Chamber and committees

We are engaging constructively with all relevant stakeholders, including trading standards representatives, to support considered and informed discussion on this policy, and to ensure effective implementation that delivers on our core aim of making the weekly shop more affordable.

The Scottish Government funds the following organisations who support the delivery of the Anti-Racism Delivery Plan published in March 2026. This is independent of government and there is not a formal or constituted body as such called the Anti-Racism Coalition. These organisations are:

• Anti-Racism Observatory for Scotland (AROS)
• Article 12 in Scotland
• Black and Ethnic Minority Infrastructure Scotland (BEMIS)
• Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER)
• Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
• Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations (CEMVO)
• Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS)
• Minority Ethnic Carers of People Project (MECOPP)

Since February 2026 there have been four Roundtable meetings with these organisations and the Scottish Government. A Terms of Reference for these Roundtables is being developed collaboratively.

Separately, a range of different stakeholder organisations are reflecting shared concerns about the nature and extent of protest activity, disorder and incidents of hate, prejudice and intimidation and their impact on faith communities, adversely racialised communities, people seeking asylum and refugees.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Decisions on criminal warrants are judicial decisions taken independently by sheriffs or justices, and the data requested are not routinely recorded.

Search warrants are prepared by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and presented by the officer seeking the warrant to the presiding judicial office holder.

COPFS holds limited information relating to search warrant applications. The time taken to process a request will vary depending on the individual circumstances of each case. COPFS manually records the date on which a request to consider a warrant application is received from Police Scotland or another specialist reporting agency. It also records, where entered by staff, the date on which a final decision on that request was taken by COPFS or a judicial officeholder. However, COPFS are unable to readily provide reliable figures for the average, longest, or shortest time taken in each of the last five financial years due to identified limitations and inconsistencies in the way that the information has historically been recorded and maintained.

COPFS does not hold data on the time taken to execute a warrant after it has been granted by a judicial officeholder.

Within the Scottish Government, Learning for Sustainability (LfS) is part of a range of responsibilities covered by the Education Directorate. Within Education Scotland, LfS is part of a range of responsibilities covered by Education Scotland's Curriculum Team.

Resourcing is reviewed regularly in the context of overall business needs.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) operates a Corporate Parenting Strategy 2024-2026 which sets out its approach to supporting care-experienced individuals, including care leavers, within custody.

SPS collects information on care leaver status for individuals aged under 26 at the point of admission, based on self-reporting. As disclosure is voluntary, individuals may choose not to provide this information or may provide inaccurate details. As a result, the figures recorded are likely to underestimate the true number of care-experienced individuals within the remand population.

As of 25 June 2026, there were 52 individuals on remand who have reported being care-experienced, and 8 individuals on remand who have historic care-experienced markers. As the remand population changes on a daily basis, this will impact upon the numbers of those in our care on remand who are care-experienced.

The Scottish Government has on the 13th of July repositioned the energy consents unit within an expanded Planning Directorate, creating a single, stronger centre of expertise in planning and consenting within the Scottish Government.

As the First Minister set out in Parliament on 25 June 2026, we are giving active consideration to whether we should provide planning guidance to balance the potential economic opportunities from the creation of data centres, with concerns raised by communities, and our national energy and climate goals which are vital to our future prosperity.

All issues about local and national decision making and the implications for energy use will be considered fully.

The Scottish Government works with a range of stakeholders through the national Learning for Sustainability (LfS) Leadership Group, which meets quarterly to help oversee and co-ordinate delivery of the LfS Action Plan. The group is co-chaired by the Scottish Government and Education Scotland, and member organisations represent interests across, for example, local authorities, skills development, qualifications, the teaching profession, and the environment.

Scottish Government and Education Scotland officials also work together to deliver shared actions, such as the development of new sustainable learning settings guidance for educators, which Education Scotland published in March 2026. Through provision of funding, the Scottish Government further supports stakeholders to deliver climate action in schools, global citizenship training for practitioners, and resources for taking learning outdoors.

Scottish Ministers are giving active consideration to whether we should provide stronger planning guidance, including to balance the potential economic opportunities from the creation of data centres, with concerns raised by communities, and our national energy and climate goals which are vital to our future prosperity.

The refreshed Learning for Sustainability (LfS) Action Plan was published in 2023. Key achievements since then have included: publication of Sustainable Learning Settings guidance in English and Gaelic by Education Scotland, which will help to guide schools on how to achieve Target 2030; publication of a national framework for LfS in Initial Teacher Education to improve the embedding of LfS in initial teacher training, and; strengthening LfS as part of the Curriculum Improvement Cycle. In addition – and recognising that outdoor learning is a key aspect within LfS – the government is also working with partners to implement the Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Act 2026.

The Scottish Government does not routinely collect comprehensive information on the number of adult day care facilities and services operating in each local authority area.

However, between 2022 and 2024, the Scottish Government carried out four surveys of adult day care services at a national level. The surveys were initially undertaken to establish the extent to which services had returned to pre-pandemic operating levels.

Two collections were undertaken in 2022 to capture service provision before and after the removal of social distancing measures. The figures provided for 2022 reflect the later of these two collections. Further surveys undertaken in 2023 and 2024 continued to monitor the extent to which services had returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Adult day care services are typically commissioned through Health and Social Care Partnerships, and the information is reported on that basis.

The figures presented include only those services identified through survey returns as being open or open with reduced capacity. A figure of zero should not be interpreted as indicating that no adult day care facilities or services were operating in that area. In some cases, a zero may reflect a nil return, an incomplete return, or differences in local reporting rather than an absence of services.