Chamber and committees

In the calendar year to December 2025 the core Scottish Government made a reduction of 2.5% in its total workforce, including both directly employed FTE and contingent worker headcount, as a result of tighter recruitment controls being implemented and taking effect. The increase in the overall devolved civil service headcount has occurred in specific public bodies outside of core Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government will publish a Workforce Management Governance Framework in 2026, which will include guidance on governance arrangements and controls necessary to ensure consistent and accountable management of the public sector workforce.

As part of the Public Service Reform Strategy, we will continue to work in partnership with public bodies to review and restructure the public service delivery landscape. This includes commitments to significantly reduce the overall structural footprint across public bodies and core Scottish Government.

As these measures are rolled out across Public Bodies we will see headcount reductions there too to meet our targets going forward.

The work of Clyde Gateway has been instrumental in the delivery of large scale physical, social and economic transformation across the east end of Glasgow.

We are committed to taking steps towards the establishment of an Urban Development Company for Glasgow to act as a strategic driver of growth in our largest city.

We have allocated funding to all territorial NHS boards as part of the recurring £4.5 million investment to support the development of specialist support for people with long COVID, myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)/chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and other similar conditions.

Allocation of this funding to boards has been informed by the National Resource Allocation Formula (NRAC). This formula is designed to take into account key determinants in the variation of healthcare need in populations, including population levels and measures of relative deprivation, to inform the allocation of funding in an equitable manner.

A breakdown of funding shares by NHS boards is as follows:

The Scottish Government has been working closely with Motability to understand how any changes it is considering to its provision as a consequence of the removal of tax exemptions in the UK Budget might affect customers in Scotland, including those living in rural, remote rural and island communities.

The UK Government did not consult the Scottish Government on its changes to the associated tax exemptions in the November 2025 Budget, despite the clear and significant impacts for the devolved Accessible Vehicles and Equipment (AVE) Scheme in Scotland under which Motability is the provider. Scottish Ministers wrote to the UK Government in November upon becoming aware of the potential tax changes, emphasising that they would cause significant fear and uncertainty for disabled people who rely on the AVE Scheme to remain mobile.

The 1 July 2026 commencement announced by Motability for its changes in the rest of the UK is not set to apply in Scotland. However there may need to be future changes to Motability’s provision in Scotland under the AVE Scheme as a result of the UK tax changes, in which case customers will be notified as soon as possible.

The Scottish Government remains committed to the AVE Scheme and ensuring that eligible clients get the right support to meet their needs and to allow them to remain independent.

The Scottish Government has allocated £9 million over three years to the Mossmorran industrial site, with £3 million planned for each of 2026–27, 2027–28 and 2028–29. Funding in later years remains subject to the outcomes of the Scottish Spending Review and annual budget processes.

In 2026–27, up to £1.3 million has been allocated for a Mossmorran Skills Intervention, delivered by Fife College. This funding will support the workforce in gaining critical training support to transition to other labour market opportunities including training needs assessments, targeted reskilling aligned with labour market demand, progression into employment, and measurable uptake, completion and employment outcomes. It is disappointing that, to date, the UK Government has chosen not to join us in providing this critical support to the workforce.

Funding for 2026–27 will also support activity to identify and develop future opportunities for the site. ExxonMobil has committed to working collaboratively with the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise to explore viable future options for the site. Scottish Enterprise are also utilising the breadth of their experience to attract new investment and secure sustainable alternative uses for the site.

The Scottish Government supports the development of integrated smart ticketing across bus and rail, including in the Strathclyde area, as part of its wider commitment to improving public transport.

As set out in the Smart, Digital, Integrated Ticketing and Payments Delivery Strategy (2024), the Scottish Government’s vision is To increase the use of sustainable public transport by providing smart and integrated ticketing, payment, and journey planning data enhancements, contributing to a healthier, fairer and more prosperous Scotland.

In the Strathclyde area, multi-modal flexi-tickets, including one-day capped tickets based on the zones travel will take place in, are already available through Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT). These are available to download onto any compatible smartcard and covers travel by ScotRail, Subway and most buses in the SPT area.

At the national level, the National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board (NSTAB), established in 2023, brings together operators, local transport authorities and passenger representatives to provide strategic advice to Ministers on smart ticketing, including the technological standard for smart ticketing.

NSTAB will also support improvements to smart ticketing and progression for development of options for a new national integrated ticketing system, reflecting passengers’ desire for integrated contactless payment and digital ticketing. Its first recommendations were laid before Scottish Ministers in October 2025, in the form of the STAR (Standards and Technology Advisory Report), which was approved at a strategic level by Ministers in January 2026.

The delivery of a Scotland wide integrated ticketing system is, however, dependent on future funding allocation and any legislation that may be required.

