Chamber and committees

More frequent and meaningful engagement with COSLA and Councils, in the spirit of the Fiscal Framework with Local Government, was fundamental to the decisions that led to record funding of over £15 billion for Local Authorities in the 2025-26 Scottish Budget.

All new policy or changes to existing policy that have a financial cost for local government are routinely considered through the formal financial governance processes including assessment through the joint Scottish Government and COSLA Officers’ Settlement and Distribution Group prior to political endorsement from Scottish Ministers and COSLA Leaders.

As independent corporate bodies, it is then for individual councils to manage their own budgets and workforce.

I am pleased to confirm that the Relationships and Behaviour in Schools Action Plan 2024-27 progress report was published today:

https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781836914686

The progress report sets out actions that have been taken to support relationships and behaviour in schools between November 2023, when I announced my intention to develop an action plan, and March 2025.

The Programme for Government 2024-25 committed to publishing annually on progress against the action plan. Further progress reports will be published in 2026 and 2027.

The Scottish Government recognises the distress caused by crime on its victims and is fully supportive of activity to reduce this harm. Our Budget will make an additional £3 million available in 2025-26 to tackle retail crime. This is in addition to an investment next year of a record £1.62 billion for policing.

Retail workers must be safe at work, abuse and violence are unacceptable. Strong legal protections are in place, including specific offences for assaulting or threatening retail staff.

Police Scotland remain focused on keeping communities safe from harm and bringing offenders to justice.

The safety of patients and staff is an absolute priority. Assaults on patients or staff are completely unacceptable, and everyone has the right to access healthcare, or their place of work, without the fear of verbal or physical abuse.

NHS Boards have reporting systems to capture data on violence and aggression - including sexual assault. I strongly encourage staff to report any and all instances of violent and aggressive behaviour. All instances of such behaviour should be reported and escalated to Police Scotland as quickly as possible for consideration of necessary action. The courts have extensive powers to deal robustly with sexual offending.

Health Improvement Scotland are working with all NHS boards and partner organisations to standardise the reporting of adverse events, and have developed a national framework which was published in February.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of national standards of reporting and the requirement for monitoring and publishing of data. We have committed to work with HIS and Health Boards to improve the collection of data nationally.

This is an operational matter for Police Scotland. They have confirmed that incidents involving the theft of a pet are recorded on Police IT systems as a ‘theft’. However, the Police Scotland IT system can record details of the nature of a theft and it may be information is available in this area direct from Police Scotland.

In terms of data held by the Scottish Government, recent engagement has taken place with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in relation to the issue of pet theft generally. This would include but not be limited to dog theft.

The COPFS advised they had used their internal operational database to assess the nature of general offences of theft so as to seek to identity when theft related to pets. The information they provided is not guaranteed to be completely accurate given the limitations of their ability to search using certain key words (e.g. dog, cat etc.). However, the data does give a broad indication of level of relevant offences over a considerable period.

Within this context, COPFS advise that 335 “pet theft” charges were reported to them during the eleven year period April 2014 to March 2024. This equates to an average of 30 charges a year over this period for pet theft.

The Scottish Hospitals Inquiry was established in 2020, to investigate planning, design, construction and maintenance of both the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital/ Royal Hospital for Children (QEUH/RHC) and the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People/Department of Clinical Neurosciences (RHCYP/DCN). To that end, the Inquiry recently concluded 12 weeks of hearings into the QEUH/RHC’s built environment and the potential causal links to hospital acquired infections.

The evidence which was presented and heard at the recent hearing has been published by the Inquiry and is available on the Inquiry’s website (https://www.hospitalsinquiry.scot/).

In Counsel to the Inquiry’s closing statement, concerns were raised regarding the recommended guidelines for ventilation at the QEUH/RHC.

Lord Brodie has made it clear that the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry is on-going and therefore no conclusions should be taken from submissions to the Inquiry at this stage. Further oral hearings into the QEUH/RHC are scheduled for later this year.

Like all hospital sites, there is a comprehensive system of clinical oversight and patient safety monitoring at the QEUH/RHC. There has been no information reported through our robust governance arrangements which questions the safety of the hospital.

In addition, there have been no healthcare associated infection incidents reported to Scottish Government in the last 12 months relating to concerns on ventilation control.

To provide additional assurance, I have written to Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) to undertake a formal review of the action plan arising from their Infection Prevention and Control inspection in 2022; to check the progress made against the recommendations and requirements.

Unlike the NHS App in England, which is currently just for the NHS, our planned service is for both health and social care. The development is also linked into wider digital developments for Scottish public services overall, particularly in relation to a common approach to how the people of Scotland receive official communication digitally. Officials have, however, engaged extensively with NHS England to explore both whether we could use the NHS App and to take learning from the approach to the development of the NHS App.

The information requested on how many consultants specialising in endometriosis there are, broken down by NHS board is not centrally held.

NHS Board Executive staff are required to set objectives annually which are aligned to the Board strategy and priorities. Executives must have objectives which demonstrate the contributions made to national and regional working, the delivery of the Health and Care strategy and the delivery of specific Board and local objectives. The performance of individual Executive staff is measured against these agreed objectives, with annual pay progression dependant on performance against these objectives.

There is a national governance and accountability process each year overseen by the National Performance Management Committee (NPMC) which provides scrutiny of performance management arrangements for NHS Scotland’s Executive staff. The NPMC requests and reviews evidence from NHS Boards to ensure that performance markings above fully acceptable are robust. Only after this process is complete can Executive staff then receive pay progression.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. This would need to be requested from the NHS Boards directly. It is for NHS Boards to ensure best use of available resources to support service delivery whilst prioritising patient safety and care.