Chamber and committees

Our Budget provides a record £21.7 billion for health and social care.

As part of planned care funding for 2025-26 we have provided over £10.5 million to territorial health boards across Scotland, including NHS Lothian, to support endoscopy activity and reduce waiting lists.

Patients continue to be seen based on their clinical urgency, for example, those referred with an urgent suspicion of cancer continue to be prioritised for scope-based diagnostic tests.

To specifically support scope based diagnostics we published an Endoscopy and Urology Diagnostic Recovery and Renewal Plan backed by £70 million. The plan focuses on key areas such as: Balancing Demand and Capacity; Workforce Training and Development; Infrastructure; and Innovation and Redesign.

As referred to in the Royal College of Nursing’s report, The Nursing Workforce in Scotland 2025, published on 6 May 2025, the Scottish Government published the Ministerial Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce report in February 2025.

The report includes 44 recommendations to tackle all barriers to recruitment and retention of nursing and midwifery staff, beyond pay, terms and conditions. Phase 2 has commenced and a Ministerial Oversight and Implementation Group have been established to develop a detailed workplan which will be agreed shortly to take forward the agreed recommendations. Members of the Taskforce acknowledged that implementation will take time and investment to ensure genuine change for our nursing and midwifery staff.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-37715 on 28 May 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 first meeting of the Glen Rosa review group was held on 10 April 2025.

The Scottish Government’s quota application initiative for West of Scotland cod has awarded quota to 35 Scottish vessels. These applications seek to incentivise the use of selective fishing gear and fishing techniques or vessels with a reduced impact on the environment.

Regarding the use of selective fishing gear: across 35 vessels there is a wide range of gear configurations, some examples of gear to be used by successful applicants include:

• Vessels greater than 12 metres in length operating with bottom trawls or nets with catches comprising more than 10% of haddock, cod and skates and rays combined using a cod end in excess of the 120mm minimum.
• Vessels with catches comprising more than 30% of Norway lobster using a mesh size between 100-119mm and a square mesh panel in excess of the 160mm minimum.
• Engaging in area-based selectivity, where if vessels encounter shoals of fish below the minimum conservation reference size, they alert other vessels and move on.
• Use of long-lines.

Regarding the use of fishing techniques or vessels with a reduced impact on the environment, successful applicants provided information covering these areas:

• Modern vessels or engine upgrades leading to improved fuel efficiency.
• The use of Tori lines, acoustic deterrents, brightly coloured nets or particular gear deployment strategies to minimise interactions with non-target species such as seabirds and cetaceans.
• Use of refrigerants with reduced Global Warming Potential.
• Use of smaller or semi-pelagic trawl doors.
• Use of shorter ground gear.
• Landing catches into West of Scotland ports.
• Litter and waste management and identifying circular economy destinations for waste products.

The commitments for peatland restoration and woodland creation have not reduced for 2025-26.

The 2025 Programme for Government commits to restoring 12,000 hectares of degraded Scottish peatlands and creating at least 10,000 hectares of woodlands, including at least 4,000 hectares of native woodland.

The 2024 Programme for Government committed to restoring 10,000 hectares of degraded Scottish peatlands. The woodland creation commitment in 2024-25 was the same as for 2025-26.

Historically, a range of factors, including newly devolved responsibilities such as establishing Social Security, EU Exit, and our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, are behind the growth in the workforce.

UK Civil Service grew its directly employed FTE by 7.4% between March 2022 and December 2024 in comparison to the Scottish Government permanent civil service growing by 5.6%.

In comparison to the UK Civil Service the growth in the equivalent grades (Grades 6 and 7) was the same as it was in the Scottish Government between 2020 and 2024 at 47%.

The Scottish Government has reduced its workforce in the last two financial years, by 0.4% in 2022-3 and 3% in 2023-24 and from March 2022 to December 2024, the total workforce has reduced by 4%. To achieve this it has prioritised the reduction of expensive contingent workers in making these reductions, in partnership with our Trade Unions. The number of contingent workers is now 46% lower than in March 2022.

Scottish Government workforce numbers are regularly and carefully reviewed to ensure efficient and effective delivery for the people of Scotland and recruitment controls remain in place. The Budget has set a commitment to continuing reductions in the workforce in this financial year.

It is the statutory responsibility of local authorities to manage their school estate, therefore, the Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Schools do not generally fall into high-risk to persons from fire, due to their numbers of access and egress points, familiarity of occupants, regular training and drills, and ordinarily users are non-sleeping.

However, if there were concerns raised to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) regarding perceived high levels of risk to life from fire, the SFRS would undertake an urgent audit and, if necessary, could prohibit the use, or parts, of a school until the situation was satisfactorily rectified.

The latest published workforce statistics show 9,349 Staff within SG Core as at December 2024 Scottish Government workforce information - gov.scot. 85 staff of the total 9,349 have a home working contract.

However, in a number of cases this may be because of a reasonable adjustment in accordance with equalities legislation, or for other role-related reasons. In either case, we do not record what proportion of time is spent working exclusively from home and in practice most staff with homeworking contracts will likely still attend an SG workplace from time to time or work with stakeholders in communities.

This response relates to Scottish Government Core workforce.

Historically, a range of factors, including newly devolved responsibilities such as establishing Social Security, EU Exit, and our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, are behind the growth in the workforce. Like many organisations, the Scottish Government has also needed to respond to the cost of living crisis that has led to increases in pay across the labour market.

The Scottish Government is proactively addressing the need to control workforce size to remain fiscally sustainable.

The Scottish Government has reduced its total workforce by 4% from March 2022 to December 2024. It has achieved this through recruitment controls and prioritised the reduction of expensive contingent workers in making these reductions, in partnership with our Trade Unions. The number of contingent workers is now 46% lower than in March 2022.

Scottish Government workforce numbers are regularly and carefully reviewed to ensure efficient and effective delivery for the people of Scotland and recruitment controls remain in place. The Budget has set a commitment to continuing to reduce the workforce in this financial year.