The Scottish Government provides a range of schemes to support GP, dentist and consultant recruitment and retention in rural and island communities. This includes:

• The Rediscover the Joy project, which recruits experienced GPs to provide support to island and rural practices who require short-term GP cover.
• Public Services Delivery Scotland (PSDS) offer a Credential in Rural and Remote Health, focused on unscheduled and urgent care. The programme establishes a clear career pathway into remote and rural medicine and aims to support flexible career development and help attract and retain clinicians by providing formal recognition for their skills.
• The PSDS Rural Fellowship in General Practice offers qualified GPs the opportunity to develop the generalist skills required for rural and island areas through working in a range of clinical settings.
• ScotGEM is a four-year graduate entry medical programme, tailored to meet the current and future needs of the NHS in Scotland and focuses on rural medicine and healthcare improvement.
• Working with stakeholders to develop a national strategy for the dental workforce in Scotland, to ensure we can deliver sustainable access to dental services into the future.
• The Centre for Workforce Supply (CWS) and the National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care (NCRRHC) have developed a sustained model of direct support to provide rural and island health and social care employers with the help they need to improve recruitment success.

In June 2025 we published the Medium-Term Financial Strategy and the Fiscal Sustainability Delivery plan.

The Medium-Term Financial Strategy provided our assessment of the scale of the fiscal challenge over the next five years. This was £2.6 billion for resource spending and £2.1 billion for capital spending by 2029-30.

The Fiscal Sustainability Delivery Plan set out clear actions we would take to close the resource deficit, through driving forward reform and efficiencies and having a robust focus on public spending, identifying up to £2.9 billion of resource budget savings within the MTFS period. The progress of the Fiscal Sustainability Delivery Plan is monitored through internal quarterly reporting, supported by a robust governance framework. Progress on the FSDP measures will be reported externally on alongside the next Medium-Term Financial Strategy.

Building on the actions set out in the FSDP, we published Portfolio Efficiency and Reform Plans alongside the 2026 Scottish Spending Review, which set out around £1.5 billion of savings by 2028-29. These will drive efficiencies through shared corporate platforms, consolidation of public bodies, estates rationalisation and accelerated digital delivery – for example, extending ScotAccount and the NHS Digital Front Door, and moving 25% of correspondence to digital by 2030 (saving at least £100 million a year).

To address the capital spending gap, we published the Infrastructure Delivery Pipeline which is underpinned by prioritisation decisions and capital spending plans set out in the 2026 Scottish Spending Review. It sets out an affordable and deliverable pipeline of investment for the next four years.

In June 2022, an outline business case for the replacement of Lochgelly health centre was submitted to the Scottish Government. However, it did not progress to full business case stage and no formal approval to proceed to construction has been provided. In December 2023, all health boards were instructed to pause projects not already in construction due to budget constraints. This included the Lochgelly project, which was therefore not taken forward under previous arrangements.

The Scottish Government is now taking forward a whole-system NHS infrastructure plan to inform future investment priorities. As part of this, a primary care infrastructure investment programme, announced in the Infrastructure Delivery Pipeline (13 January 2026), has identified an initial tranche of 12 priority areas, including Cowdenbeath and Lochgelly.

The programme is focused on areas rather than a fixed number of individual medical centres, the scale and configuration of facilities in each area will be determined through detailed service planning. The inclusion of Cowdenbeath and Lochgelly within this programme supersedes the previous standalone Lochgelly Medical Centre proposal. It may be helpful to clarify that ‘Cowdenbeath’, as referenced in the Infrastructure Delivery Plan, is used in the context of the Scottish Parliament constituency geography, rather than indicating a specific facility such as Cowdenbeath Health Centre. The pilot programme reflects a broader place-based approach, encompassing Cowdenbeath, Lochgelly and surrounding communities. No decision has been taken at this stage on whether elements within priority areas, such as Cowdenbeath and Lochgelly, will be progressed as single or separate projects.

Work is already underway to develop a standardised approach to delivery across the programme, alongside the development of a revenue funding model led by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Futures Trust. This includes consideration of a Scottish variant of the Mutual Investment Model.

Ministers are expected to take decisions on programme priorities and the preferred funding approach during the course of next year, with a further announcement to follow. On current assumptions, construction is expected to begin from around 2031. Funding will be considered as part of these wider decisions.

The Rural and Islands Housing Fund has a budget of up to £37 million between April 2021 to March 2028. The Fund was extended in Programme for Government 2025 to applications to March 2028 and the National Islands Plan, published in February 2026, confirmed an overall budget of up to £37 million.

As of 31 December 2025, 307 homes have been delivered through the Rural and Islands Housing Fund across 12 Local Authority areas(Angus, Argyll & Bute, Dumfries & Galloway, Highland, Moray, Orkney, North Ayrshire, Perth & Kinross, Scottish Borders, South Lanarkshire, West Lothian and Western Isles) with over 40 homes on-site and estimated to complete in 2025-26 and 2026-27.