Chamber and committees

The City of Edinburgh Council has published detailed information on the implementation of its visitor levy scheme, including the treatment of advance bookings. The Council has committed to providing further practical guidance and support to accommodation providers, including a payment platform and training from March 2026. The Scottish Government continues to engage with the Council and the wider sector to support effective implementation.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC) published its most recent independent forecasts on 25 June 2025, which sets out its latest five-year economic and fiscal forecasts to 2030-31.

The publication can be found on the SFC’s website: Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts Update – June 2025 | Scottish Fiscal Commission.

Based on those forecasts and Scottish Government’s estimates of Young Carer Grant and Job Start Payment, expenditure on the range of Social Security Assistance provided by the Scottish Government is forecast to increase from £6.8 billion this year, to £9.3 billion by 2030-31, as shown in the following table.

Social Security Scotland is committed to recovering overpaid benefits wherever it is reasonable and economical to do so, in accordance with the Scottish Public Finance Manual.

Since 2018, approximately £7.7 million in overpaid benefits has been written off, which represents an estimated 0.1% of the total lifetime expenditure on benefits administered by the agency. For comparison, the equivalent figure for write-offs relating to Scottish debt managed by the Department for Work and Pensions stands at £42.2 million or 0.3%.

These write-offs have occurred for a range of reasons, including bereavement, where there is no equity in the client’s estate to enable recovery, and small overpayments under £65, which are not economical to pursue.

We know many people are still waiting too long and this is not good enough. We are determined to do more and our Budget will provide a record £21.7 billion for health and social care, with more than £110 million allocated to health boards, including over £6.6 million for NHS Lanarkshire, to help tackle the longest waits for appointments and procedures.

The funding has been assigned to specialty areas for the year ahead where it can have the greatest impact against the longest waits – this includes £25 million for trauma and orthopaedics, £21 million for imaging, £14 million for cancer treatment and more than £12 million for ophthalmology.

It will also support delivery of planned care for patients across Scotland, to increase capacity and address backlogs of treatment as we work towards achieving the 18 weeks Referral to Treatment (RTT) standard.

Social Security Scotland has established a Debt Management Service to oversee the recovery of overpayments, ensuring that recovered funds are redistributed in line with Scottish public spending priorities. Recovery processes are carried out with respect for clients’ dignity.

While internal systems are in place to track and prevent overpayments, detailed statistics—such as the number of overpayments or the age profile of debts—are not routinely published. As such, we are unable to provide further breakdowns.

Following announcement of the additional £40m in targeted voids and acquisitions in my statement to Parliament on 2 September, the 2025-26 budget for AHSP is £807.745m and represents an increase of £251.883m when compared to the original published 2024-25 budget of £555.862m. The 2025–26 budget not only restores but exceeds the 2023–24 budget.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-38163 on 17 June 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.

Our revised Pathway of Maternity Care clinical guidance and schedule, published on 6 February 2025, sets out the core care that all women and babies should receive under a whole-person, individualised care approach which takes account of their specific circumstances. We remain committed to implementation of continuity of carer by mid-2026, under The Best Start, as part of our Programme for Government 2025-26, recognising that the evidence tells us that this approach will be of greatest benefit to women and families from minoritised and marginalised communities.

On 6 February 2025, we published our Tackling Racialised Health Inequalities in Maternity Care Action Plan, which outlines our next steps for both local and national action. This is supplemented by our Interpretation Toolkits, designed to support staff to deliver maternity care where women require the use of an interpreter. Our data and evidence resource provides NHS Boards with an overview of the sources available to support local improvement activity.

We have asked all 22 NHS Boards to develop and deliver against anti-racism plans, covering workforce and service delivery. Planning guidance issued to NHS Boards in September 2024 and identifies perinatal care as an early priority for action.

The Scottish Government Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Action Plan was launched in 2023 and places a large focus on how to ensure everyone who needs it can access good sexual and reproductive health. LGBT Youth Scotland, Scotland’s national charity for LGBTI+ young people, was awarded multi-year funding to support LGBTI+ young people. The projects aims to ensure that LGBTI+ young people have improved awareness around sexual health and wellbeing, and increased access to this information to address inequity in sexual health care.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Bowls Scotland, the Scottish Governing Body for the sport, is responsible for the development of the sport in Scotland and you may wish to contact them for the requested information.

Due to concerns over patient confidentiality a single length of delay figure cannot be provided.

A delayed discharge occurs when a hospital patient who is clinically ready for discharge from inpatient hospital care continues to occupy a hospital bed beyond the date they are ready for discharge. Official Statistics on delayed discharges in NHS Scotland are available here: About this release - Delayed discharges in NHSScotland monthly - Figures for July 2025 - Delayed discharges in NHSScotland monthly - Publications - Public Health Scotland. This publication includes the number of people delayed at each monthly census point by length of delay at census point. A person’s length of delay at census is calculated as the time from their latest ready for discharge date to the monthly census point.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring public bodies deliver services that are high-quality, provide best value and contribute to economic growth.

The Scottish Government has not exercised a statutory power of direction in respect of NatureScot, SEPA, or Creative Scotland in the past decade. A directive was given to the SQA in 2020 in regards to how exam appeals should be handled during the pandemic.

Ministers retain oversight of these bodies and provide strategic direction, but the use of statutory powers of direction would be for the most exceptional circumstances.