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Officer wellbeing is an operational matter for Police Scotland. I refer the member to my response to S6W-35420 on 17 March 2025 and S6W-37984 on 9 June 2025.

The Chief Constable has stated to the Criminal Justice Committee that the wellbeing of police officers and staff is one of her main priorities. Police Scotland has made a £17 million investment in workforce wellbeing, which includes a 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme and enhanced occupational health services, to support officers and staff wellbeing.

Police Scotland has provided reassurance that they have a healthy recruitment pipeline and has recruited around 1,370 officers since the start of 2024.

Funding was approved for the school programme of the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 28 March 2025, some months prior to the appointment referred to.

Edinburgh International Book Festival have confirmed that appointments to their Board for directors, which are unsalaried and unremunerated, follow fully advertised and formal open recruitment processes.

While a patient has the right, at any time, to exercise choice and seek private treatment, we recognise that excessively long waits for NHS treatment are not acceptable.

We’re determined to reduce patient waits in the year ahead and our investment of £106 million additional funding will help us to deliver more than 150,000 extra appointments and procedures in 2025-26. The funding has been assigned to specialty areas for the year ahead where it can have the greatest impact against the longest waits – this includes £25 million for trauma and orthopaedics, £21 million for imaging, more than £12 million for ophthalmology, over £9 million for Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) and over £8.8 million for Gynaecology.

This funding is just part of our record investment of £21.7 billion for health and social care this year.

In support of the Budget and wider Public Service Reform agenda, the Scottish Government is proactively addressing the need to control workforce size.

From March 2022 to March 2025, the total workforce in the Scottish Government has reduced by 5%. This reduction has been achieved through prioritising reductions in contingent workers, natural attrition and enhanced recruitment controls. There are currently no plans for redundancies for this financial year.

As the Public Service Reform Strategy is taken forward we will establish how this will shape the future workforce plan for the Scottish Government organisation and the wider Civil Service.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-39142 on 23 July 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-38932 on 22 July 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-38932 on 22 July 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Tax code matters such as allowances and reliefs are reserved to the UK Government. The Scottish Government has no plans currently to change the number of Income Tax bands

Westminster austerity does continue to impact on public services. For example, the increase to employers’ national insurance without fully funding the impact of this on public service delivery has the impact of reducing the actual funding for delivery of programmes and was taken forward by the UK Government irrespective of the impact of that reduction on the outcomes of those programmes and activity.

The Scottish Government recently published the Tax Strategy for Scotland, which along with Scottish Budget 2025-26 and the Medium-Term Financial Strategy, sets out the next steps in our approach to tax, identifying priorities to support economic growth and Government objectives of eradicating child poverty, tackling the climate emergency and improving public services.