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-38661

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 26 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many houses have been built or renovated through the (a) Rural and (b) Islands Housing Fund in each year of its operation.

The following table provides a breakdown of homes delivered through the demand-led Rural and Islands Housing Fund, by financial year, between 1 April 2016 and end March 2025.

Financial Year	Total Rural and Islands Housing Fund Completions	Rural Housing Fund Completions	Islands Housing Fund Completions
2016-2017	2	2	0
2017-2018	25	21	4
2018-2019	1	1	0
2019-2020	40	35	5
2020-2021	20	16	4
2021-2022	53	41	12
2022-2023	44	36	8
2023-2024	21	6	15
2024-2025	59	10	49
Total Homes	265	168	97

Question reference: S6W-38660

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 26 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been (a) allocated to and (b) spent by the (i) Rural and (ii) Islands Housing Fund in each year of its operation.

The following table provides a breakdown of funding allocated to the demand-led Rural and Islands Housing Fund (RIHF), and expenditure, by financial year, between April 2016 and end March 2025.

A total of £14.358 million has been spent through the Rural Housing Fund, and £15.876 million through the Islands Housing Fund.

Financial Year	Rural and Islands Housing Fund Budget (£ millions)	Total Expenditure (£ millions)	Rural Housing Fund Expenditure (£ millions)	Islands Housing Fund Expenditure (£ millions)
2016-2017	6.000	0.134	0.107	0.027
2017-2018	6.000	1.061	0.955	0.106
2018-2019	5.000	1.650	1.431	0.219
2019-2020	4.500	2.823	2.141	0.682
2020-2021	5.000	4.916	3.062	1.854
2021-2022	6.000	4.793	2.392	2.401
2022-2023	6.250	4.083	1.458	2.625
2023-2024	7.200	6.679	2.412	4.268
2024-2025	4.500	4.094	0.400	3.694
Total (£ millions)	50.450	30.233	14.358	15.876

Individual lines in the table may not add up to the totals due to rounding to £0.000 million.

Whilst the demand-led RIHF offers some targeted funding to support rural and island housing delivery, the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) comprises a range of funding mechanisms to enable homes for social rent, mid-market rent, and low-cost home ownership across Scotland, supporting priorities set out in local authorities’ Local Housing Strategies and Strategic Housing Investment Plans.

Between 2016-2017 and 2023-2024, the AHSP, including the Rural and Islands Housing Fund, has supported the delivery of over 12,000 affordable homes in rural and island communities.

Question reference: S6W-38659

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 24 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Rural Housing Fund has received any expressions of interest relating to projects in Fife, and, if so, how many.

Question reference: S6W-38780

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W- 38271 by Alasdair Allan on 12 June 2025, and in light of the commitment in its 2025-26 Programme for Government to simplify the Home Energy Scotland application process, when it expects the detailed analysis of average application and claim processing timescales relating to the Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan Scheme to be published, and whether it plans to set a target date for publication of such analysis.

Question reference: S6W-38721

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 16 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 14 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-32419 by Fiona Hyslop on 17 December 2024, when it plans to publish an updated Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan.

Question reference: S6W-38271

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 12 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what performance reporting information it holds regarding the Home Energy Scotland service, specifically in relation to the transparency and accessibility of the customer journey for individual applications for grants and loans, and what opportunities are available for the public to review or track any such journeys.

The application, claim and repayment processes for the Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grant and Loan Scheme are currently administered by Energy Saving Trust (EST) via a competitively tendered contract. EST report their performance to the Scottish Government monthly against set Key Performance Indicators, which is monitored closely.

The Scottish Government is working to collate new data which will provide more detailed analysis of average application and claim processing timescales to assess the impact of recent and future streamlining improvements. This will be published in the longer term once it has been assured for accuracy.

Applicants to the scheme are able to track their journey and progress at any point through the application and claims portal.

Question reference: S6W-38279

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 11 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many applications for Carer Support Payment that were completed in each month since it was launched took (a) 51 to 60, (b) 61 to 70, (c) 71 to 80, (d) 81 to 90, (e) 91 to 100, (f) 101 to 110, (g) 111 to 120 and (h) 121 or more working days to process, expressed as a (i) total number and (ii) percentage.

Social Security Scotland routinely publishes information on application processing times for Carer Support Payment as part of official statistics releases.

