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As part of the usual budget process within government, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs met with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government on a bilateral basis on 6 November 2024 and 20 March 2025. The specific issue of funding for the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit was not discussed as part of those meetings. The Scottish Government has provided increased funding for the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit for 2025-26 as part of its broader package to tackle violence and on the basis of them being able to provide additional impact from this funding.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living in Scotland with long term conditions including Chronic Kidney Disease are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care.

We are running our public consultation on the Long Term Conditions Framework from 23 April to 20 July 2025. This is available at Health: Long Term Conditions Framework - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space.

We will take the results of the consultation into account when developing the framework which will include identifying areas where targeted condition-specific action will still be needed.

Detailed requirements were outlined by Scottish Government in DL23 (2024) providing guidance on the development of NHS Board Anti-Racism plans was issued to Health Boards on 9 September 2024. This guidance requires Health Board Anti-racism plans to focus on equity within the guidance to Health Boards and emphasises an anti-racism approach in addressing racialised healthcare inequalities.

The guidance challenges specific priorities, and aims to support aligned local and national actions, to tackle racialised health inequalities. By implementing these strategies and initiatives, the Scottish Government aims to create a more accessible, equitable, and patient-centred healthcare system for all, including Black and Minority Ethnic communities in Scotland.

We know many people are still waiting too long and this is not good enough. We are determined do more and our Budget will provide a record £21.7 billion for health and social care. More than £106 million additional funding has been allocated to Health Boards to help tackle the longest waits for procedures and operations, including more than £5 million targeted funding for General Surgery (the speciality that covers hernia operations).

Clinical radiology specialty training programmes have been filled at 100% in Scotland from 2014 to 2024, with 230 resident doctors successfully completing the training in this period.

The Scottish Government continues to invest heavily in radiology training. We are currently funding around 190 specialty training places in clinical radiology, including 78 extra places which have been added since 2014, based on modelling and future workforce need.

The Scottish Government recognises that while Scotland is ranked among the top OECD countries and top performing UK regions in Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) spend as a percentage of GDP, Scotland’s Business Enterprise Research and Development (BERD) spend as a share of GDP is below the OECD average. While Scotland outperforms the EU27 average, the Scottish Government published its National Innovation Strategy in 2023 to increase innovation levels across Scotland, including business R&D spending.

The ten year strategy sets out actions to make Scotland one of the most innovative small nations in the world and will use innovation as a productivity driver to grow the economy and create jobs in areas of strength such as: energy transition; health and life sciences; advanced manufacturing; and the application of data and digital technologies. Specifically, the strategy’s commercialisation programme will support our world-class universities to consistently and effectively convert cutting edge research and technologies into scaling companies.

The Scottish Government is unequivocal in its support for Scotland’s red meat supply chain given its vital role in underpinning our rural communities and making possible our world-class produce.

We are committed to transforming Scottish agriculture, and we will continue to champion our positive vision for Scottish food production. Central to this vision is our commitment to support livestock production right here in Scotland.

We will continue to provide Scotland’s farmers and crofters with direct support including through the Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme and Scottish Upland Sheep Support Scheme. These are key components of the Scottish Government investment in agriculture which is over £660 million per year.

The Care Inspectorate collects and publishes data on service cancellations and registrations (available here: Statistics and analysis).

Figure 8 of the Care Inspectorate’s 2023_Early_learning_and_Childcare_Statistics.pdf shows service cancellations for childminding services and day care of children services for the period 2014 to 2023.

The Scottish Government drew on Care Inspectorate data to inform the most recent Financial Sustainability Health Check, published in July 2023. This included an analysis of annual cancellations across the whole childcare sector for the period March 2019 to March 2023, and provided a more detailed breakdown of cancellations by type of provider for this period. This information is set out in Table 1.10 of the Section 1: Recent Trends in the Childcare Sector - Financial Sustainability Health Check of the Childcare Sector in Scotland: Analysis and Evidence - gov.scot.

A breakdown of cancellations by local authority area can be produced using data available from the Datastore.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) uses the national waiting times data mart to collect electronic patient records covering the waits that patients experience waiting for treatment as an inpatient or day case under the Treatment Time Guarantee. This data source can be used routinely to identify the specialty of treatment. However, although the records are designed to collect coded information on the procedure that is planned for the patient, this information is often either incomplete, lacking in essential detail and/or its accuracy cannot be assured. In addition, for patients who have completed their wait the procedures that was planned may not always reflect the procedure actually performed after they were admitted for treatment. The latter is not captured through the national data mart. Consequently, PHS is not currently able to report accurately on waiting times to this level of detail.

More detailed information on the procedures that is planned or undertaken for a patient will be held locally by NHS boards.

The Scottish Government monitors trends across the whole childcare sector, drawing on data published by the Care Inspectorate. In recent years the Scottish Government has published financial sustainability health checks and the Sustainable Rates Review, which have considered issues relating to the financial sustainability of the sector.

Under the Business Sustainability criteria in the National Standard for funded ELC, providers are required to demonstrate to the local authority that they are financially viable. If a service delivering funded ELC was at risk of closure due to financial difficulties, they would therefore be obliged to make their local authority aware.

The national funded ELC cost survey that is currently being carried out by the Diffley Partnership on behalf of the Scottish Government and COSLA will help to ensure that our long-term investment to support the setting of sustainable rates is informed by a robust and reliable evidence base. The findings will be shared with local authorities and the sector later in 2025.

The Scottish Government monitors trends across the whole childcare sector, drawing on data published by the Care Inspectorate. In recent years the Scottish Government has published financial sustainability health checks and the Sustainable Rates Review, which considered issues relating to financial sustainability.

As part of the evidence gathering phase of the joint Scottish Government and COSLA Sustainable Rates Review, local authorities reported that “they had seen very little evidence of funded services in the private, third or childminding sectors reporting to them that they had been under financial duress or of services closing due to financial sustainability pressures”.

Under the Business Sustainability criteria in the National Standard for funded ELC, providers are required to demonstrate to the local authority that they are financially viable. If a service delivering funded ELC was at risk of closure due to financial difficulties, they would therefore be obliged to make their local authority aware.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with the sector representative organisations and as part of this engagement we regularly receive updates from these organisations regarding pressures faced by their members. The representative organisations will often highlight any concerns in reports which draw on the responses from members to surveys (and these reports are usually available on the organisations’ website). For example, Early Years Scotland recently published a report highlighting the potential impact on providers as a result of the UK Government’s changes to Employer National Insurance Contributions.