Chamber and committees

Public Health Scotland continues to provide data regarding planned procedure activity prior to March 2020 in the monthly Cancelled Planned Operations release which can be accessed at Cancelled planned operations - Month Ending 30 April 2025 - Cancelled planned operations - Publications - Public Health Scotland. The ‘Cancellations data’ file provides the information needed for comparisons of time periods May 2015 to April 2025 by month and therefore able to illustrate the difference in current levels of operation activity and operation activity pre-COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of PHS’ obligations under the UKSA Code of Practice for Statistics (found at About the Code – Code of Practice for Statistics), PHS continually review outputs to ensure they adhere to all the pillars contained within the Code of Practice. This states that “statistics and data [should be] useful, easy to access, remain relevant, and support understanding of important issues.” Upon review, the Cancelled Planned Operations summary has been adapted to align with these principles.

More specifically, in line with the principles of “Relevance to Users” and “Innovation and Improvement” the Cancelled Planned Operations commentary now reflects and highlights current trend patterns within 3 years from the latest release. The aim of the revised time trend highlighted within the summary is to meet the user need of improving access to latest trends and highlights important current information. The risk of including too much of a historic time trend in the summary chart is that it becomes more difficult to interpret these current trends. Nevertheless, the continuation of the provision of the longer time trend within the accompanying data tables, including activity prior to March 2020, allows the user to access the data if they wish to do so.

The Scottish Government regularly discusses a wide range of fire safety topics with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) including battery energy storage system (BESS) sites.

SFRS is a member of the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) and has access to the wide range of fire and rescue research, guidance and expertise provided by the NFCC. The Scottish Fire and Rescue service provides advice to the Scottish Government on fire safety matters.

There was no communication between the Scottish Government and the NFCC regarding the single recorded incident at a BESS site in Scotland. This incident involved a battery unit which was damaged in transit and was not yet installed. There were no casualties.

Statistics on the class sizes of P1 to P3 pupils are published in the pupil census supplementary statistics, available on the Scottish Government website at:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/pupil-census-supplementary-statistics/

The Scottish Government does not hold figures on how many retail units are vacant in high streets and town centres across the country. Local authorities have responsibility for delivering local economic development and local regeneration.

Funding is provided to Local Authorities by means of a block grant to allow them to allocate the total financial resources available to them, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on additional support needs.

Scottish Government and COSLA work in partnership on additional support needs through the Additional Support for Learning Project Board. The new Education and Childcare Assurance Board provides a further opportunity for jointly agreeing priorities and joint working in this context.

The Scottish Government has no role in reviewing how additional support needs team allocations are determined within local authority secondary schools.

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act (2004) places duties on Education authorities to identify, make provision for, and review provision for the additional support needs of children and young people for whose education they are responsible.

Funding is provided to Local Authorities by means of a block grant to allow them to allocate the total financial resources available to them, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-37609 on 27 May 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.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-38037 on xxxxxxx which provides detail on the COSLA scoping study undertaken in 2022. Local authorities have a general responsibility to maintain play parks that serve their communities and this investment provides a boost in funding to accelerate local plans and improve play experiences for all children in Scotland. The reporting by Local Authorities agreed with COSLA does not include data on the condition of play parks before or after renewals. 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.

Information on Ministerial engagements is routinely published on the Scottish Government website and can be found at: www.gov.scot/collections/ministerial-engagements-travel-and-gifts/. The engagements for May 2025 will be published three months in arrears, in line with the Scottish Ministerial Code.

Scottish Government does not collect the information on the number of children and young people in receipt of home education.

Local authorities hold responsibility for ensuring the safety and wellbeing of children being home educated, and that the education they are receiving is suitable for their age and ability. In line with the Scottish Government's home education guidance, it is recommended that local authorities should make contact on an annual basis with those families who are known to be home educating within that local authority area.

As part of the update to this guidance, Scottish Government will work with local authority partners to consider options for collecting an aggregate number of children and young people home educating in their area.