - | - | £0.30m* | £5.3m |
Shine PSP | £1.43m | £1.43m | £1.46m | £1.46m | - |
Moving On PSP | £0.50m | £0.50m | £0.50m | - | - |
New Routes PSP | £1.76m | £1.76m | £1.8m | £1.9m** £0.060m*** | - |
Justice Social Work**** | £120.5m | £123.4m | £123.3m | £136.4m | £141.8m |
*Start-up costs for Upside
**New Routes funding increased due to the wind down of Moving On, and New Routes taking on clients from Moving On who still required support.
***Additional funding to support with the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Act 2025 at the end of 2024-2025 FY
****The funding was distributed to Local Authorities through an agreed funding distribution model (Justice Social Work funding formula).
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Friday, 15 August 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 9 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-36360 by Fiona Hyslop on 6 June 2025, what proportion of its active travel budget was allocated to each partner organisation in each of the last three financial years, and whether it can provide an update on what proportion of the active travel budget was spent in 2024-25, based on consolidated expenditure.
Answer
The spend achieved on the Sustainable and Active Travel budget for 2024-25 was £147,700,000. This equates to 85% of the value allocated for investment at the start of the 2024-25 financial year.
The Scottish Government is transparent on all investments that are made to delivery Partners. On an annual basis this information is publish via the Transport Scotland section 70 returns, these are available for all to view on the Transport Scotland Website. For the years mentioned in question S6W-36360 (2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24), the funding distributed from the Sustainable and Active Travel budget to delivery partners has been placed with SPICE under bib number 66035.
