Chamber and committees

This year we have increased the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) budget to £1.64 billion, an increase of £90 million compared to the published 2024-25 budget, to support police capacity and capability. It is for the Chief Constable, under the scrutiny of the SPA, to allocate resources to meet her priorities, as outlined in the Police Scotland three year plan.

The Scottish Government is working closely with the SPA and Police Scotland to understand their 2026-27 budget requirements. The 2026-27 Scottish Budget will be published on 13 January 2026.

Economic growth is a priority for this Government. We will continue supporting businesses through transformative national initiatives like the Scottish National Investment Bank and Techscaler.

We are committed to helping Inverclyde’s economy to thrive. Through the Glasgow City Region Deal, we have committed over £18m to projects in Inverclyde, including Inchgreen Marine Park, which aims to host new business and employment opportunities in the area.

Inverclyde has also benefited from significant investment over and above the City Deal, notably through Regeneration projects – the Place Based Investment Programme, the Regeneration Capital Grant Fund, the Vacant and Derelict Land Investment Programme, the Investing in Communities Fund and the Town Centre Fund.

Scottish Enterprise maintains close relationships with major employers already in Inverclyde through their account management service. This helps retain and grow jobs locally and offers spillover benefits to the regional and national economy through increased supply chain engagement.

We continue to support the revitalisation of town centres through the Town Centre First Principle and delivery of the Town Centre Action Plan. National Planning Framework 4 further embeds this approach by recognising town centres as national assets, and promotes the reuse of empty buildings and town centre living to boost local economic activity.

We also support town centre regeneration through our regeneration capital investment programmes, as well as our support for Scotland’s Towns Partnership, Business Improvement Districts and the Scotland Loves Local programme.

Since 2014 Inverclyde Council has received over £13m regeneration capital investment from the Scottish Government, which has supported the transformation of empty properties into commercial, residential and enterprising activity. Examples include enhancement work in Port Glasgow’s Lower Town Quarter and improvements to Customhouse Square in Greenock.

We are also supporting local authorities to address vacant retail spaces in our high streets and town centres through a range of measures, using the levers available to us. This includes our competitive non-domestic rates regime, and supporting the re-use or repurposing of vacant units through the Fresh Start Relief and Business Growth Accelerator Relief.

Decisions on the deployment of police officers are a matter for the Chief Constable. As of 30 September 2025, K Division, which covers Renfrewshire and Inverclyde had 618 officers. This is 18 more than the previous quarter, and 17 more than the same point last year. A summary of the relevant statistics is shown in the following table.

The following table shows how many drug- related and alcohol-related hospital stays were recorded in Inverclyde in each of the last five years.

Number of drug-related and alcohol-related hospital stays, Inverclyde

This year NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is being supported with an initial resource budget of £3,123.5 million, along with capital allocations of £41.26 million for maintaining the NHS estate and replacing and upgrading equipment.

Boards are expected to make the best use of these resources, to ensure that patients continue to receive a high standard of care.

In addition, we are supportive of NHS GG&C developing a design for the façade of Inverclyde Royal Hospital and Scottish Government will make a decision on funding when a design is complete and full costs are known.

We are currently working with all NHS Health Boards to develop a whole system NHS infrastructure plan to inform long-term investment priorities across Scotland – this includes NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

This Scottish Government does not hold this information. The member may wish to contact the Health Board directly who may be able to help.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes statistics on the number of waits for patients on waiting lists for planned care in the Stage of Treatment (SoT) Waiting Times publication. Patients may appear more than once if they are waiting for multiple appointments or admissions, so the statistics shown do not reflect the actual number of individuals involved. Further information about SoT Waiting Times can be found on the PHS website.

Table 1 presents the number of ongoing waits at 31 October 2025. The figures reflect waits for residents within the Inverclyde council area awaiting a new outpatient appointment or an inpatient/day case admission in dentistry-related specialties at any hospital in Scotland.

More detailed information on the treatment or procedure(s) that is planned or undertaken for a patient will be held locally by NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde or the health board of treatment responsible for the patient’s wait.

Table 1: Number of ongoing waits for a new outpatient appointment or inpatient or day case admission at 31 October 2025, Inverclyde council area

The Scottish Government does not hold information for what the “average ambulance response time is in Inverclyde”.

However, the median response time in Greater Glasgow and Clyde to Purple coded incidents was 07:48 minutes (08:06 nationally) and Red coded incidents was 09:49 minutes (09:57 nationally).

The 2025-26 Budget has allocated nearly £2.2 billion for social care and integration, representing an increase of over £1.2 billion since 2021-22. This goes almost £350 million beyond the Scottish Government’s original commitment to increase social care funding by 25% (£840 million) over the lifetime of the Parliament.

We have a clear plan to reduce delayed discharge and are investing more than £220 million to tackle waiting list backlogs, improve capacity and remove blockages that are keeping some patients in hospital longer than they need to be. This includes an initial allocation of over £20m to support Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS’s whole system plan to improve patient flow.

Alongside the record investment committed, we are also working with local system leaders to support their health and social care improvement reforms – rebalancing care towards community, rehabilitation and prevention based services like Hospital at Home that help improve patient outcomes and prevent further hospital care.