Chamber and committees

We do not hold the specific information requested. However, a 2018 report suggested that, in financial year 2013-14, the total economic cost associated with autistic adults in Scotland was £2.1 billion. Of this, £884 million, or 41.6%, was attributed to productivity loss, a metric which could be interpreted as representing underemployment and/or unemployment.

Scotland’s Census 2022 provides data on the number of people aged 16-64 who were unemployed in 2022, and reported having ‘one or more learning disability, learning difficulty or developmental disorder’. This includes autistic adults, but is not specific to them.

In 2016, we committed to halving the Disability Employment Gap. Our 2018 publication, A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: Employment Action Plan, outlined the initial steps towards achieving this goal by 2038. Several of these actions have since been incorporated into our refreshed Fair Work Action Plan: Becoming a Fair Work Nation by 2025, published in December 2022. This refreshed plan aims to improve employment opportunities for individuals facing a structural barriers to the labour market, with input from disabled people and their representative organisations.

All local authorities have used their powers under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 to adjust non-domestic rates.

Data is available on the share of SME employers that report a profit. These estimates, sourced from the Small Business Survey, are shown in Table 1. In 2019, 78% of SME employers in Scotland reported generating a profit, this fell to 70% in 2020, with the latest data for 2023 putting the share back at 78%.

Table 1: Taking into account all sources of income in the last financial year, did you generate a profit or surplus? – SME Employers - Scotland

The original policy intent of the powers under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 was to support local decision making around non-domestic rates reliefs. Local authorities are independent bodies, and it is for local authorities themselves to consider whether to use those powers. However, the Scottish Government includes information on these powers in its non-domestic rates relief guidance issued to local authorities annually, and routinely works with councils and the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation to ensure those powers are clearly understood.

Under Part 11 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, local authorities have very broad powers to reduce or remit any non-domestic rates bill for a property in their area. This part of the Act came into force on 31 October 2015.

Before using these powers, the local authority must take into consideration the council’s expenditure and income, as well as the interests of council tax payers. The local authority must also ensure that any use of the powers complies with obligations including those under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 and other international commitments.

In regards to part A of the question, there is no definitive list of closed care homes. The Care Inspectorate publish information relating to ‘Service Cancellations and Registrations’ in their quarterly statistical reports. The most recent version was published on 9 May 2025, which can be accessed via the following link:

https://www.careinspectorate.com/index.php/publications-statistics/182-statistics-and-data/statistics/quarterly-statistical-reports

This includes “care home services for older people, children & young people, mental health, alcohol & drugs misuse, learning disabilities and respite services.” The number of services that have been cancelled are available in the cancelled services column in the publication table.

It is important to note that in some cases the services listed as cancelled may have been re-registered under a different business name and care service number.

This data does not provide a breakdown to local authority or regional level, this is not available.

As regards part B of the question, no data is available on the number of residents affected by cancelled services. For more information we would suggest contacting Health and Social Care Partnerships to request this data for each area.

Data on full-time equivalent (FTE) secondary teachers by main and other subject taught is available in the Teacher Census Supplementary Statistics, here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/

Information is not held on the subjects offered by individual schools as schools may be able to offer a subject even if they do not have a teacher for that subject in the staff census, for example through school-school or school-college partnerships.

Using the data published from the ‘Annual Report on Procurement Activity in Scotland’ the following table provides spend from the last available five years, broken down by supplier location and size. These figures are derived from the Scottish Procurement Information Hub - Scottish Government’s spend analytics shared service.

Public Procurement Spend : Supplier Location and Supplier Size Spend

Transport Scotland provides reimbursement to bus operators in Scotland for providing free bus travel to those eligible through the National Concessionary Travel Schemes (NCTS). Reimbursement is paid to operators at a level which aims to ensure they are left financially no better and no worse off as a result of their participation in the schemes, and is therefore not considered as a subsidy payment.

Details of total operator revenue over the past 10 years, including passenger revenue and concessionary travel reimbursement can be found in Scottish Transport Statistics tables 2.8 and 2.9, available at: Chapter 2 - Bus and Coach travel | Transport Scotland

The Scottish Government publish official workforce statistics on a quarterly basis. The figures shown below are for December 2016. The latest data is available at Scottish Government workforce information - gov.scot.

The data presented details workforce by contractual location – and includes staff home location for those on a home working contract. This is in line with the data submitted on a quarterly basis to the cabinet office for the Quarterly location survey of civil service staff.

The following table provides details of the working location of directly employed Scottish Government staff, split by Local authority, Full time/Part time working pattern and Permanent/Temporary status.

Scottish Government - Directly employed workforce headcount, December 2016