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There have been 35 public bodies established since 2013 which are included below. Further information on their core functions is publicly available on the National Public Bodies Directory: https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-public-bodies-directory/.

Local authorities employ education staff and must ensure their schools have policies in place that determine clearly what action should be taken to address challenging behaviour and protect their staff in the workplace. This includes having processes in place to record violent and abusive incidents towards staff including teachers.

Data on school violence and staff assaults is collected at local authority level, where it is primarily used to monitor trends and ensure appropriate support is available for staff and young people. This remains appropriate and we have no plans to collect and publish this data on a quarterly basis.

I have made clear to Parliament on several occasions, including in my statement to Parliament on 29 November 2023, my position on the need for more accurate recording of all incidents of inappropriate, abusive or violent behaviour in our schools, and I continue to encourage all schools to do that. To support schools and education authorities, as part of the Relationships and Behaviour in Schools Action Plan 2024-27, over the coming year we will undertake work to review processes for recording incidents, with a view to streamlining and improving consistency. We will also commission the next wave of the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research, with fieldwork expected in early 2026.

Exclusion statistics are currently reported biennially. The next data will be published in December 2025 covering 2024-2025. There are currently no plans to change the frequency of this publication.

The Scottish Ministers keep the law that sits within the powers of the Scottish Parliament under review to ensure it is fit for purpose.

The Scottish Law Commission’s aspects of family law project is focusing on a review of the civil remedies available for domestic abuse as part of the 11th Programme of Law Reform. We will consider the outcomes of this work when the Commission’s report is published.

In terms of safe accommodation, local authorities have the legal duty to provide advice and assistance to people who are at risk of homelessness or experiencing homelessness. This includes providing temporary accommodation in the short term if someone has nowhere safe to stay, and permanent accommodation if someone is found unintentionally homeless. Therefore, anyone at risk of homelessness following court proceedings should contact their local authority. They are best placed to provide advice on the housing options available and what further support they can offer.

Scottish Government do not hold information on all public sector leases centrally. The following table shows the top 10 most expensive leases held by Scottish Government. This is made up of the costs of rent and service charges.

Some Health Boards are already delivering additional activity 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, to help people get diagnostic tests they need. Since 2021, we have provided three permanent CT scanners to support core diagnostic imaging capacity within Boards, including a mobile CT pod which is deployed flexibly to Boards that require additional capacity. In addition, four further mobile CTs and thirteen mobile MRI scanners are being used across multiple NHS Boards to provide additional capacity.

Additional funding provided through the £200 million investment contained in the Budget to reduce waiting times and improve flow through hospital, will support further reductions to the radiology backlog so that 95% of referrals are seen within six weeks by March 2026.

There is currently no digital outpatient system in development at a national level, although the online app for health & social care, which is being developed as part of our Digital Front Door Programme, will provide digital access to outpatient appointments. More details can be found in the NHS Scotland Operational Improvement Plan, available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/nhs-scotland-operational-improvement-plan/pages/5/.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes statistics on the length of time patients wait to be seen as a new outpatient or admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case in the Stage of Treatment (SoT) publication. The latest publication release contains data up to quarter ending 31 December 2024.

Table 1 presents the latest available statistics on the total number of attendances and admissions for patients who had waited over a year (52 weeks) as a new outpatient or an inpatient or day case. The following data are presented at NHS Scotland level for all specialties, broken down by calendar year and split by new outpatient and inpatient or day case.

Table 1 – Total number of attendances as a new outpatient and admissions as an inpatient or day case for patients who had waited over a year (52 weeks), NHS Scotland, all specialty level, by calendar year from 2020 to present.

In line with our commitment to creating safe and nurturing school environments, the Scottish Government prioritises approaches that address behaviour through understanding and positive intervention.

Our approach to relationships and behaviour in schools is focussed on prevention and de-escalation of concerns. School staff should be supported through clear understanding of their establishment’s relationships and behaviour policy, arrangements for de-escalation and support that can be provided to them where situations do escalate.

The Scottish Government has not received any requests from local authorities for funding for teacher self-defence training in each of the last five years.

The Scottish Government has not received any requests from local authorities for funding for teacher self-defence training in each of the last five years.

Offshore oil and gas licensing, consenting and the associated fiscal regime are all matters that are currently reserved to the UK Government. As such, estimates of future production from North Sea oil and gas fields are a matter for the relevant UK regulator – the North Sea Transition Authority.

The Scottish Government has consistently called on the UK Government to approach decisions for North Sea oil and gas projects on an evidence-led, case by case, basis – with climate compatibility and energy security key considerations.

The Scottish Government published analysis of the impact of the Scottish Child Payment (SCP) on Scotland’s labour market in July 2024; Scottish Child Payment and the labour market - gov.scot and concluded it had not negatively affected labour market outcomes at scale in Scotland’s economy, while supporting the families of nearly 330,000 children.

The analysis also showed that the employment likelihood of Universal Credit (UC) clients in the planning for work regime – the majority of whom should be receiving SCP – was consistently higher in Scotland than in England, suggesting that interactions between UC and SCP are not materially impacting work incentives.

The Scottish Government continues to assess how SCP is interacting with the labour market. A further evaluation of SCP is due to be published this summer and will include a survey of recipients including questions about how and why SCP has affected their labour market activity.