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Scottish Government commissioned Consulting firm RSM UK Consulting LLP to undertake detailed modelling work to fully map the capacity requirements across the system to inform capacity building and implementation of the new model. The report was published on the 29 May 2024.

Each of the three Regional Planning Chief Executives has produced a plan outlining how they will move to the new model of care in their region. The plans are based on the capacity modelling work undertaken by RSM-UK and describe how the units will increase cot capacity to deliver the new model. Wishaw and Glasgow babies are included in the West Region, and are reflected in the capacity building in that plan.

There is no available data on the number of prosecutions for online child sexual abuse that have taken place in each of the past five years.

COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. The database is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.

Since the publication of the Stroke Improvement Plan, each NHS Board now has a named individual with responsibility for stroke care. The Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health chaired a roundtable meeting with these individuals in October 2024, outlining the Scottish Government’s priorities and expectations regarding stroke care.

A National Stroke Engagement Forum, which met for the first time on 2 October 2024, has been established. This forum, attended by stroke service representatives from every NHS Board, is helping to drive improvement work and facilitate the sharing of best practice across NHS Board boundaries.

An increased focus on rehabilitation is a key component of our Stroke Improvement Plan. We are now asking stroke services in all NHS Boards to offer a formal review to everyone who has had a stroke, taking place six months after the stroke event and allowing re-referral into stroke services where required. In addition, empirical measures of rehabilitation and stroke-specific Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMS) are being developed and these will further enhance our ability to gauge the delivery of stroke care and rehabilitation.

Since the publication of the Stroke Improvement Plan, NHS Boards are now required to demonstrate adequate provision of psychological support for those who have suffered a stroke, and this is assessed via NHS Board reviews.

In terms of stroke prevention, the Scottish Government has launched the Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Risk Factors programme to improve CVD outcomes with an aim to reduce avoidable CVD death by 20% in 20 years. This work focuses on improving the identification and management of key risk factors which are high blood pressure, high cholesterol, raised blood sugars, obesity and smoking. We have also established a new GP enhanced service from the 2025-26 Reform Fund to support 100,000 patients who are at risk of developing CVD.

While the Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care policy in Scotland, the statutory responsibility for delivering, commissioning and providing appropriate social care services at a local level lies with local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships. This includes the responsibility to reduce the number of people being delayed in hospital unnecessarily.

Since 2015-16, the Scottish Government has provided additional funding for social care and integration. This annual investment has risen to almost £2.2 billion in the 2025-26 Scottish Budget.

However, decisions on how best to deliver services to local communities are ultimately for Health and Social Care Partnerships and locally elected representatives to make.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

In 2025-26, applications will be assessed on their ability to support the ambitions set out in Scotland’s Destination Scotland – inward attraction of international students, staff, and researchers - Scotland's international education strategy - gov.scot and a separate strand will be assessed against Community Learning and Development priorities.

Projects within this criterion are able to provide opportunities for both staff mobility and vocational training exchanges.

Since SEEP began in 2003, opportunities have been provided for staff mobility and vocational training. Further information on funded projects can be found at: Scottish Education Exchange Programme: - Test and Learn: funded projects - gov.scot.

The Scottish Government’s supplementary Financial Memorandum, to reflect the scaled-back care reform proposals for the Care Reform (Scotland) Bill, was published on the Health, Social Care & Sport Committee’s website on 25 March 2025.

This year Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (pEPR) will commence payments to local authorities to support efficient and effective collection services for household packaging waste. There will be no reduction in the local government finance settlement as a result of extended producer responsibility for packaging payments in the first year of the scheme (2025-26). This additional funding will ensure that local authorities are supported to deliver household collection of packaging waste across Scotland.

The Circular Economy Route map commits Scottish Government to co-design the new Code of Practice to create modern, efficient, and affordable waste and recycling service standards that are deliverable. This includes ensuring the most effective approaches to implementing kerbside collection of plastic film and flexible packaging in Scotland. Individual local authority performance targets and pEPR payments will also help underpin increased collection and aggregation. The Recycling Improvement Fund has already helped two authorities to collect flexible plastic from households across their full authority area (Fife and Perth & Kinross).

The UK Plastic Packaging Tax incentivises the use of recycled plastic by taxing plastic packaging components containing less than 30% recycled plastic. From April 2027 changes to this tax will mean that pre-consumer plastic waste will not count towards this percentage, further acting as a “pull” to increase use of recycled content. The tax has increased from £210.82 per tonne in 2023 to £223.69 per tonne on April 1, 2025.

There is no proposal to transfer neonatal care services to Aberdeen. In July 2023 I announced that three hospitals in Scotland, the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and Aberdeen Maternity Hospital would provide neonatal intensive care for the very smallest and sickest babies, based on evidence provided to The Best Start review by expert academics and professionals, that survival and outcomes for these babies is better when they are cared for in a smaller number of specialist units. All Neonatal Units in Scotland will continue to provide care for the vast majority of families locally and only a very small number of families will be affected by the change to the model of care.

The process of determining which units should provide Neonatal Intensive Care was undertaken by the Perinatal Sub Group of the Best Start, comprising NHS clinical leads, senior management and service user representatives.

The Scottish Government has consulted with families on implementation of the proposals so that their concerns and priorities are included when the pathways and processes for the new model of care are designed. A survey was launched on Citizen Space on 21 June 2024. The results of the survey and focus groups will now be shared with the Regional Planners to support implementation.

Our expectation with the new model is that care is delivered as close to home as possible. It would be highly unusual for babies to have to transfer to Aberdeen from the central belt and would only happen in exceptional circumstances when the central belt units reach capacity in intensive care. Currently NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, NHS Lothian and NHS Grampian have plans in place to build additional capacity in their Neonatal Intensive Care units as part of the change process.

The Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment published alongside the Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill sets out Scottish Government’s assumptions on the likely impact of a Building Safety Levy in Scotland.

New build house sales make up just 9% of all Scottish residential sales in 2024-25. This, in addition to the existence of the secondary market for housing, means that residential housing developers do not have significant price setting power over the market as a whole. The Scottish Government’s assessment is, therefore, that the likelihood of the costs of the Levy leading to increased house prices is low.

With limited scope for developers to pass through the cost of the levy onto house buyers, the more likely scenario is that developers will seek to pass on the costs of the Levy on through paying a lower price for the land to be developed. This reflects evidence from the Competition and Markets Authority and the Scottish Land Commission, and was underlined in feedback provided by stakeholders as part of the consultation and engagement undertaken prior to the introduction of the Bill.