Chamber and committees

There are no plans at this time to introduce new requirements for semi-natural grasslands. Semi-natural grasslands sit within the definition of ‘rough grazing or other semi-natural areas’ which are currently protected under Cross Compliance. Requirements under GAEC 6 prohibit farmers and crofters from ploughing or cultivating areas of rough grazing or other semi-natural areas unless approved as part of an Environmental Impact Assessment. Further guidance is available at: Maintenance of soil organic matter (GAEC 6)Maintenance of soil organic matter (GAEC 6)

Support remains available via the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) to land managers to conserve semi-natural habitats. Relevant options include Moorland Management, and alongside this, Summer Hill Grazing Cattle and Away Wintering Sheep. Further detail is available on the AECS webpage.

Supporting cyber resilience in local authorities is a priority for the Scottish Government. We provide a range of measures to support both immediate incidents as well as helping strengthen local authorities’ cyber resilience in the longer term.

The Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre’s (SC3) core function is to work with the Scottish public sector to help them improve their preparedness, reduce vulnerabilities and learn from best practice. SC3 has 24/7 on-call arrangements to immediately engage multi-agency response, where necessary, for any public sector organisation who is subject to a cyber attack. When the cyber incidents occurred in Glasgow City and West Lothian councils, the SC3 quickly stood up a multi-agency response to support the councils.

SC3 provides several important services including:

• sharing of relevant threat intelligence and early warnings,
• liaising with partners such as NCSC and Police Scotland,
• advising on consequence and data leak management, and
• guiding on Cyber Incident Response support options.

Specific post-incident lessons learned are shared in appropriate channels. These continue to feed into scenario-based exercising through the Exercising Workstream to improve organisational preparedness. The SC3 has worked with the Digital Office CISO to deliver strategic level cyber exercising to several local authorities with more planned for later this year. Under the Standards & Insights Workstream, SC3 has also initiated two pieces of research targeted at the most common lessons from ransomware incidents, to provide additional guidance for organisations on legacy technology and multi-factor authentication.

We recognise the crucial role that councils and their employees play in communities across Scotland. That’s why the Scottish Government has made a record £15.1 billion available for local authorities for 2025-26, a real terms increase of 5.5% compared with last year.

It should be noted that local authorities are entirely separate entities from the Scottish Government. Their powers are set out in statute, and it is up to each local authority to manage its day-to-day business, including the management of its IT systems. The Verity House Agreement reinforces this principle of local autonomy, while also encouraging collaboration and shared learning across the sector.

The public sector provides a range of digital public services and it is critical that these are secure and resilient.

The Scottish Government has been encouraging public sector organisations to adopt a proactive, risk based governance approach, with board-level accountability to build their cyber resilience.

To support the sector’s ability to prevent, detect and manage cyber threats, the Scottish Government has set out a framework that provides an approach for public bodies to follow. It includes guidance on how to:

Assess their cyber resilience maturity

Align with minimum security standards

Benchmark performance, and

Prioritise investment based on risk.

It is supported by practical tools such as self-assessment templates and critical systems mapping resources which enables organisations to identify needs, engage leadership and prioritise budget and support.

The Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre (the SC3) provides:

24/7 national incident response coordination

Daily threat intelligence and early warning notifications

Cyber exercising and preparedness programmes, and

Guidance on standards and best practice.

This national support is helping to equip our public bodies with the tools, intelligence and skills needed to build and maintain strong cyber resilience.

Scottish Government commissioned Public Health Scotland (PHS) to implement and deliver the national Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) audit.

As part of the implementation, PHS is consulting with all NHS Boards to review services currently in place across Scotland and to consider how local examples of good practice feed into a national audit and are shared across the country.

PHS is collaborating with NHS Glasgow and Greater Clyde’s (NHS GGC) South Sector team and have met with the external provider of the digital solution technology for patient identification use in their service to understand the results achieved.

NHS Boards are responsible for the services they deliver. The decision to implement an external IT system to support service delivery is therefore the responsibility of NHS Boards.

The FLS audit has been commissioned to drive improvements and support clinical decision-making in effectively evaluating gaps in osteoporosis care. This will reduce health inequalities for the people of Scotland, especially for those most at risk of fractures.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) is responsible for delivering and implementing the Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) audit. While they identified some initial recruitment-related delays, these have been addressed and completed.

PHS do not anticipate any further impact following this initial delay and progress is continuing at pace, on track and within the guidance set out by Scottish National Audit Programme (SNAP).

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people living with long term conditions like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, can access high-quality, person-centred care.

We have provided additional investment to NHS boards since 2015 to support clinical nurse specialist provision and care. Boards make the decisions on where to prioritise this funding based on local need.

The Scottish Government expects NHS boards to ensure that patients with specialist conditions have appropriate access to a range of professionals, including specialist nurses, to ensure the best management of their condition. NHS Boards have been asked to work in partnership with third sector organisations, social care partners and patients with specialist conditions in designing and delivering services.

The operation of Police Scotland, including the deployment of staffing, is a matter for the Chief Constable, who is supported by the Scottish Government to shape the workforce in response to operational needs. The latest official statistics show there were 16,553 FTE police officers in Scotland on 31 March 2025.

There are already a wide range of effective actions currently available to Police Scotland to prevent and reduce bike theft, empowering officers to lawfully pursue and tactically engage thieves, where it is deemed necessary. Theft is a criminal offence under Scots law, which has developed over centuries through operation of the courts rather than being provided for in statute.

The Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care policy in Scotland; however, the statutory responsibility for delivering or commissioning services at a local level lies with local authorities, NHS Boards and integrated health and social care partnerships. Operational decisions, including whether there is a need for additional specialist nurses, are therefore matters for those bodies.

Each of Scotland’s enterprise agencies operates within a defined geography. Scottish Enterprise provides services to businesses and supports projects in areas of Scotland not covered by South of Scotland Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, alongside the services it provides on a pan-Scotland basis and internationally.

Independence would give Scotland the opportunity to introduce new legislation for matters currently reserved to Westminster, such as surrogacy. Decisions on changes to laws on surrogacy in an independent Scotland would be a matter for the government of the time, elected by the people of Scotland.