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Scottish Ministers and Scottish Government officials frequently engage with a range of stakeholders involved in the rural off-gas heating market, both in direct meetings and as part of wider consultation events.

I hosted a series of roundtables on 6 August 2025 to discuss the proposed Heat in Buildings Bill at which a range of stakeholders were in attendance, including some representing rural and off-gas grid interests. These roundtables focussed on plans for the Heat in Buildings Bill and included discussion of how to overcome the challenges faced by some rural properties in transitioning to clean heating systems.

The then-Acting Minister for Climate Action, Dr Alasdair Allan MSP, met with the UK and Ireland Fuel Distributors Association, along with other representatives of the off-gas grid heating sector, on 26 February 2025. The discussion focussed on the role that renewable liquid biofuels may play in decarbonising heating in rural buildings. This is in addition to previous ministerial engagement on rural heat which has informed our approach to the Bill.

There are currently no plans to review the funding arrangements for Integration Joint Boards.

Diversion is a process by which prosecutors are able to refer a case to social work or other identified agency as a means of addressing the underlying causes of offending when this is deemed the most appropriate course of action in the public interest.

Such intervention can be particularly effective in cases of children’s offending, changing the direction of young lives for the better and is consistent with the obligations on the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In July 2023, the Lord Advocate ordered a review of how prosecutors deal with diversion from prosecution and referral to the Children’s Reporter in cases of serious sexual offences such as rape. The review has concluded and as a result, a new Statement of Prosecution Policy, which focuses on cases involving children, was published.

From 28 April 2025, all decision making in solemn level sexual offences cases involving child accused are made by reference to the terms of the new policy.

The Scottish Government publish accredited official statistics annually, which include information on diversions from prosecution and are available on the Scottish Government website. The Scottish Government statistics are not directly comparable to the COPFS figures and the Scottish Government statistics should be preferred for statistical purposes.

COPFS operates a live, operational database to manage reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. This system is designed to support the operational needs of criminal case processing, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.

Due to the way that decisions on diversions are recorded on this database, in order to provide an accurate response to the question regarding rape cases, a manual check of the relevant cases has been undertaken.

Based on the results of those manual checks, the following table has been compiled. It includes numbers of cases in which the accused was offered diversion and following that offer, the diversion was considered completed or is still considered ongoing.

The overall numbers of cases containing an allegation of rape (which have not been checked) are provided as a point of comparison.

The Scottish Government publish accredited official statistics annually, which include information on diversions from prosecution and are available on the Scottish Government website. The Scottish Government statistics are not directly comparable to the COPFS figures and the Scottish Government statistics should be preferred for statistical purposes.

COPFS operates a live, operational database to manage reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. This system is designed to support the operational needs of criminal case processing, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.

Due to the way that decisions on diversions are recorded on this database, in order to provide an accurate response, a manual check of the relevant cases would be required.

Individuals accused of offences may be reported to COPFS on multiple charges. The table below presents the number of accused persons reported to COPFS where the first substantive marking indicates possible diversion. These figures reflect the number of accused persons, not the number of charges. As it has not been possible to conduct manual checks of this volume of cases, the following table should be taken as indicative.

The Scottish Government are committed to supporting the role of lived experience on IJBs, to help amplify those voices and improve integration of those insights. We will review the statutory guidance and the approval of integration schemes to ensure the voice of lived experience is heard and to increase accountability. Engaging with service users, unpaid carers, and representatives from the third sector and IJBs will help make the guidance more relevant and responsive to community needs.

Information on the number of expressions of interest submitted to the Cladding Remediation Programme via the Single Open Call by applicant type is now published quarterly on the Scottish Government website: An Official Statistics in Development publication - Scotland’s Cladding Remediation Programme update: Q2 2025 - gov.scot.

The ‘pilot phase’ of the Cladding Remediation Programme began in 2021, and was designed to identify a range of buildings to help inform the development of the Single Building Assessment (SBA) process. As part of this work, several buildings were assessed, and now require a ‘refresh’ to ensure assessments are in line with the SBA specification. This will not mean starting the assessment process again, as all existing information will be made available to the competent, qualified person carrying out the refresh.

The 107 buildings in the ‘pilot phase’ were put on a pathway to assessment, starting with pre-assessment checks made by an appointed fire engineer consultant. 51 were assessed as being out of scope of the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act, following a review by the appointed fire engineering consultants.

Of the 56 buildings within scope:

• 10 of the buildings have been taken on by the developer
• two were identified by the fire engineers as being low risk and not requiring an SBA
• 12 have had or are undergoing an SBA commission by Scottish Government
• 32 will require an SBA - these will now have the opportunity to be funded for assessment through the Single Open Call

The Scottish Government Cladding Remediation Programme is providing support to the 32 eligible buildings to apply to the SOC and is working with the applicants at pace through the SOC process.

The Cladding Remediation Programme is aware that expressions of interest have been submitted in respect of some of the buildings included in the information gathering exercises being conducted with Local Authorities and Registered Social Landlords, which is referred to in the recently published Cladding Remediation Programme Next Phase Plan of Action (published here: Cladding Remediation Programme: Next Phase Plan of Action - gov.scot), as well as for other buildings in their ownership. However, until the information submitted as part of that exercise has been quality assured and validated it is not possible to identify how many of those have had an expression of interest submitted via the Single Open Call.

The Scottish Government publish accredited official statistics annually, which include information on diversions from prosecution and are available on the Scottish Government website. The Scottish Government statistics are not directly comparable to the COPFS figures and the Scottish Government statistics should be preferred for statistical purposes.

COPFS operates a live, operational database to manage reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. This system is designed to support the operational needs of criminal case processing, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.

Due to the way that decisions on diversions are recorded on this database, in order to provide an accurate response to the question regarding sexual assault cases, a manual check of the relevant cases has been undertaken.

For consistency, the Scottish Government’s classification of “sexual assault” has been adopted.

Based on the results of those manual checks, the following table has been compiled. It includes numbers of cases in which the accused was offered diversion and following that offer, the diversion was considered completed or is still considered ongoing.

The overall numbers of cases containing an allegation of sexual assault (which have not been checked) are provided as a point of comparison.

There are no devolved elements of the UK Government’s delivery plan on ME/CFS. It covers the population of England only.

We are unable to formally endorse the Plan due to differing healthcare systems and statutory structures.

However, the UK Government shared anonymised responses to its public consultation on the draft Plan from stakeholders living in Scotland with the Scottish Government. We are taking these views into account as we progress our ongoing work on ME/CFS.

The 2025-26 Scottish Budget includes an additional £4.5 million to deliver new specialist support across the country for long COVID, ME/CFS and other similar conditions. We want this money to have maximum impact and we are working closely and carefully with health boards across Scotland to allocate it as quickly and effectively as possible.

We publish information on Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) average cost per unit in our annual out-turn reports, available here: Affordable Housing Supply Programme - More homes - gov.scot. The following table show the average cost per unit to deliver an affordable home in each year since 2007.

Decisions about the planning and delivery of NHS services, including specialist pain treatments, are the responsibility of individual Health Boards. Boards are expected to consider the available evidence, local population needs and clinical advice when making decisions.

The Scottish Health Technologies Group is currently undertaking an independent review of certain specialist interventions for chronic pain. Their findings, expected on 28 November 2025, will support informed decision-making across NHS Scotland.