Chamber and committees

Our Programme for Government 2025-26 sets out a range of actions to make it easier for businesses in Scotland to grow and prosper, secure investment and compete globally. Working in tandem with the Scottish Government, our enterprise agencies are focused on helping businesses to grow. They provide financial support to businesses in the form of grant funding, equity investments and loans. They also provide a broad range of expert support and advice, including helping businesses to access finance and attract other investment to support their growth. Information on the enterprise agencies’ support for businesses within the last 5 years can be found in their annual reports and accounts, which are published on their websites.

Businesses in Scotland of all sizes, and in all sectors, can access support from the enterprise agencies and other public sector organisations through the ‘Find Business Support’ website. The Scottish Government does not collate information on the percentage of eligible businesses accessing public sector support.

The Scottish Government remains committed to an all-age careers information advice and guidance offer that supports people to progress rewarding careers. Learners must choose their own paths; however, we need to ensure that in making their choices, they are aware of the range of potential pathways including self-employment as a legitimate route.

This was reflected in this year’s Programme for Government which included an action to “review and improve school-age and adult career support, including better information on career choices, job prospects and earnings” and is being taken forward as a priority in the improving careers support project as part of the Post-16 Education and Skills Reform Programme.

The Scottish Government, in collaboration with partners across the entrepreneurial ecosystem and education sector, is fostering entrepreneurial mind-sets in schools through the Entrepreneurial Education Fund. In 2024-2025 the fund supported seven organisations with £829,319 to deliver innovative resources to teach entrepreneurial meta-skills from Primary 1 to S6 in alignment with the Curriculum for Excellence. The Scottish Government is committed to building a lasting legacy of entrepreneurial education across Scotland.

The Social Enterprise Academy schools programme is designed to accelerate social entrepreneurship education in schools. This transformational learning experience allows young people from primary 1 to S6 to develop key employability skills whilst aspiring to affect ongoing social change in their communities and beyond.

Developing the Young Workforce support the Scottish Government’s community engagement initiative by encouraging enterprise events in all regions. A recent example saw a school in Glasgow host a successful annual social enterprise event led by students. This event, designed to raise funds for Hint of Pink, served as a platform for young people to manage a project involving sales, entertainment, and event organisation.

The Venture Lab is a Scottish Government funded programme run by The Challenges Group. The programme supports impact driven entrepreneurs with early-stage business support and a dedicated pathway to market. Working in partnership with Scotland’s universities, they are supporting Scottish social enterprises and impact businesses with high growth potential to scale and establish in Scotland and in international markets.

The Scottish Government also fund ‘Business Gateway’ who specifically provide advice on starting a business and guidance on how to strengthen a new business. Further information regarding different employment routes for all ages and stages can be found on the Skills Development Scotland, My World of Work website.

Through our No One Left Behind approach, person-centred employability services are also available in every local authority area for people of all ages who experience structural barriers to participating in the labour market. These services support people towards and into sustainable fair work which includes self-employment.

The Scottish Government has conducted an evidence review on hybrid working to support decisions on hybrid expectations for its own staff but has not undertaken analysis on the economic impact of hybrid and remote working policies on city centre economies.

The Scottish Government regularly monitors evidence on the prevalence of home or hybrid working through our publication of data from the Office for National Statistics Business Insights and Conditions Survey(BICS). The most recent iteration of data on home or hybrid working (for 19 May to 1 June 2025) indicated that 13.8% of businesses in Scotland are using or intend to use increased homeworking as a permanent business model, rising to 68.5% of businesses in the Information & Communication sector. Around 4 out of 5 businesses (79.6%) that are using or intending to use increased homeworking are doing it because it improves staff wellbeing, while 43.9% indicated that it offered them the ability to recruit from a wider geographical pool in the UK, and 34.4% indicated it supported improved productivity.

Around two thirds of businesses (65.5%) indicated they were not using or intending to use increased home working as a permanent businesses model going forward, with 84.9% of these businesses giving the reason that homeworking is not suitable for their business.

We do not hold the specific information requested. However, a 2018 report suggested that, in financial year 2013-14, the total economic cost associated with autistic adults in Scotland was £2.1 billion. Of this, £884 million, or 41.6%, was attributed to productivity loss, a metric which could be interpreted as representing underemployment and/or unemployment.

Scotland’s Census 2022 provides data on the number of people aged 16-64 who were unemployed in 2022, and reported having ‘one or more learning disability, learning difficulty or developmental disorder’. This includes autistic adults, but is not specific to them.

In 2016, we committed to halving the Disability Employment Gap. Our 2018 publication, A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: Employment Action Plan, outlined the initial steps towards achieving this goal by 2038. Several of these actions have since been incorporated into our refreshed Fair Work Action Plan: Becoming a Fair Work Nation by 2025, published in December 2022. This refreshed plan aims to improve employment opportunities for individuals facing a structural barriers to the labour market, with input from disabled people and their representative organisations.

All local authorities have used their powers under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 to adjust non-domestic rates.

Data is available on the share of SME employers that report a profit. These estimates, sourced from the Small Business Survey, are shown in Table 1. In 2019, 78% of SME employers in Scotland reported generating a profit, this fell to 70% in 2020, with the latest data for 2023 putting the share back at 78%.

Table 1: Taking into account all sources of income in the last financial year, did you generate a profit or surplus? – SME Employers - Scotland

The original policy intent of the powers under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 was to support local decision making around non-domestic rates reliefs. Local authorities are independent bodies, and it is for local authorities themselves to consider whether to use those powers. However, the Scottish Government includes information on these powers in its non-domestic rates relief guidance issued to local authorities annually, and routinely works with councils and the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation to ensure those powers are clearly understood.

Under Part 11 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, local authorities have very broad powers to reduce or remit any non-domestic rates bill for a property in their area. This part of the Act came into force on 31 October 2015.

Before using these powers, the local authority must take into consideration the council’s expenditure and income, as well as the interests of council tax payers. The local authority must also ensure that any use of the powers complies with obligations including those under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 and other international commitments.

In regards to part A of the question, there is no definitive list of closed care homes. The Care Inspectorate publish information relating to ‘Service Cancellations and Registrations’ in their quarterly statistical reports. The most recent version was published on 9 May 2025, which can be accessed via the following link:

https://www.careinspectorate.com/index.php/publications-statistics/182-statistics-and-data/statistics/quarterly-statistical-reports

This includes “care home services for older people, children & young people, mental health, alcohol & drugs misuse, learning disabilities and respite services.” The number of services that have been cancelled are available in the cancelled services column in the publication table.

It is important to note that in some cases the services listed as cancelled may have been re-registered under a different business name and care service number.

This data does not provide a breakdown to local authority or regional level, this is not available.

As regards part B of the question, no data is available on the number of residents affected by cancelled services. For more information we would suggest contacting Health and Social Care Partnerships to request this data for each area.