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As part of the 2024-25 Scottish Budget, Scottish Government made available £144 million to councils who chose to maintain Council Tax liabilities at 2023-24 levels. This funding, equivalent to a 5 per cent increase nationally, ensured that councils agreeing to maintain rates were fully funded for that decision thereby protecting both local government budgets and household incomes.

Throughout engagement with COSLA, Councils and opposition parties ahead of the 2025-26 Scottish Budget, there was a clear consensus that Councils should have full flexibility for decisions on council tax rates. The Scottish Budget delivered that ask in full as part of a record Local Government Settlement worth over £15 billion including real terms protection of General Revenue Grant, another key ask of COSLA and opposition parties.

Decisions on Council Tax are therefore a matter for Local Authorities to take in consultation with local communities.

As councils apply that discretion and the impact on low and middle-income households becomes clearer, the most financially vulnerable will continue to be protected through the Council Tax Reduction (CTR) Scheme. The CTR scheme exists to ensure that nobody in Scotland should have to meet a council tax liability they cannot be expected to afford, and reduces a household’s liability based on an assessment of their income, capital, and other circumstances. Over 460,000 households receive some level of CTR, and on average recipients save over £850 a year.

More frequent and meaningful budget engagement with COSLA and Councils was fundamental to informing the record funding settlement made available to Local Government in the Scottish Budget 2025-26. Scottish Ministers remain committed to deepening and broadening that partnership to ensure the sustainability of local services.

The needs-based formula used to distribute the funding available for local government is agreed with COSLA on behalf of all 32 local authorities each year. Scottish Ministers are open to exploring the funding formula through that meaningful engagement but any proposals for a formal review should properly come through COSLA in the first instance.

Research conducted by Public Health Scotland estimated that Minimum Unit Pricing had reduced alcohol-attributable deaths in Scotland by 13.4%, or 156 per year, up to the end of 2020, compared to what would have happened if Minimum Unit Pricing had not been in place.

Public Health Scotland’s final report on the independent evaluation of the impact of Minimum Unit Pricing can be found here:

https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/evaluating-the-impact-of-minimum-unit-pricing-for-alcohol-in-scotland-a-synthesis-of-the-evidence/

Data on alcohol-specific deaths for 2024 is due to be published later this year. The Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment for the continuation and future pricing of Minimum Unit Pricing includes estimated impacts of a 65p per unit minimum price on mortality outcomes based on modelling undertaken by the University of Sheffield. It is estimated that, compared to the removal of Minimum Unit Pricing, a minimum price of 65p per unit would result in 110 fewer alcohol-specific deaths in the first year. Additionally, it is estimated that there would be 191 fewer all-cause deaths, as reducing alcohol consumption can prevent deaths from causes beyond those wholly attributed to alcohol, such as injuries or other health conditions.

The Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment can be found here:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/minimum-unit-pricing-mup-continuation-future-pricing-business-regulatory-impact-assessment/

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of additional strokes that could be detected by adopting BE FAST.

The Scottish Government’s position is that the current evidence base does not support a move to the use of BE FAST, and this is supported by Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland and Stroke Association, however we will regularly review this position based on the best available evidence.

The requested information is not held centrally. The Scottish Stroke Care Audit (SSCA) does not routinely collect information on posterior circulation strokes or data on whether there has been a FAST “pre-alert” before arrival at hospital.

The number of hospital admissions wholly attributable to alcohol is published on the Public Health Scotland’s (PHS) website. For the five year period, the number of hospital admissions wholly attributable to alcohol is presented in the following table.

Data on alcohol-specific deaths are published annually by National Records Scotland (NRS) and can be found here: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/alcohol-specific-deaths-2023/

Data on alcohol-specific deaths for 2024 are not yet published. The number of alcohol-specific deaths for the five year period 2019-2023 are listed in the following table, alongside the number and proportion of these deaths where the underlying cause of death was alcoholic liver disease.

Local authorities are responsible for the management of their school estate including decisions about the closure of schools. Local authorities are required by the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 (“the 2010 Act”) to carry out a full public consultation where they are proposing a permanent school closure.

Local authorities must also undertake specific additional steps when they propose to close a rural school. These include clearly demonstrating that they have considered alternatives to closure, an assessment of the likely impact on the community and impact on travel to school arrangements for local pupils. The local authority must also set out the educational benefit of the closure which is subject to an independent report by HM Inspectors. The local authority must respond to HM Inspectors’ assessment of the educational impact on those affected. If a proposal to close a school is rejected, then the local authority cannot repeat the process for five years, providing stability for the local community. These protections are intended to ensure that local authorities think very carefully before closing a rural school and consult extensively with the local community about their proposal.

Where it appears to Scottish Ministers that the local authority may have failed, in a significant regard, to comply with the requirements imposed on it by the 2010 Act, or to take proper account of a material consideration relevant to its decision they may “call-in” the decision for review by an independent School Closure Review Panel.

The Scottish Government published ‘Migration - Meeting Scotland's Needs’ in January setting out the economic benefits of migration to Scotland.

Scotland’s has distinct demographic challenges. While the UK’s working population is projected to increase by 0.5% between 2025-75 Scotland’s is projected to fall by 14.7%. Positive net migration increases the size of the working-age population, which is crucial for economic growth as well as fiscal sustainability. The UK Migration Advisory Committee has found that a 1% increase in the migrant share of the workforce is associated with a productivity improvement of between 1.2% and 3%. Research has shown that migrants contribute more to government revenue through taxes than they receive in public services. Migration can help meet the needs of our economy, public services and communities.

The Scottish Government expects all incidents of violent and abusive behaviour towards staff to be recorded.

In Scotland our local councils employ education staff and we expect all local authorities to be ensuring that their schools have policies in place which determine clearly what action should be taken to address challenging behaviour and to best protect their staff in the workplace. This would include having processes in place to record violent and abusive incidents towards teachers and staff.

The joint relationships and behaviour in schools action plan includes an action to review all current processes for recording incidents, to identify potential means of streamlining processes and improving consistency. An update on the plan will publish in the coming weeks.