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The Scottish Government has a strong track record in the investment in and delivery of affordable homes. Since 2007 we have supported the delivery of more than 139,000 affordable homes, with 99,000 of these being made available for social rent. This has resulted in the delivery of affordable homes in Scotland being 47% more per head of population than in England, and 73% more than in Wales. However, prevailing economic conditions across the United Kingdom in recent years, driven by EU-exit, Covid-19 and wider global pressures, has made delivery in recent years more challenging. For example, construction inflation reached 24% in the summer of 2022.

Despite these headwinds we remain absolutely committed to our longstanding affordable home ambitions. We are investing £808 million in 2025-26 alone, and remain focused on delivering at least 70% of homes for social rent towards our 110,000 affordable homes target. This investment includes a doubling of our acquisition fund from £40 million to £80 million in 2025-26 helping to deliver homes more quickly, the majority of which will be for social rent. Of the 28,537 affordable homes delivered to end March 2025 against our target, 77% are for social rent.

We have announced plans to invest up to £4.9 billion over the next four years in a multi-annual, multi-billion pound affordable housebuilding project and continue to work with partners to maximise delivery in Scotland.

All wholetime fire stations have some form of segregated washing facilities for staff and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) estates strategy ensures all premises are risk assessed and that suitable alternative washing facility arrangements and mitigations are implemented. SFRS recognises the need for investment in dignified facilities and for contaminant control measures and prioritises its budget accordingly, for example as part of ongoing work. SFRS has recently upgraded facilities at Galashiels, Newcraighall, McDonald Road, Edinburgh and Inverness.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) has 456 rescue pump appliances in operation. 211 of these are more than 15 years old, however all SFRS appliances are properly maintained to ensure they remain fully operational, and the oldest vehicles are placed in locations where they will be least used.

The Scottish Government has increased the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) capital budget by £10.5 million in 2024-25 and by a further £4 million in 2025-26, bringing the total annual budget to £47 million. SFRS is currently conducting a Service Delivery Review to ensure that investment in its estate, fleet and equipment is focussed where it is needed most.

Scottish Government committed to a Four Day Working Week pilot in the public sector to explore the wellbeing and productivity benefits that a shorter working week could bring. No additional funding was allocated to either Accountancy in Bankruptcy or South of Scotland Enterprise to deliver the pilot in their organisations.

The pilot was delivered in partnership with The Autonomy Institute who published their evaluation report on 27 August. The report can be accessed here - Four day working week pilot - Public sector pay - gov.scot.

The Penrose Inquiry’s report, published on 25 March 2015, contained a single recommendation, which was that the Scottish Government take all reasonable steps to offer a hepatitis C virus (HCV) test to everyone in Scotland who had a blood transfusion before September 1991 and who has not been tested for HCV. The Scottish Government accepted this recommendation and in response a Short-Life Working Group (SLWG), involving key stakeholders such as the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, was established by Health Protection Scotland. The SLWG progress report was published on 2 September 2016, setting out the range of work undertaken by the SLWG.

The Scottish Government accepted the recommendation of the SLWG that there should be an awareness raising campaign to encourage people who had (or are likely to have had) a blood transfusion prior to 1991, and who have not already been tested for hepatitis C, to come forward for testing. A targeted awareness raising campaign to encourage such individuals to be tested was launched in October 2016 and an evaluation of the campaign, as recommended by the SLWG, was completed by Health Protection Scotland in 2018. The SLWG also recommended that a Chief Medical Officer letter should be sent to all clinicians in Scotland to remind them of certain risk factors and clinical indicators for HCV infection and making them aware of the recent advances in therapy and thus the benefits of HCV testing. The Chief Medical Officer accordingly wrote to all clinicians in Scotland on 20 September 2016, following up a previous letter issued just after the publication of the Penrose report on 27 March 2015. The Penrose Inquiry’s recommendation has therefore been fully implemented.

All Scottish Government staff are subject to SG Terms & Conditions and are managed & supported via our internal policies and processes. This is currently in a live legal process and we do not comment on any individual staffing matters or circumstances.

While the impacts that AI will create are not yet fully understood, the Scottish Government will develop improved methods for assessing the potential impact of AI on jobs in Scotland, recognising the urgent need to understand both the risks and emerging opportunities in a rapidly evolving labour market.

Prior to the implementation of Oracle Cloud, the Scottish Government’s previous HR Information System did not require Job Title to be a mandatory field for completion. This meant that individuals could be operational in substantive posts, but with missing or out of date job titles recorded on the system.

There are 45 civil servants, directly employed by the Scottish Government, whose Job Title does not appear on the organisation’s HR Information System, Oracle Cloud, when a report is downloaded. Further information on Scottish Government workforce numbers is available here Scottish Government workforce information - gov.scot).

A Professions Strategy is in operation within Scottish Government. This enhances workforce management by adopting a classification system that links all jobs to a profession and a related job family and job type. While the majority of jobs have been through this classification system in preparation for Oracle Cloud going live, there is a small minority of roles (~7%) still to be formally classified which Scottish Government are currently progressing.

To grow Scotland's economy, we must make full use of our potential workforce and remove barriers to employment.