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The citation of witnesses is a matter for the independent Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The Scottish Government is, however, supporting justice partners to drive reforms to improve our criminal justice system to make it more efficient and ensure that it works better for everyone.

That will include reducing the number of police witnesses who are required to attend court and reducing the length of time that cases take. It will also mean enabling more cases to be concluded earlier, and fewer victims and civil witnesses needing to come to court.

Two key programmes being rolled out across Scotland are the judicially led summary case management programme, which provides a new approach to summary criminal cases, and the digital evidence sharing capability programme, which allows digital evidence to be shared at the earliest opportunity including the evidence from Body Worn Video technology which is being rolled out by Police Scotland this year. It is anticipated that combined these will deliver benefits for both civil and professional witnesses.

All public bodies, including Police Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service, are expected to comply with the Equality Act 2010 and other relevant legislation.

Compliance with the Act is a matter for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The EHRC operates independently and cannot be directed by Scottish Ministers.

The EHRC publishes statutory Codes of Practice and associated guidance on the Equality Act 2010 to assist bodies to better understand and comply with their legal obligations under the Act.

The Scottish Government has not received any formal proposals for additional sites for additional SDCF beyond the Glasgow pilot therefore no budget is currently allocated for this.

Any future consideration on funding will be contingent on the submission of robust, locally led proposals that demonstrate strong community engagement, comply with legal and operational requirements set out by the Lord Advocate and align with national public health priorities.

The information requested on how many vacancies currently exist in (a) radiology and (b) oncology posts can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence (Vacancy tab).

The following table sets out the number of determined planning appeals in each of the last five years which have been recalled for a decision by Ministers, instead of being delegated to a reporter. These planning applications were appealed after having been refused or undetermined by the local planning authority. Information is provided on the number of recalled appeals allowed (granted) by Ministers and for comparison the number of recalled appeals dismissed (refused) by Ministers or withdrawn by the applicant.

The transfer and repatriation of mother and babies is a normal component of neonatal care provision in Scotland, ensuring babies receive the most appropriate care at the correct time.

The intention with the new model of care is that mothers in suspected extreme pre-term labour are transferred before they give birth (in-utero transfer) to maternity units in the hospitals that have neonatal intensive care units. We expect that those maternity units will have planned capacity to receive those women.

It is recognised that it will not always be possible to transfer mothers before they give birth, and in that case our specialist neonatal transfer service, ScotSTAR will transfer those babies in specialist ambulances equipped to care for neonates, as this has been established practice for many years. Babies receiving care in one of the three intensive care units will be transferred back to their local neonatal unit for ongoing care as soon as possible.

The Scottish Perinatal network has developed and published guidance for all Boards across Scotland to support identification and transfer of mothers in suspected extreme preterm labour. Experiences of testing the new model of neonatal intensive care showed that the vast majority of mothers in suspected pre-term labour were identified and transferred before giving birth.

No one should remain in hospital when they no longer need to be there, and we are clear that the current level of delay is unacceptable. It is important to reflect that 97% of all hospital discharges happen without delay. The latest published statistics show that the level of delayed discharges has fallen. At the end of April 2025, 1,868 people were delayed in hospital, 162 fewer than the high point of 2,030 delays at the end of October 2024.

In the 12 months to April 2025, there were 261,980 operations performed, 1.6% increase from the previous 12 months. Out of all the planned operations, only a small proportion were cancelled due to capacity reasons.

Addressing the variation in delays across the country is the focus of significant and sustained attention and effort by this Government. The NHS Scotland Operational Improvement Plan sets out a clear plan to reduce waiting times and delayed discharges, supported by £200 million targeted investment as part of the 2025-26 Budget.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. However, we have been able to access the data held by National Records of Scotland (NRS) for the years 2010 and 2015. (Please see table attached). As at
31 March 2025, there are 2,938 GDS dentists, up c.5% over the last year and there are 3,249 primary care dentists, an increase of 4.2% over the last year.

Typically an experienced primary care dentist seeing mainly NHS patients will have a list of around 2,000 – 2,500 patients. While the total number of dentists includes those in Public and Hospital Dental Service settings, published figures indicate that there are no Board areas with less than 1 dentist per 2,000 of population.

As at 31 March 2025, there are 59.2 primary care dentists per 100,000 of the Scottish population, compared to 56.8 at 31 March 2024. This equates to 0.6 dentists per 1000 patients.

The Scottish Government introduced payment reform changes from 1 November 2023 which has been well received by the profession. This is the main intervention designed to ensure dentists continue to be incentivised to both remain and increase their NHS provision.

Workforce:

2.Payment reform was introduced in November ’23 reducing treatment items from 700 to 45, with almost 4 million courses of treatment delivered between November 2023 and September 2024.

3.A second stage of reform will focus on workforce. Under the First Minister’s NHS Renewal priorities for 25-26 student intake to the Bachelor of Dental Surgery/BDS courses at Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow universities will increase by 7%; a new training scheme will support overseas-qualified dentists, who are GDC-registered as dental therapists, to convert to full dentist status at a cost of £1.5M and redesign of a rural incentive scheme funded via the GDS budget.

4.I will continue to lead on renewing four-nation discussions on Provisional Registration, which would allow overseas-qualified dentists to enter the UK NHS workforce immediately while awaiting qualification.

5.The Scottish Government is addressing building capacity, by adopting a multi-disciplinary team approach, giving patients direct access to care via dental care professional (i.e. hygienists, therapists, dental nurses).

6.We continue to offer financial support through the recently revised Scottish Dental Access Initiative and Recruitment and Retention Allowance, supporting NHS dental provision in designated geographic areas to address unmet patient need.

7.The Programme for Government sets out a package of actions to improve the NHS dental workforce now and into the future, and is supported by new funding in 2025-26.

8.We will support the dental workforce pipeline through both the immediate expansion of domestic dental student numbers and the development of an innovative new training package to support international dentists in joining the NHS Scotland workforce.

9.Alongside this, we are also working with NHS Boards to refine the financial incentives in place to support dentists moving to work in rural areas, supporting sustainable access across Scotland.

It is at the discretion of the institutions to select the specific students who should participate in the SEEP test and learn projects.

Inclusion and diversity in all fields of education are a priority for the Test and Learn Project. The Test and Learn Project supports initiatives that promote social inclusion for individuals with fewer opportunities—such as people with disabilities, migrants, rural residents, and those facing socio-economic hardship or discrimination.

Funded projects should help reduce access barriers and foster inclusive, equitable environments that reflect the needs of diverse communities.