Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-43084

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 28 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the Scottish Spending Review 2026, how it plans to achieve a reduction of £384 million in 2026-27, £374 million in 2027-28 and £303 million in 2028-29 in efficiency savings in the health and social care portfolio, and how many jobs will be impacted each year as a result.

As set out in the Scottish Spending Review 2026, the majority of these efficiency and reform savings will come from the 3% target NHS Board recurring savings.

The NHS Scotland Finance Delivery Unit (FDU) is hosted by Scottish Government and aims to work with all NHS Boards to drive sustainable improvement, deliver insight and provide hands on capacity, for example, through the use of the ‘15 Box Grid’. Since the FDU was established in 2023, savings delivery in NHS Scotland has increased significantly, and recurring savings across NHS Scotland have doubled.

The FDU supports NHS Boards to achieve the 3% target by providing benchmarking and sharing best practice across NHS Boards. It also assesses local, regional and national opportunities, and sets the medium to long term financial forecast assumptions for NHS Scotland linking closely to the evolving work on reform.

On other operational efficiency and productivity savings, The Fiscal Sustainability Delivery Plan sets out measures and actions to deliver efficiencies including deprioritising lower impact spending and better targeting of existing resources. For example, we have established an Investment and Value Board to improve the evidence base for the impact of existing spending and new spending proposals, to drive evidence-based investment/disinvestment decisions.

Health efficiency and service renewal is also being taken forward through the NHS Scotland Operational Improvement Plan, the Health and Social Care Service Renewal Framework, and Population Health Framework.

Our approach to health and social care reform and efficiency is multi-facetted, including service redesign, prevention and investment in technology. Our work on reform and change will be developed in partnership with trade union colleagues. It is not possible to provide the cumulative impact of all our actions on the number of jobs impacted each year.

Question reference: S6W-43019

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its draft Budget 2026-27 and the associated level 4 tables, whether it will provide a detailed breakdown of the £125.920 million committed to digital health and care.

The 2026-27 Budget provides almost £22.5 billion investment in health and social care services exceeding consequentials and providing a real terms uplift to enable more sustainable and resilient services.

In line with our Digital and Data Health and Care Strategies, and our Service Renewal Framework, we are continuing to invest in technology to improve health outcomes, enhance patient experience, and deliver more efficient services across Scotland. The draft 2026-27 Scottish Budget includes an allocation of £125.920 million to support a range of initiatives, including:

Digital and Data Infrastructure – For example, expansion of the National Digital Platform and continued development and rollout of systems such as the Digital Front Door, enabling better access to health and care information for citizens and professionals.
Cyber Security and Core Infrastructure – strengthening resilience and ensuring secure, reliable digital services across NHS Scotland.
Innovation and Data – enabling improved use of health data through AI-driven solutions, research partnerships, and projects that advance digital innovation.
Service Transformation – investment in remote monitoring, telehealth, and virtual consultations to improve access and reduce pressure on frontline services.
Workforce and Skills Development – building digital capability within the health and care workforce to support the effective adoption of new technologies.

The uplift in the digital health and care budget reflects increased funding to accelerate digital transformation focusing on Digital Front Door, and strengthen our underlying data infrastructure. These investments will help deliver person-centred care, improve efficiency, and support Scotland’s ambition to be a leader in digital health innovation.

Question reference: S6W-43013

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its draft Budget 2026-27, whether the £135.5 million allocated to planned care in 2025-26 is recurring funding in 2026-27.

Question reference: S6W-43015

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its draft Budget 2026-27 and the associated level 4 tables, whether it will provide a detailed breakdown of the £2.3 billion allocated to investment for social care and integration.

The 2026-27 Budget has not yet been passed by Parliament and is at draft stage. The level 4 breakdown provided in the budget tables is the most detailed breakdown currently available as spending plans are still being developed. However, the Budget shows total investment of £471 million for Social Care Support. This includes increased investment of £160 million to support an uplift for Adult Social Care (ASC) workers to the Real Living Wage, £7 million for the Care Inspectorate, £12.8 million for the Independent Living Fund (ILF),and £5.7 million to explore enhanced terms and conditions for ASC workers.

In addition to the £471 million set out in the level 4 tables, the Health and Social Care portfolio has also baselined over £1.8 billion of funding to Local Government and NHS Boards for social care, supporting policies such as the Real Living Wage and inflationary uplifts to Free Personal Nursing Care. This takes total investment to over £2.3 billion.

Question reference: S6W-43022

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its draft Budget 2026-27 and the associated level 4 tables, whether it will provide a detailed breakdown of the £100 million allocated to reform and improvement measures.

Question reference: S6W-43043

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 27 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its draft Budget 2026-27 and the associated level 4 tables, whether it will provide a detailed breakdown of the £24.311 million allocation in the budget line, "Social Care Support - Other Spend".

The 2026-27 budget has not yet been passed by Parliament and is at draft stage. The level 4 breakdown provided in the budget tables is the lowest breakdown currently available as spending plans are still being developed by policy leads.

However, on a provisional basis, the budget is expected to deliver a number of small value budgets such as Learning Disabilities - The same as you?, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Sensory Impairment and the Health Directorate's contribution to the British Sign Language Bill. The budget also now includes staff costs previously included within other Care Support and Rights budgets.

It also includes additional funding for digital telecare pilot as part of commitment to remove non-residential charges .

Question reference: S6T-02862

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 26 January 2026
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that then health secretary, Shona Robison, u-turned on a promise to carry out an independent audit of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital before it opened to patients.

Question reference: S6W-43018

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 26 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its draft Budget 2026-27 and the associated level 4 tables, whether it will provide a detailed breakdown of the £21.163 million committed to long-term conditions.

The 2026-27 budget has not yet been passed by Parliament and is at draft stage. Provisionally, some of the budget will cover the £18.180 million required for the ongoing cost of consumables for people who received diabetes technologies through our national roll-out programme in years 2024-25 and 2025-26.

There is a spending commitment of £4.5 million to NHS Boards to deliver specialist support for those living with Long COVID, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and other similar conditions. We have also committed a further £100,000 to continue to support the Rare Disease Action Plan.

Question reference: S6W-43042

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 23 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been provided to local authorities to address delayed discharges, broken down by local authority, in each of the last five years.

The 2026-27 Budget provides a further real terms increase in the Local Government Settlement, delivering record funding of almost £15.7 billion including, a quarter of a billion pounds of unrestricted General Revenue Grant.

However, the Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on delayed discharges, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Question reference: S6W-43016

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 23 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its draft Budget 2026-27 and the associated level 4 tables, whether it will provide a detailed breakdown of the £245.081 million in funding allocated to the Primary Care Fund.

The 2026-27 budget has not yet been passed by Parliament and is at draft stage. Spending plans are still being developed by policy leads but provisionally the budget will deliver £245.1 million for the Primary Care Fund which pays for various programmes and initiatives supporting general practice delivery e.g. the board employed multidisciplinary teams and GP walk-in service pilots among other measures.