Chamber and committees

While inter-governmental discussions are ongoing, and while we are developing PSED-related improvement proposals, we have not yet made an assessment of the likely impact on women of the UK Government’s commitment but we are making stringent efforts to resolve this matter and to consider how action planning could be used in a Scottish context.

As Minister for Equalities, I am still awaiting a confirmed meeting date with UK Government Ministers, following an offer via correspondence in May 2025, to discuss the Scottish Government’s concerns around provisions in the UK Government’s Employment Rights Bill and to seek a resolution in line with current timelines for the Bill’s passage. These concerns relate to powers to mandate for equality action plans and the naming of outsourcing providers for public bodies in Scotland. Currently these provisions will only come into force for public bodies in England, and so Scottish Ministers continue to seek assurances around receiving the equivalent powers to regulate as those proposed for UK Government Ministers.

Using the powers that we do have and as part of the Scottish Government’s phased approach to improving the effectiveness of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) in Scotland, we continue to review the operation of the Scottish Specific Duties to support Scottish listed authorities to enable better performance of the general duty.

Local authorities are entirely separate entities from the Scottish Government and it is the responsibility of each local authority to manage its day-to-day business, including meeting statutory obligations in relation to procurement processes.

The rules public bodies, including local authorities, must comply with in relation to procurement in Scotland are set out in the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, the Procurement (Scotland) Regulations 2016, the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, the Utilities Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2016 and the Concession Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2016. Parties which have suffered, or risk suffering, loss as a result of an alleged failure to comply with the procurement legislation may bring action under that legislation in the courts.

Local authorities are autonomous corporate bodies, accountable to their electorates, and are responsible for managing their own procurement processes in line with statutory duties and national procurement legislation.

The Scottish Government does not independently review local authorities. The Accounts Commission and Audit Scotland provide independent scrutiny of local government performance. These bodies can consider concerns raised by the public or elected members and use this information to inform their audit work. Parties which have suffered, or risk suffering, loss as a result of an alleged failure to comply with the procurement legislation also have the option of bringing action under that legislation in the courts.

There are a variety of targeted capability and improvement programmes at national and sectoral level to review, support and underpin local performance against agreed national standards and policy aspirations, helping to strengthen the systems, skills and processes that support audit and governance.

Local authorities are autonomous corporate bodies, accountable to their electorates, and they are responsible for managing their own procurement processes in line with statutory duties and national procurement regulations. As such, I am not aware of any such discussions.

The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 provide for parties which have suffered, or risk suffering, loss as a result of an alleged failure to comply with any duty in those regulations to bring action under that legislation in the courts.

The Scottish Government is not responsible for ensuring local authorities’ compliance with legal obligations.

This is a matter for the operation company and the Scottish Government is unable to disclose this information as it is considered commercially sensitive.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

It is the aim of SPS to prepare people in custody for their eventual release and return to communities as contributing citizens. Whilst part of this preparation for release, progression to less secure conditions is an option, however, not an automatic entitlement.

We currently have 3 establishments which are classed as ‘open’, HMP Castle Huntly, and the Community Custody Units, Lilias and Bella.

The following table shows the number of individuals in SPS care that have transferred from a ‘closed prison’ to those 3 sites:

Working with our Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group, we published our Evaluation Strategy on the impacts of the 1140 expansion on outcomes for children, parents and families over the 2018-2025 period in October 2022.

The Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare (SSELC) is the main vehicle for collecting evaluation evidence on child and parent outcomes. Baseline data for the SSELC were collected during 2018 and 2019 from children and their parents accessing up to 600 hours of funded ELC. Reports on the first three phases were published in 2019-20. Data collection for the post-expansion phases of the SSELC took place during 2023 and 2024 with reports published across 2024-25. Independent contractors ScotCen are now analysing this data and preparing their overall report.

In August 2024 we published the ELC Expansion to 1140 hours: Interim Evaluation report, which considered progress against the intermediate outcomes of quality, flexibility, accessibility and affordability. I previously informed Parliament that a full report on the ELC 1140 expansion evaluation for the period 2018-2025 would be published in late 2025, however we now expect to publish this in early 2026. This report will draw together findings from across all the strands of the evaluation, including the SSELC and parent and carer surveys carried out before, during and after the ELC expansion.

The Policy Memorandum for the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill highlights concentrated land ownership and the associated lack of supply of land can lead to many important social, economic or environmental objectives being more difficult to achieve. The Memorandum highlights Scottish Land Commission research into concentrated landownership in Scotland which has helped inform a number of the ambitious proposals the Bill.

The Government is committed to driving forward land reform and increasing diversity of land ownership in a way that is fair, proportionate and within the terms of the current devolution settlement.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40457 on 30 September 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.

Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) approved the Final Draft of the Strathclyde Regional Bus Strategy on 19 September. A costed programme and timeline for delivery of a Franchise Framework Assessment as required by the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019) will be considered at a future partnership meeting.

As this work develops, SPT will be required to undertake more detailed appraisals to determine which of the various bus options they want to progress with. In a climate of increasing fiscal pressure, it is important that the business cases for improving bus services are made robustly and in an evidenced based way to support future decision making on funding.

In 2025-26 the Scottish Government provided record funding of over £15.1 billion to local authorities, a real terms increase of 5.5%. It is, however, the responsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financial resources available, including on support for bus provisions such as franchising in their region, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled its statutory obligations. Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to make local decisions on how best to deliver services to their local communities.