The latest statistics covering the period to 31 March 2025 were published on Tuesday 13 May and can be found at https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications/statistics.

Supplementary analysis, based on the latest published statistics, is provided in the following tables.

Table 1 - The number of applications processed for Carer Support Payment by financial year and processing time .

Processing time	Total	Financial year 2023-2024	Financial year 2024-2025
Total applications processed	10,375	430	9,945
Applications processed in 41-50 working days	800	35	765
Applications processed in 51-60 working days	575	10	565
Applications processed in 61-70 working days	380	5	375
Applications processed in 71-80 working days	240	5	240
Applications processed in 81-90 working days	140	0	140
Applications processed in 91-100 working days	80	0	80
Applications processed in 101-110 working days	55	0	55
Applications processed in 111-120 working days	35	0	35
Applications processed in 121 or more working days	45	0	45

Table 2 - The percentage of applications processed for Carer Support Payment by financial year and processing time.

Processing time	Total	Financial year 2023-2024	Financial year 2024-2025
Total applications processed	10,375	430	9,945
Applications processed in 41-50 working days	8%	8%	8%
Applications processed in 51-60 working days	6%	2%	6%
Applications processed in 61-70 working days	4%	1%	4%
Applications processed in 71-80 working days	2%	1%	2%
Applications processed in 81-90 working days	1%	0%	1%
Applications processed in 91-100 working days	1%	0%	1%
Applications processed in 101-110 working days	1%	0%	1%
Applications processed in 111-120 working days	0%	0%	0%
Applications processed in 121 or more working days	0%	0%	0%

Question reference: S6W-38280

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 11 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many applications for Carer Support Payment that were completed in each month since it was launched took (a) between six and nine months and (b) nine months or more to process, expressed as a (i) total number and (ii) percentage.

Social Security Scotland routinely publishes information on application processing times for Carer Support Payment as part of official statistics releases.

The latest statistics covering the period to 31 March 2025 were published on Tuesday 13 May and can be found at https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications/statistics. It is important to note that, following a staggered pilot launch, Carer Support Payment was rolled out nationally on 4 November 2024.

Supplementary analysis, based on the latest published statistics, is provided in the following tables.

Table 1: The number of applications processed for Carer Support Payment by financial year and processing time.

Processing time	Total	Financial year 2023-2024	Financial year 2024-2025
Total applications processed	10,375	430	9,945
Applications processed in 121-180 working days	40	0	40
Applications processed in 180 or more working days	5	0	5

Table 2: The percentage of applications processed for Carer Support Payment by financial year and processing time.

Processing time	Total	Financial year 2023-2024	Financial year 2024-2025
Total applications processed	10,375	430	9,945
Applications processed in 121-180 working days	0%	0%	0%
Applications processed in 180 or more working days	0%	0%	0%

Question reference: S6W-37922

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 10 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many current vacancies there are in local authority planning services.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of vacancies in local authority planning services. The resourcing and staffing of planning services is a matter for individual local authorities.

Recognising the financial and capacity pressures on the planning system, the National Planning Hub is offering support to authorities including capacity and access to expertise to help them determine applications for renewable energy and housing projects.

Question reference: S6W-37921

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 4 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many staff are currently employed in local authority planning services, and how many staff were employed in 2015.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of staff currently employed in local authority planning services.

However, each planning authority in Scotland has recently participated in the new National Planning Improvement Framework (NPIF), which is being led by the National Planning Improvement Champion. The performance assessments for 22 authorities are available at: https://www.improvementservice.org.uk/products-and-services/planning-and-place-based-approaches/national-planning-improvement/national-planning-improvement-framework/improvement-action-plans-and-performance-assessments. The reports include information on the number of staff in individual authorities.

The Scottish Government recognises the financial and capacity pressures on the planning system and is taking forward a package of changes to provide authorities with additional resources. Planning fees were increased in line with inflation last December, and further changes are due to come into force this month. Through the National Planning Skills Commitment Plan, we are coordinating skills development across the planning sector in Scotland.

In addition, Scotland’s National Planning Hub is providing additional surge capacity and resource to help authorities to respond to current challenges, and to enable them to accelerate their activities this financial year.

We are also supporting an increase in planners coming into the profession, particularly through direct recruitment and training in our Future Planners programme, and a trebling of the planning bursaries we are offering this year.