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In 2024-25 the Scottish Government worked with the Scottish Funding Council and enabled a £13.4m ‘swap’ of capital for resource funding, recognising that colleges required additional resource funding for maintenance purposes.

Aware of the maintenance pressures colleges continue to face, actions are underway through the College Tripartite Alignment Group, comprising of Scottish Government, the SFC and Colleges Scotland, to consider options for a current year and longer term solution. These discussions sit in the context of SFC’s ongoing work with the sector to develop a College Infrastructure Investment Plan, due to publish in autumn 2026.

The Tripartite Alignment Group provides strategic direction on the pressures and opportunities facing colleges. More can be found about its work here on the Scottish Government’s website. For example, the Group has increased the flexibility in the system with the introduction of the SFC’s College Transformation Framework in Academic Year 2025-26 which offers options around bespoke funding arrangements between colleges and the SFC to enable colleges to plan their curriculum more effectively over a number of years. The Group has also agreed a new asset disposals process which enables most colleges to retain a significant proportion of the value of any sale to invest locally.

With public finances at their most strained since devolution, this government has made a long-term commitment to supporting the college sector by increasing teaching funding by 2.1% and capital maintenance by 4.9% compared to 2024-25.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40330 on 17 September 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.

As part of the financial memorandum accompanying the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences (Scotland) Bill 2024, the Scottish Government provided a low, central, and high estimate for the potential number of individuals with convictions that may be quashed through the operation of the legislation. These estimates were given with a significant degree of uncertainty given the nature of the issues covered by the Act. The low estimate was 100, the central estimate was 200, and the high estimate was 300. To date, the Scottish Government has identified 64 individuals with convictions quashed by the Act, and one alternative to prosecution within the scope of the Act.

The initial stages of identifying individuals eligible to have their convictions quashed under the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences (Scotland) Act 2024 focused on the assessment of potential cases referred by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) as most likely to contain relevant convictions, followed by an assessment using broader criteria applied to cases identified by Police Scotland. The Scottish Government continue to work closely with Post Office Limited and the UK Government, with data sharing agreements in place to facilitate the exchange of information that supports the implementation of a consistent approach across the UK. The Scottish Government also engage with the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters (NFSP) and provide public information to ensure that anyone who may have a relevant conviction is aware that they can approach the Scottish Government to have their conviction assessed.

The report on the operation of the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences (Scotland) Act 2024 will be laid before the Scottish Parliament in the coming months.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting everyone to live longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives. That is why, the Scottish Government and COSLA recently jointly published a 10-year Population Health Framework. This Framework sets out a whole system, cross-government and cross-sector approach to improve population health and reduce inequalities with a strong focus on prevention.

The Framework aims to improve Scottish life expectancy whilst reducing the gap between the most deprived 20% of local areas and the national average by 2035. It seeks to complement and build upon ongoing and planned action recognising the need to address structural barriers that limit access to services and support, targeting action to those most in need. The Framework identifies 30 initial actions to be implemented in the first two years, all designed to strengthen the key building blocks of health – the social, economic and environmental factors – which combined have a greater effect on health than individual behaviours and health services alone.

One of these 30 actions, already underway, is the introduction of Marmot Places through the Collaboration for Health Equity in Scotland. Under this initiative, local councils and health boards in Aberdeen City, North Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire are receiving expert advice and practical support from Public Health Scotland and the Institute for Health Equity over a two-year period. This work is designed to embed long-term, whole-system approaches locally to improve health equity. Insights from these areas will be shared via a national learning system to inform and accelerate health equity initiatives across Scotland, supporting local action and contributing to measurable improvements in population health.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving life expectancy and tackling health inequalities across Scotland. The recently published Population Health Framework, a joint publication by the Scottish Government and COSLA, highlights that the circumstances and environments in which people are born, grow up, live, work and age – known as the building blocks of health – are the most influential factors shaping health outcomes.

The Framework’s supporting evidence paper notes that Scotland has experienced a decline in healthy life expectancy – the number of years people can expect to live in good health – alongside a stalling of improvements in mortality rates after decades of steady progress. These trends are associated with several major factors: the UK Government’s austerity policies during the 2010s, Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. Together, these influences have weakened the building blocks of health, widened existing inequalities, and exacerbated Scotland’s longstanding disparities in income, wealth, and power.

In response, the Population Health Framework sets out a whole-system cross-government and cross-sector approach centred on prevention. This approach builds on existing Scottish Government actions, including initiatives on diet and healthy weight, and efforts to tackle child poverty. Through this approach, the Scottish Government aims to raise overall life expectancy while closing the gap between the most deprived 20% of communities and the national average by 2035.

Scotland is not alone in facing challenges as a result of a rise in the prison population. There is no single reason for the increase and there is no single solution.

The Scottish Government has therefore taken a range of actions to address this, including changing the point of release for some short-term prisoners and bringing forward regulations to widen the use of home detention curfew, which enables selected individuals to be released to serve the last part of their sentence under curfew and clear licence conditions. Additional funding of £25m over two years has been provided to increase the capacity of community justice services across Scotland to support a sustained increase, where appropriate, in the use of alternatives to custody. This brings the total funding for community justice to £159m in 2025-26. We have also established an independent Sentencing and Penal Policy Commission to review how custody and community-based interventions are used, with a focus on reducing crime, supporting rehabilitation, and ensuring a sustainable prison population. Final recommendations will be delivered by the end of 2025 and will inform longer term action in this area.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on neurodevelopmental assessment waiting times.

We are clear that support should be put in place to meet a child’s requirements when they need it, rather than be dependent on formal diagnosis. A diagnosis of a neurodevelopmental condition is not required before additional support is provided in school.

Education authorities have duties under the Education (Additional Support for Learning) Act 2004 to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils. Under the Act an additional support need can arise for any reason and a diagnosis is not required before support is put in place.