Chamber and committees

We intend to report annually on the progress of the Service Renewal Framework (SRF). Implementation is well under way to deliver the stated actions in the SRF, with a particular focus on the Year One actions published.

With regard to resourcing, the SRF is designed to make better use of the resources we already have — not to rely on new funding. It is about doing things differently, not doing more with less. It is a ten-year plan to make health and care services more sustainable, effective, and person-centred.

By aligning efforts and promoting collaboration, the SRF will support partners to get the most value from the totality of public investment. As financial sustainability is key to the SRF, financial implications will be considered in parallel with the refinement of actions, including understanding the investment required and development of cost/benefits calculations.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40457 on 30 September 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

The Policy Memorandum for the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill highlights concentrated land ownership and the associated lack of supply of land can lead to many important social, economic or environmental objectives being more difficult to achieve. The Memorandum highlights Scottish Land Commission research into concentrated landownership in Scotland which has helped inform a number of the ambitious proposals the Bill.

The Government is committed to driving forward land reform and increasing diversity of land ownership in a way that is fair, proportionate and within the terms of the current devolution settlement.

Public bodies, including local authorities, are expected to comply with all relevant procurement legislative requirements. Public bodies are responsible for deciding their actions in individual cases.

In addition to following organisation-specific guidance, the Scottish Procurement Policy Handbook provides guidance on the rules and policies that apply to the procurement activities of public bodies in Scotland. Additional and more specific guidance and e-learning is available to public bodies in various forms such as via the Procurement Journey website, Sustainable Procurement Tools and various Scottish Procurement Policy Notes.

The Scottish Government reviews its guidance on an ongoing basis to ensure necessary and helpful updates are made as appropriate.

Local authorities are autonomous corporate bodies, accountable to their electorates, and are responsible for managing their own procurement processes in line with statutory duties and national procurement legislation.

The Scottish Government does not independently review local authorities. The Accounts Commission and Audit Scotland provide independent scrutiny of local government performance. These bodies can consider concerns raised by the public or elected members and use this information to inform their audit work. Parties which have suffered, or risk suffering, loss as a result of an alleged failure to comply with the procurement legislation also have the option of bringing action under that legislation in the courts.

There are a variety of targeted capability and improvement programmes at national and sectoral level to review, support and underpin local performance against agreed national standards and policy aspirations, helping to strengthen the systems, skills and processes that support audit and governance.

Local authorities are autonomous corporate bodies, accountable to their electorates, and they are responsible for managing their own procurement processes in line with statutory duties and national procurement regulations. As such, I am not aware of any such discussions.

The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 provide for parties which have suffered, or risk suffering, loss as a result of an alleged failure to comply with any duty in those regulations to bring action under that legislation in the courts.

The Scottish Government is not responsible for ensuring local authorities’ compliance with legal obligations.

Local authorities are entirely separate entities from the Scottish Government and it is the responsibility of each local authority to manage its day-to-day business, including meeting statutory obligations in relation to procurement processes.

The rules public bodies, including local authorities, must comply with in relation to procurement in Scotland are set out in the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, the Procurement (Scotland) Regulations 2016, the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, the Utilities Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2016 and the Concession Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2016. Parties which have suffered, or risk suffering, loss as a result of an alleged failure to comply with the procurement legislation may bring action under that legislation in the courts.

The Post-School Education and Skills Reform Programme includes work to simplify the funding body landscape. Subject to approval by the Scottish Parliament, the Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill allows responsibility for securing and funding all apprenticeships to be consolidated at the Scottish Funding Council. Responsibility for funding further education student support is moving from the Scottish Funding Council to the Student Awards Agency Scotland administratively. These changes simplify roles and responsibilities, but nobody is being merged or closed. These changes will happen over financial year 2026-27.

The Scottish Government responded to the Stage 1 Report on the Bill, from the Education, Children and Young People Committee, on 19 September 2025. This included an update on the costs and savings for the Bill in Annex A of the Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill - response to Stage 1 Report. Minister for Higher and Further Education; and Minister for Veterans

Furthermore, the Education Reform programme is making good progress in improving the landscape of national education bodies. The passing of the Education (Scotland) Act 2025 provides a platform for the establishment of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) and for Qualifications Scotland to replace the Scottish Qualifications Authority. The programme is ensuring that these are both more focused on their role in improvement for learners and able to function as efficiently as possible. This has included, for example, models which support increased use of shared services. Alongside this we are also working to ensure that a refocused Education Scotland is streamlined and focussed on curriculum improvement.

The Scottish Government is aware of the recently published paper which investigates patterns and trends in cetacean strandings across Scotland since 1992.

While the paper reports increasing strandings rates across species groups, it also acknowledges that strandings do not always represent an increase in mortality in a population; they can also reflect either an increase in abundance, or periodic movements of individuals into an area. Furthermore, the detection of stranding events has also improved over time with increased awareness, volunteer coverage, social media and cultural engagement with cetacean conservation.

Any applications for development in Scotland’s seas involves careful consideration of the project’s potential environmental impact, including on European Protected Species.

The Scottish Government will more fully consider the findings of the report.

The Scottish Government does not hold information specifically on the number of recorded thefts of global positioning system (GPS) units from farm machinery or any subsequent prosecutions or convictions for this type of theft.

Accredited Official Statistics are published by Scottish Government on recorded crime and criminal proceedings (see links below). However, it is not possible to break these statistics down by type of motor vehicle, which items were stolen or the value of these items. It should also be noted that the type of crime recorded for thefts of global positioning system (GPS) units from farm machinery will vary depending on the circumstances in which the crime occurred.

Latest statistics on the recorded number of thefts are published in Table 1 in the Recorded Crime in Scotland, year ending June 2025 publication.

Latest statistics on the number of people proceeded against and convicted for the crimes of theft are published in Tables 4a and 4b the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland 2022-23 publication.

It should also be noted that these two sets of statistics are based on separate and distinct data sets. They count different things (crimes versus people) at different times (date a crime was recorded versus date a case concludes in court) in fundamentally different ways and cannot be linked.