Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government did not take the decision to close the nursery – its closure is as a result of an unsuccessful procurement due to no bidders. Parents were informed of this on 13 June 2025. There was no formal consultation by Scottish Government as the closure is a consequence of a commercial decision.

A transition period is supporting continued provision at the Victoria Quay (VQ) nursery until 10 October 2025. This period will support parents to source alternative childcare provision.

The current operator of the VQ nursery, North Edinburgh Childcare Enterprise Ltd, has offered all parents, including those on the waiting list, places at their sister nursery. Where families are currently accessing their child’s funded ELC hours at the VQ nursery, the City of Edinburgh Council’s Early Years team can support parents to find alternative funded provision.

Scottish Government staff will continue to be supported during any period of disruption as they source alternative childcare provision, including access to the existing Special Leave policy and flexible working patterns which can accommodate individual circumstances.

A full tender exercise was conducted and during the final stages of consideration, the only bidder, North Edinburgh Childcare Enterprise Ltd (NECEL) informed us on 9 May 2025 of their decision to withdraw from the tender process following their review of the economic case – this was done so after consultation with their Board and is a decision independent of the Scottish Government. There were no other bidders, therefore the procurement exercise was unsuccessful.

Scottish Government officials communicated the position on the closure of the nursery on 13 June 2025. This was at the same time as NECEL also informed their staff and issued their own communication to impacted families.

Nursery staff are employed by North Edinburgh Childcare Limited who retain responsibility for leading the consultation exercise with staff affected and, as part of this, exploring alternative employment opportunities.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-39369 on 11 August 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.

We have committed significant investment in the renewal of play parks, providing £35 million to Local Authority partners since September 2021. In 2025-26 we are providing a further £25 million to help accelerate Local Authorities’ plans and make our parks welcoming, free and accessible spaces for all children to enjoy.

The allocations for the requested local authorities are provided in the following table. No funding has been returned as unspent.

Information on drug-related deaths in public places is not held centrally.

Accredited statistics on drug-related deaths in Scotland are published annually by National Records of Scotland (NRS). The next publication on 2 September 2025, will cover deaths registered in 2024, disaggregated by local authority. The most recent official figures, relating to deaths registered in 2023, are available via the NRS website: Drug-related deaths in Scotland in 2023 - National Records of Scotland (NRS).

At present, Police Scotland reports quarterly management information that indicates current trends in suspected drug deaths in Scotland that is available disaggregated by Police Division. This is operational data used for short-term monitoring and is not subject to the same level of validation or quality assurance as official statistics. This information is accessible here: Suspected drug deaths in Scotland - gov.scot

The Single Open Call (SOC) has been incredibly successful in identifying buildings at risk within the Single Building Assessment (SBA) specification, with over 600 buildings, as of 30 June 2025, being identified for review. As confirmed in the Cladding Remediation Programme: Next Phase Plan of Action published 7 August 2025, funding from Stage One of the SOC has doubled to £20 million. The additional £10m funding will ensure that all eligible EOIs received by 31 December 2025 will be able to move forward. We strongly encourage all building owners and their representatives to continue to submit their buildings to the SOC ahead of 31 December 2025.

As well as enhancing funding for Stage One, the Cladding Remediation Programme: Next Phase Plan of Action also confirms the launch of Stage 2 of the Single Open Call. This will allow owners, or their representatives, to seek Scottish Government support for any required mitigation and/or essential cladding remediation works identified through the funded Single Building Assessment at Stage One.

We are proud of the investment that we are making in benefit expenditure. Based on the latest Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasts, the Scottish Government anticipates to spend around £8.8 billion on Social Security Assistance by 2029-30.

The UK Government Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 define a ‘rapid charge point’ as a charge point capable of delivering a charge of 50kW and above at nominal voltage. Ultra-rapid charging is not defined within the Regulations, but generally refers to 100kw and above charging. No ‘minimum power output standard’ is defined in these regulations.

The Scottish Government does not directly hold information on rapid/ultra-rapid chargers across Scotland as a whole. Public EV charging statistics covering the whole of the UK, including combined rapid/ultra-rapid data, is regularly compiled and published by private providers, such as Zap Map. ZapMap displays data broken down by 12 UK regions, of which Scotland is one. The latest statistics show that Scotland continues to have the second highest amount of rapid/ultra-rapid charge points across all regions in the UK.

The Scottish Government does have data on the number of rapid and ultra-rapid charge points on the Scottish Government funded ChargePlace Scotland network over the last 5 years. Information is detailed below, accurate as of the end of each calendar year unless otherwise stated: