Chamber and committees

Local authorities retain the statutory responsibility for the delivery of education in Scotland. Decisions around the delivery of additional needs support and the minimum levels of staff to meet local level needs are matters for education authorities.

We have 17,046 pupil support assistants in Scotland – the second highest level on record and an increase of nearly 1,800 since 2020. This is a direct result of our continued investment of £15m each year to help them respond to the individual needs of children and young people and maintains our record levels of investment in these staff.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people living with kidney diseases are able to access the best possible care and support and that they benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective, and put people at the centre of their care.

We are aware of the findings of Kidney Care UK in their 2024 report, and Ms Minto met with the group shortly after publication. In 2024 we published the transport to health plan to support work across Scottish Government, Health Boards and Transport partners.

Following engagement between Scottish Government and NHS Boards, a Short Life Working Group is set to be established across NHS Boards to consider in more detail the issues relating to transport access for patients attending for kidney care treatment. We look forward to the outcomes of this work.

The aerospace, defence, and shipbuilding sectors play a vital role in supporting jobs and driving economic growth across Scotland. We are committed to promoting manufacturing and innovation, and Ministers continue to engage with businesses in these sectors as part of that commitment. Ferguson Marine's (FMPG) work for BAE Systems is consistent with the Scottish Government’s policy that public money is not used to support the manufacture of munitions.

The Scottish Government is currently considering its position on the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill moving forward, in light of Parliament’s decision to support the general principles of the Bill. In doing so, we will be taking care to ensure that any future steps are informed, balanced and respectful of the views expressed across the Chamber and the country. As part of this, we are carefully reflecting on the conclusions of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee in their Stage 1 report.

Public Health Scotland continues to provide data regarding planned procedure activity prior to March 2020 in the monthly Cancelled Planned Operations release which can be accessed at Cancelled planned operations - Month Ending 30 April 2025 - Cancelled planned operations - Publications - Public Health Scotland. The ‘Cancellations data’ file provides the information needed for comparisons of time periods May 2015 to April 2025 by month and therefore able to illustrate the difference in current levels of operation activity and operation activity pre-COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of PHS’ obligations under the UKSA Code of Practice for Statistics (found at About the Code – Code of Practice for Statistics), PHS continually review outputs to ensure they adhere to all the pillars contained within the Code of Practice. This states that “statistics and data [should be] useful, easy to access, remain relevant, and support understanding of important issues.” Upon review, the Cancelled Planned Operations summary has been adapted to align with these principles.

More specifically, in line with the principles of “Relevance to Users” and “Innovation and Improvement” the Cancelled Planned Operations commentary now reflects and highlights current trend patterns within 3 years from the latest release. The aim of the revised time trend highlighted within the summary is to meet the user need of improving access to latest trends and highlights important current information. The risk of including too much of a historic time trend in the summary chart is that it becomes more difficult to interpret these current trends. Nevertheless, the continuation of the provision of the longer time trend within the accompanying data tables, including activity prior to March 2020, allows the user to access the data if they wish to do so.

The Children (Scotland) Act 1995 is the key legislation on contact, residence and parental responsibilities and rights. When the court is deciding whether to make an order under section 11 of the Act (e.g. a contact order) the driving principle of the legislation is that the welfare of the child must be the court’s paramount consideration.

The court must also – taking into account the child's age and maturity – have regard to any views the child wishes to express and have regard to the need to protect the child from any abuse (including domestic abuse), or the risk of any abuse, which affects or might affect the child.

It is for the court to decide what information and evidence it needs to make a decision about what is best for a child. The court may request a range of reports and information before reaching a decision and may appoint a child welfare reporter to get the child’s views or report on the best interests of the child.

The court can order that contact must take place at a child contact centre. This can either be supervised contact, when a trained member of staff observes the contact to ensure the safety of those involved, or supported contact, facilitated by staff who will support children and non-resident parent to meet and spend time together.

The Scottish Government wants to ensure that the child’s best interests are at the centre of any contact case and that the voice of the child is heard. Family circumstances can vary considerably and so, beyond those general principles, there is no single approach which will fit every contact case.

Contact orders are made by courts under section 11 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. Through these orders, courts can regulate the arrangements under which non-resident parents maintain personal relations or direct contact with children under the age of 16.

When the court is deciding whether, and in what terms, to make a contact order under section 11 the welfare of the child must be the court’s paramount consideration. The court must also – taking into account the child's age and maturity – have regard to any views the child wishes to express and have regard to matters such as the need to protect the child from the risk of abuse.

Those with parental responsibilities and rights (including in relation to contact) are also expected to exercise these in the interests of the child and, where appropriate, to have regard to the views of the child. If the arrangements provided for in a contact order are no longer considered appropriate the matter could, in appropriate cases, be brought back to the court (including by or on behalf of the child themselves) for the order to be varied or recalled.

The court may order contact to take place at a child contact centre. We expect child contact services to take a child-centred approach, using trauma-informed approaches. We would not expect a child who is distressed to be forced into contact.

The Scottish Government provides funding to Relationships Scotland who are the largest provider of child contact services in Scotland. Child contact services have practices in place to help support facilitation of contact orders, for example: familiarisation visits; gradual build-up of time in contact; signals if child wants contact to end; family support workers to support parents and children.

The education and training of the Scottish judiciary is the responsibility of the Lord President, who established the Judicial Institute for Scotland (the Institute) to conduct training for all sheriffs and judges in Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s understanding is that consideration of domestic abuse has been an ongoing component of the Institute’s training since 2019. In response to the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 the Institute launched a learning programme for all judicial office holders at that time. This training included a Domestic Abuse Resource Kit, which has been extended to cover the implications of domestic abuse in civil cases and the interaction between criminal and civil cases.

Domestic abuse training has also been implemented into induction courses since 2019, ensuring that all those coming into post receive similar training, particularly covering the concept of coercive control in the context of domestic abuse. In addition, family and civil law courses consider the impact of coercive control and other forms of abusive behaviour in family disputes.

The Institute’s annual reports can be found on the Judiciary of Scotland website.

Solicitors in Scotland have to undertake Continuing Professional Development (CPD) relevant to their roles in line with the Law Society of Scotland's CPD requirements. Training on domestic abuse is available and revisited regularly, for example, the recent webinar on: A Review of Domestic Abuse in Scotland | Law Society of Scotland.

However, there is no specific requirement for solicitors working in the civil system to undergo specialist training in domestic abuse, coercive control and the potential impact on children’s lives.