Chamber and committees

The Memorandum of Understanding is a jointly drafted and agreed document between the Parole Board for Scotland (PBS) and Scottish Ministers. The MOU defines the relationship and interaction between Parole Board for Scotland and the Scottish Government.

One of the key roles of our enterprise agencies is to support job creation, through the advice and assistance they provide to businesses and projects and by attracting investment into their regions. They have a keen focus on maximising opportunities for young people.

For example, South of Scotland Enterprise is delivering a pioneering pathways project that will support young entrepreneurs to bring their business visions to life through coaching, advice and financial support. Since September 2024, the project has resulted in 409 enquiries, with 267 young people receiving place-based enterprise coaching support. To date, 41 young people on the programme have started to trade. In addition, South of Scotland Enterprise has engaged with 2100 young people at its pop up enterprise events across the South of Scotland since April 2024 (up 170% on last year).

HIE’s Graduate Placement Programme 2024-27 aims to create around 40 graduate placements in businesses and social enterprises across the Highlands and Islands, with at least 50% of the placements in remote and rural island areas.

Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) Regional Groupsworks with pupils and schools across Scotland to raise awareness of the breadth of job opportunities and career pathways available, including in their local area. Young people can also access careers advice from Skills Development Scotland, which has a qualified Careers Adviser based in each secondary school in the country.

Our agencies work closely with employers, colleges, universities and training providers to strengthen training provision in growth sectors and create opportunity for work based learning with industry. Skills Development Scotland works with DYW to promote apprenticeships across each region and supports modern apprenticeship provision in island and rural areas via a Rural Uplift payment.

As I said at my recent evidence session on the Bill with the NZET Committee, Meeting of the Parliament: lghp/18/02/2025 | Scottish Parliament Website we are not going to fix all the issues in either rural or urban Scotland in this one piece of legislation. Other pieces of work are ongoing that will have an impact on urban areas.

These include the Community Right to Buy review which is looking at how effective existing powers are in both rural and urban areas, as well as work on compulsory sales orders and Compulsory Purchase Reform, a public consultation on the latter being due later this year.

We remain committed to delivery of the 10% and 1% spending targets, for mental health services and CAMHS respectively.

Latest data published by Public Health Scotland on 25 February 2025 shows total spend on mental health in Scotland has increased by £179.6 million to £1.486 billion in 2023-24. That is 9.03% of total net NHS expenditure, up from 8.53% in 2022-23. Spend on child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) has increased by nearly £19.4 million to over £134 million. This is 0.82% of total spend, up from 0.75% in 2022-23.

The latest data shows good progress is being made towards delivering the targets, however, as we all know, there are continued and unprecedented challenge to the public finances. That means that achieving the targets in practice will depend on the outcome of future budgets.

NHS Boards will allocate funding for local mental health services from the overall funds provided to them by the Scottish Government. Boards have responsibility for working with their partners to ensure local budget decisions deliver local and national priorities, including for mental health.

We will continue to closely monitor our progress towards both the 10% and 1% over the remainder of the Parliamentary term.

The following data shows the expenditure on Contingent Workers, of which Contractor would be a subset, but in conjunction with other categories of contingent workers. It is not possible to isolate Contractor expenditure within this data set.

The Scottish Government moved to Oracle Cloud in October 2024 and further data reconciliation is required. YTD data is therefore provided until September 2024.

The Joint Working Group on Sources of Local Government Funding and Council Tax Reform continues to consider the analysis pertaining to all aspects of the Consultation on the Council Tax Treatment of Second and long-term Empty Homes, and whether there could be further increases to the Council Tax premium, which would require primary legislation. I will keep Parliament updated on those considerations.

The Group also intends to review the data collected on second and & long term empty homes. The Council Tax premium on second homes was introduced on 1 April 2024, and therefore has only been in effect for 10 months. Information on second homes and empty properties (as at September 2025) will be collected and published later in the year.

Social Security Scotland routinely publishes information on Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods applications and payments. Information on the number of awards made to people with no recourse to public funds is not held within the system used to process applications and therefore not available for publication.

The Tenancy Deposit Schemes (Scotland) Regulations 2011 place a duty on scheme administrators to safeguard a tenant’s deposit in a designated account until it is repaid following the end of the tenancy. No end date is provided for within the regulations. As such, where a tenancy deposit is unclaimed, the schemes are required to continue to protect the unclaimed funds indefinitely and they cannot be used. The Housing (Scotland) Bill, if passed, will include provision to change this, so that unclaimed funds may be used to the benefit of private rented sector tenants.

FSS recommended legislation to restrict promotions in advice to Scottish Government in 2016.

More specifically, the role of FSS is to provide evidence and advice to Scottish Government (SG) to inform Government decisions on improving Scottish dietary intake.

FSS also support the Healthy Living Programme managed by the Scottish Grocers Federation which facilitates Scottish independent retailers increase healthy options promoted to consumers. Their role within this has included development of the technical nutrition criteria underpinning the programme and advising on the external evaluation that took place in 2023. There are numerous FSS publications that make the case for change and which retailers have access to. The FSS Board agreed its Public Health Nutrition Strategy in March 2023 02_-_Board_Meeting_-_2023_March_22_-_FSS_Public_Health_Nutrition_Strategy_-_230302.pdf clearly articulates their views on the need to change the food environment.

Food Standards Scotland (FSS) performs a national lead role in the investigation of counterfeit alcohol products. This is particularly the case when there are concerns over food safety and the contents present a danger to public health. FSS work in partnership with local authorities, other law enforcement agencies, public health, industry and stakeholders, with representation at various strategic and tactical fora to raise public awareness on known risks, coordinate efforts to remove the product from the market and report those found responsible. FSS is a member of the Scottish Multi-agency Tasking and Delivery Board (MATDB), which is a tactical collaboration between Police Scotland and law enforcement partners to address serious and organised crime. FSS has received full support from the MATDB in leading the investigation into the production, distribution and supply of counterfeit vodka nationally.