Chamber and committees

As the recruitment and deployment of officers is a matter for the Chief Constable, the Scottish Government do not hold this information.

The Scottish Government is investing a record £1.64 billion in policing in 2025-26, an increase of almost £90 million of additional funding from the 2024-25 budget. Our investment in policing has enabled Police Scotland to take on more recruits in 2024-25 than at any time since 2013, with further intakes planned throughout 2025. Police Scotland has stated that it has a healthy recruitment pipeline

The Regeneration Capital Grant Fund was paused in 2024-25 and no applications were received.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-39790 on 1 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.

It should also be noted however that as the majority of dentists are independent contractors, they are free to decide whether or not they wish to provide NHS services.

Scottish Enterprise are continuing to make significant progress to triage and identify credible options to secure investment in Grangemouth’s future. Ministers are receiving regular updates from the Investor Taskforce and the Scottish Government will report on this work in due course.

Transport Scotland, through its four Trunk Road Operating Companies and five Design Build Finance Operate (DBFO) Concessionaires, is responsible for the management and maintenance of the strategic trunk road network, including motorways. The repair of potholes on all other roads is the responsibility of the local authorities.

Category 1 potholes are defined within the term maintenance contract as those that present, or could present, an immediate hazard to trunk road users. Operating Companies are required to carry out temporary repairs by 6am the following morning and permanent repairs within 28 days. For DBFO concessionaires, road surface Category 1 requirements generally require temporary repairs within 24 hours and permanent repairs also within 28 days. Category 2 defects are those with a lesser severity, which do not warrant a safety-led immediate response. These are considered for maintenance along with information from the annual condition assessments to determine future maintenance schemes within the three-year maintenance programme.

The tables below list the number of Category 1 and Category 2 potholes that were either recorded or repaired in each of the full years between 2021-22 and 2024-25. The data is not available broken down by Local Authority.

The Scottish Government is supporting local authorities to address vacant retail spaces in our high streets and town centres through a range of measures and we remain committed to supporting the broader retail sector where possible, using the levers available to us.

This is why Scotland has a competitive non-domestic rates regime, with the Basic Property Rate frozen for 2025-26 and £733 million in reliefs. Additionally, we are supporting the use or repurposing of vacant units through the Fresh Start Relief and Business Growth Accelerator Relief to support the reuse and improvement of long term empty properties. Further significant funding support is available through programmes such as the Place Based Investment Programme and Regeneration Capital Grant Fund is helping deliver community led regeneration. The Scottish Government’s National Planning Framework 4 also promotes the reuse of empty buildings and town centre living to boost local economic activity.

Work is on-going to align the governance and delivery of thrombectomy with similar national programmes. This alignment with wider health service planning aims to support oversight of thrombectomy planning and encourage greater collaboration between NHS Boards in delivering this vital service.

Whilst the Scottish Government cannot currently provide a timeline for expanding the service, Scottish Government officials and NHS planners have been asked to work at pace on developing a plan for the next steps for service expansion.

The Scottish Government remains committed to implementing a high quality, clinically safe and equitable thrombectomy service.

We have invested over £51 million to date on expanding access to thrombectomy and remain committed to further expanding the service, ensuring access is as equitable as possible.

In April 2025, the Centre of Expertise for Waters published research into the feasibility of wastewater monitoring for psychoactive substances in Scotland. The research publication is available here: https://www.crew.ac.uk/publications/review-psychoactive-substances-wastewater-monitoring-approaches-and-recommendations

While the research found that there were potential benefits of wastewater monitoring, and recommended piloting this in Scotland, there is further consideration required to understand how this would inform our future policy and enhance existing public health surveillance systems. The Scottish Government is working with Public Health Scotland to consider these issues as part of our wider work to extend our surveillance abilities.

The information requested on how many consultants have been appointed to NHS Scotland in each year since 2020 can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at:

NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence.

Since 2020, we have increased the Medical & Dental Consultant workforce by 10.9% (from 5,606.4 WTE as at March 2020 to 6,217.5 WTE as at March 2025).

The Scottish Government works with a stakeholder group to undertake annual reviews of the number of specialty training places (for resident doctors) needed across all specialties in order to meet anticipated future service demand and consultant need.

In response to the recommendations from these reviews, the Scottish Government has funded the creation of hundreds of additional specialty training places in Scotland across multiple different specialties since 2014.