Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government keeps emerging national and international evidence under review, including work from bodies such as UNESCO and the OECD, to understand how digital tools can support learning, wellbeing and positive educational outcomes. This research highlights both the opportunities offered by well-designed digital approaches and the importance of ensuring device use is purposeful and balanced. The Scottish Government will continue to consider international research and good practice.

The Scottish Government has committed to respond directly to the concerns of rural and island communities which includes the review and refreshment of existing financial incentives available to the sector, such as Golden Hello payments, to better support patient access in rural and island areas. This work is currently underway and we hope to have revised arrangements in place later in this financial year.

Owners of tenement properties have a shared responsibility to maintain the tenement. The Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 introduced powers for local authorities to pay a missing share on behalf of an owner who is unwilling or unable to contribute to costs of common works. From October 2018, these powers were extended to registered social housing.

However, we know that tenement properties with multiple owners often still struggle to organise and finance shared repairs, maintenance and enhancement works.

This Government has committed to reform the Tenement (Scotland) Act 2004 and Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011 by the end of this parliament, to better meet the needs of relevant owners and tenants to enable repairs, maintenance and enhancement of such properties, and improve delivery of services by factoring organisations, including considering costs, where they manage properties.

We are currently considering a report from the Scottish Law Commission on potential new measures and, should ministers consider that change is necessary to existing tenement law, primary legislation will be required to enable the introduction of new measures.

The Scottish Government has been working closely with Heath Boards to ensure a wide range of actions are in place to reduce waiting lists for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). This includes increasing funding over recent years to expand service capacity and provide over 320 additional staff, increasing capacity for cases by over 10,000. We are also continuing to support NHS Boards to redesign their services to improve efficiency and access.

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of CAMHS teams across Scotland, we have now met the waiting times standard of Boards seeing 90% of those referred within 18 weeks for over a year and one in two children and young people referred to CAMHS start treatment within 5 weeks. The majority of Health Boards have now eliminated their longest waits of over a year and we are continuing to work with Boards to improve that further.

The Government is also investing in early intervention and community-based supports, such as school counselling and third-sector services, to support children and young people and their families to address mental health issues earlier in order to reduce demand for specialist CAMHS.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on registration and participation centrally. Public Services Delivery Scotland publishes information on patient registration and participation for NHS Boards, including NHS Dumfries and Galloway: NHS dental data monitoring report.

Ministers are in the very early stages of considering how to take forward this commitment and will commence engagement in due course.

Local authorities hold statutory responsibility for managing and maintaining their school estate, and we expect them to provide safe environments for all school users.

The Scottish Government recognises the pressures that many school staff are currently facing in relation to behaviour. Whilst the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research 2023 reported behaviour is generally good overall, it also reported increases in a range of disruptive and other negative behaviours in school.

In response, the Scottish Government and COSLA published a joint action plan on relationships and behaviour in schools in August 2024, setting out actions to support positive behaviour and reduce violence in schools. We have made significant progress on the delivery of these commitments and continue to do so. We are also committed to go further, and have committed to legislating to ban mobile phones in classrooms, as part of a wider and holistic approach to improving behaviour, reducing disruption and supporting positive learning environments for both pupils and staff.

The Scottish Government recognises the challenges faced for patients accessing NHS dentistry in rural and island areas, which is why we have provided an additional £437k of recurring funding from 2025-26 to support access to dental services in NHS Dumfries and Galloway.

Responsibility for decisions about the delivery of education, including the use of digital approaches in classrooms and early years settings, rests with local authorities, who are best placed to assess the impact of local practice in light of the needs of their learners and communities. The Scottish Government recognises that the educational impact of digital device use cannot be judged on a simple assumption that more or less device use will in itself lead to better or worse outcomes. Evidence from international bodies, including the OECD and UNESCO, indicates that any benefit depends on a range of factors, including the quality of teaching, the nature of the learning activity, and how well digital tools are used to support pedagogy. Digital technology is therefore best understood as something that can enhance effective teaching practice where it is used purposefully and appropriately, rather than as a determinant of educational impact in its own right.

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent expert advisory group, advises all four UK nations on population health screening programmes. Officials from the governments of all four nations, including the Scottish Government, attend all meetings of the UK NSC as observers, and regular meetings are held between the four UK nations to discuss the work of the Committee.

The Chief Medical Officer for Scotland has been sighted on the evidence which has formed the basis of the recent UK NSC recommendation on prostate cancer screening. Additionally, Scotland is represented on the UK NSC by the Scottish Director of Screening, who liaises regularly with Scottish Government officials.