Chamber and committees

The Care Inspectorate takes account of any national policy change, where it is appropriate to do so, when carrying out its regulatory and inspection function. The forthcoming expansion of the Armed Forces Covenant would therefore be considered if it required an expansion of early learning and childcare.

Scottish Ministers are highly supportive of the aims of the Armed Forces Covenant and the commitment of organisations across Scotland to build enhanced support for the Armed Forces community and foster better integration between the community and the Armed Forces.

Officials have been in contact with MOD on the extension of the Covenant Duty and look forward to receiving more detail from UK Ministers and considering further in due course.

As part of the expansion of funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) to 1140 hours, local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure that there is a funded place available for all eligible children in their area.

Under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004, education authorities are responsible for identifying and meeting the additional support needs of children in ELC settings, which includes children from Armed Forces families.

In line with the National Standard for Early Learning and Childcare Providers we expect local authorities and settings to work together to support to support all children, including those with additional support needs, to access their funded ELC entitlement.

The National Cleft Surgical Service for Scotland (NCSSS) is hosted within NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde and provides surgical, psychological and cleft specialist nursing input for the management of children with Cleft Lip and/or Palate.

Cleft Care Scotland (CCS) is part of this, and is NHS Scotland's nationally commissioned cleft service and provides multidisciplinary assessment, surgical treatment and ongoing support via specialist teams. There are specific dental treatment pathways within this ensuring that people are seen regularly for check-ups and reviews, with this service provided by the Public Dental Service in each Health Board.

Anyone at any age affected by cleft can be referred or re-referred to CCS. People who have had corrective surgery, or are not currently under the care of the CCS, can also receive the full range of NHS treatment under the General Dental Service.

The Scottish Government remains committed to delivering the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant - that serving personnel and their families should face no disadvantage in accessing support and services in comparison to the civilian population as a result of their service.

Government officials have engaged with representatives of service families to understand their experience of living and working in Scotland, including access to childcare. At a local authority level, there has been particular engagement with Moray Council, to understand availability of childcare in the rural area around RAF Lossiemouth, and the impact this has on the ability to attract and retain service personnel.

This year, SG and MOD have participated in a short life working group convened by the local authority, which focuses on the school age childcare needs of all communities across Moray, identifying priorities for growth and development, test of change projects and community engagement. This has provided opportunity for the specific needs of service families to be heard and addressed.

More broadly, local authorities have statutory duties to consult and plan childcare provision locally in order to help them ensure the provision within their area reflects local needs, which would include the particular needs of service families. Scottish Government will be contacting local authorities in due course to set out planned changes to the Armed Forces Covenant and policies which will be impacted, including childcare.

The Scottish Government has not undertaken a risk assessment or evaluation of the liabilities of pharmacist independent prescribers who do not have read/write access to patient records. However, other organisations make clear the clinical and professional expectations required to support all prescribers, including pharmacist independent prescribers, to work safely and effectively.

All qualified pharmacist independent prescribers must adhere to robust policies, competency frameworks and requirements, as set out by Health Boards, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), the pharmacy regulator, and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), the professional leadership body. For every prescribing consultation, pharmacist independent prescribers must use their professional judgement and take into account the person’s best interests to decide whether they have the information they need to prescribe safely.

Disclosure Scotland’s fees are set by secondary legislation and do not provide for offering an expedited service at additional cost. This ensures that all customers receive the same level of service.

Disclosure Scotland’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) is to process 90% of applications within 14 days. For week commencing 6 October, the average processing time for all applications was 7.4 days with 97.46% of applications completed within 14 days.

Disclosure Scotland has historically exceeded its SLA of 90% of applications processed within 14 days. In 2023-2024, 95.3% of applications were completed within 14 days and in 2024-2025, 97.7% within 14 days.

A paid expedited service would not improve response times where applications are delayed due to further information being required from third parties.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

Disclosure Scotland is currently performing back within its service level agreement to process 90% of applications within 14 days.

Improvements have been made to the employer dashboard so that accredited bodies can check the processing status of an application without the need to contact Disclosure Scotland directly.

Disclosure Scotland regularly engages with customers to support them in understanding their rights and responsibilities in relation to disclosure and the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme. To stay up to date on changes at Disclosure Scotland, we encourage customers to sign up to our quarterly newsletter or read it on our website. We also provide workshops to assist organisations in understanding regulated roles, their duty to refer and the practical and legal processes involved in countersigning disclosure applications. Our dedicated Customer Engagement team is also available to provide one to one advice and support to organisations who need it.

In response to user feedback, Disclosure Scotland has improved its regulated roles guidance and developed specific guidance for parent-run groups, sports organisations and health services.

Volunteer Scotland Disclosure Services (VSDS) are funded by the Scottish Government to help voluntary sector organisations process applications and provide advice, guidance and training.

The Scottish Government will set out its approach to winter preparedness for 2025/26 in due course. This will include the publication of the planning document National Planning Priorities and Principles for Surge and Winter Preparedness in Health and Social Care.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

There has never been a provision in law for supervised working while organisations were waiting to obtain a Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme record. Until 1 April 2025, the PVG scheme was not a legal requirement therefore organisations could choose to have people in regulated work without seeing PVG scheme membership.

In forecasting volumes resultant from the legal requirement to be in the PVG scheme if carrying out a regulated role, Disclosure Scotland expected 50,000 additional applications against normal levels and diverted 10 full-time equivalent staff from other areas of the business to help manage delivering disclosure processing and support services. Planning included that, from 1 April onwards, application volumes and resources were monitored daily through checkpoint meetings to enable timely decision-making.

Within normal resource, Disclosure Scotland has historically exceeded its Service Level Agreement (SLA) of 90% of applications processed within 14 days. In 2023-24, 95.3% of applications were completed within 14 days and in 2024-25, 97.7% within 14 days.

Disclosure Scotland is currently performing within its SLA to process 90% of applications within 14 days.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows: