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The online app for health and social care, which is part of our ‘digital front door’ programme, will initially be available to a small cohort of people in Lanarkshire from December 2025. Whilst work continues on preparing for that initial release, we are simultaneously engaging with Health Boards and COSLA to develop the rollout approach beyond Lanarkshire. It is our intention to set this out in more detail from Summer 2025.

NHS Board Executive staff are required to set objectives annually which are aligned to the Board strategy and priorities. Executives must have objectives which demonstrate the contributions made to national and regional working, the delivery of the Health and Care strategy and the delivery of specific Board and local objectives. The performance of individual Executive staff is measured against these agreed objectives, with annual pay progression dependant on performance against these objectives.

There is a national governance and accountability process each year overseen by the National Performance Management Committee (NPMC) which provides scrutiny of performance management arrangements for NHS Scotland’s Executive staff. The NPMC requests and reviews evidence from NHS Boards to ensure that performance markings above fully acceptable are robust. Only after this process is complete can Executive staff then receive pay progression.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. This would need to be requested from the NHS Boards directly. It is for NHS Boards to ensure best use of available resources to support service delivery whilst prioritising patient safety and care.

The core Scottish Government has grown its workforce in the last decade in order to respond to newly devolved powers, such as Social Security, the impact of exiting the European Union, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since March 2022 the core Scottish Government has enhanced its recruitment controls and has been reducing its total workforce. This has decreased in each financial year, including the current financial year to date, with the reduction reaching 4% for the period from March 2022 to December 2024. In this period the workforce has been deployed to new priorities such as the establishment of ScotWind and to respond to the conflict in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis.

The Scottish Government reviews the workforce size routinely in governance forums, alongside information on the delivery of the organisation and the financial position both of the portfolio and more specifically the operating cost. The delivery reviewed is both in terms of progressing the Programme for Government, as well as activities such as responding to Freedom of Information requests. It also includes the delivery of corporate services that are resourced from the core Scottish Government, and provided to many different public bodies.

These regular reviews ensures that there is an ongoing assessment of the efficiency and effectiveness of the workforce.

The Scottish Government does not have any plans to review the legal status of first-cousin marriages in Scotland.

Our workforce plans remain under regular review as we deploy the workforce in line with Ministerial priorities, providing public services as efficiently and effectively as possible, and operating within the direction set out in the Budget.

The Budget has established the total operating cost for the next financial year and workforce plans will be adjusted accordingly, with an expectation that there will be reductions in the workforce.

Based on the latest Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasts, it is estimated that the budget allocated to Social Security will be 14.8% of the Scottish Government’s total Resource Budget by 2029-30. The proportion of the budget which the Scottish Government has chosen to invest in to enhance our Social Security offering, compared to England and Wales (i.e. above the Social Security Block Grant Adjustment), is projected to be 2.6% of the total Scottish Government Resource Budget by 2029-30.

Scotland does not have an equivalent body to NHS England, health services are managed by NHS boards, which operate within Scotland’s devolved system of government.

The UK Government’s decision to move the functions of NHS England to the relevant UK government department bring it in line with the situation in Scotland where NHS Scotland is already a part of the core Scottish Government civil service.

Regarding public bodies more widely our programme of Public Service Reform is addressing all opportunities identified to remove duplication from the public sector landscape, including consolidation of public bodies where appropriate and where a value for money case can be made. This work is part of our wider focus on driving a culture of continuous improvement to support efficiency and effectiveness across the delivery of public services.

The Scottish Government has already streamlined the public sector landscape by reducing the number of Scottish public bodies under our control from 199 in 2007 to 131 at the end of 2024. The Ministerial Control Framework also makes clear that establishing any new public bodies should be a last resort, ensuring any new bodies are established only when absolutely necessary.

The Scottish Government is committed to delivering a long-term solution to the landslip risks at the A83 Rest and Be Thankful and in December we made further progress by publishing draft Orders for the long-term solution and also for future phases of the medium-term solution to provide an improved diversionary route along the Old Military Road.

A breakdown of the £19.5 million spent on consultant’s fees can be found on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202500451605/.

These fees are associated with engineering design, environmental assessment (including environmental survey work), traffic and economic assessment, stakeholder engagement, and supervision of ground investigation works associated with the development of the medium and long term solutions as well as medium term solution construction works to the Old Military Road.

This expenditure is not unreasonable given the complexity and challenges of the scheme and the extent of the work being carried out to complete it.