Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government provides national oversight to ensure adoption from fostering is coordinated effectively across local authorities. Guidance on the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007, The Adoption Agencies (Scotland) Regulations 2009 and The Looked-After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009 recommends permanence planning to begin promptly when a child becomes looked after to support timely and stable permanence arrangements.

Scotland’s Adoption Register also facilitates matching across local authorities by providing a national system to link approved adopters with children from any local authority in Scotland.

To promote consistent and effective practice in permanence, the Scottish Government has commissioned the Association for Fostering, Kinship and Adoption Scotland to develop three national good practice guides on permanence in kinship care, foster care and adoption, which will be available in early 2026.

Together, these measures provide a national framework intended to promote consistency and improve coordination for children moving from foster care to adoption.

Discussions around summer 2026 ferry services for Campbeltown are ongoing. I met with the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity, Constituency MSP Jenny Minto and Transport Scotland Officials on 9 December to consider the latest information available on the matter. CalMac have rightly not consulted on timetables for this route due to the limitations and impacts resulting from wider fleet issues and uncertainties across 2026 as new vessels are delivered and deployed.

Potential options remain under consideration but are dependent on new vessel delivery, deployment and cascade plans. Deploying the MV Isle of Arran to provide resilience across the network is likely to be vital as part of these plans. The Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity is due to meet with the local stakeholders on 14 January when we hope to have further information from Transport Scotland.

Permanence Orders with authority to adopt are governed by the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 and The Adoption Agencies (Scotland) Regulations 2009. The Act makes the child’s welfare paramount and requires decision-makers to consider any risk of prejudice caused by delay, but it does not set statutory time limits.

The 2011 Scottish Government Guidance on the Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009 and the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 emphasises that decisions should be made within timescales appropriate to the child’s developmental needs and that avoiding delay is essential, as prolonged uncertainty can harm a child’s welfare and stability.

The duration of the process varies according to the child’s circumstances, the complexity of the case, and the time taken to complete necessary legal and administrative procedures.

Scottish Government’s work on the Ecosystem Restoration Code (ERC) includes consideration of ecosystem metrics that:

• Measure change in ecosystem condition and biodiversity;
• Align with the metrics used for environmental policy frameworks, targets and public funding mechanisms;
• Enable the issuance of ERC credits that meet the requirements of high-integrity buyers and investors.

The development of an ERC is building on the discovery and stakeholder engagement phases undertaken earlier this year, which covered policy alignment and measurement related aspects. Details of those phases can be found at the weblinks below:

Discovery – https://www.gov.scot/publications/ecosystem-restoration-code-engagement-paper/

Engagement – https://www.gov.scot/publications/ecosystem-restoration-code-erc-engagement-phase-results-analysis-paper/

Scottish Government provides a wide range of support for landowners of fewer than 200 hectares, including community groups and private individuals, who wish to manage land for nature restoration purposes. This includes advisory support from Government and public bodies and also financial support from schemes such as:

• Agricultural support;
• the Forestry Grant Scheme (FGS);
• Peatland ACTION;
• the Nature Restoration Fund (NRF).

We also support the Woodland Carbon and Peatland Codes (WCC and PC) which are high-integrity market mechanisms for private investment in woodland creation and peatland restoration respectively. Further actions to increase the private investment opportunities for nature restoration are outlined in our Natural Capital Market Framework.

The Scottish Government strongly welcomes the British Ecological Society’s report and its emphasis on an ecosystems approach. This aligns with the focus in the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy and draft Environment Strategy on ecosystem health and integrity, in line with the Global Biodiversity Framework.

In developing statutory nature restoration targets, we are also working to develop a target focused on Ecosystem Health and Integrity, using the Red List of Ecosystems indicator framework.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-42271 on 16 December 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government welcomes the theme of Crohn's and Colitis Awareness Week 2025, “How it feels,” and values the work of charities like Crohn’s and Colitis UK in highlighting the challenges of managing often invisible symptoms.

The Scottish Government recognises that the health of children can have a significant impact on their education and they may require an individual healthcare plan to identify the level and type of support that will be needed to meet their healthcare needs whilst attending school. Where a child or young person has been diagnosed with Crohn’s or Colitis, NHS boards, education authorities and schools should work collaboratively to ensure that all staff receive an appropriate level of training in order to understand and respond to both the educational and health needs of any affected children and young people for whom they are responsible.

Furthermore, where a child or young person is unable to attend school for a prolonged period due to ill health then schools and local authorities have a statutory duty to continue to educate them to their fullest potential and make special arrangements for affected pupils to receive education elsewhere than at school.

These arrangements are likely to apply when a child or young person is absent from school for a prolonged period due to the impacts of either Crohn’s or Colitis upon their health. Further information is available within our guidance on education of children and young people unable to attend school sue to ill health which is available through the following web link: Education of children unable to attend school due to ill health: guidance - gov.scot.

As previously stated in the answer to S6W-41852, the processing of a representation requires multiple members of staff of the Energy Consents Unit to undertake a combination of detailed administrative tasks. The time and cost taken to process representations vary depending on the nature, size and complexity of each submission, as well as the total number of representations received for an application.

It is therefore not possible to provide average processing timescales and costs that would accurately portray the work undertaken by Scottish Government officials to administer representations submitted by the public.

As previously stated in the answers to S6W-41171 and S6W-41175 on 27 October 2025, all submissions received by the ECU are treated in the same manner, irrespective of the application or the sender of the representation. All material considerations raised in representations are carefully considered before reaching a decision on the relevant application.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

The process of adoption is governed by the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 and The Adoption Agencies (Scotland) Regulations 2009, which set out the legal framework for adoption and the responsibilities of local authorities and adoption panels. The 2007 Act makes the child’s welfare paramount and requires decision-makers to consider any risk of prejudice caused by delay, but it does not set statutory time limits.

The 2011 Scottish Government Guidance on the Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009 and the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007emphasises that decisions should be made within timescales appropriate to the child’s developmental needs and that avoiding delay is essential, as prolonged uncertainty can harm a child’s welfare and stability.

The duration of the adoption process varies depending on the child’s circumstances, the complexity of the case, the time needed for assessments, matching, panel consideration, and legal procedures. This includes cases where a child is already placed with foster carers.