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Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-38280

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 11 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many applications for Carer Support Payment that were completed in each month since it was launched took (a) between six and nine months and (b) nine months or more to process, expressed as a (i) total number and (ii) percentage.

Social Security Scotland routinely publishes information on application processing times for Carer Support Payment as part of official statistics releases.

The latest statistics covering the period to 31 March 2025 were published on Tuesday 13 May and can be found at https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications/statistics. It is important to note that, following a staggered pilot launch, Carer Support Payment was rolled out nationally on 4 November 2024.

Supplementary analysis, based on the latest published statistics, is provided in the following tables.

Table 1: The number of applications processed for Carer Support Payment by financial year and processing time.

Processing time	Total	Financial year 2023-2024	Financial year 2024-2025
Total applications processed	10,375	430	9,945
Applications processed in 121-180 working days	40	0	40
Applications processed in 180 or more working days	5	0	5

Table 2: The percentage of applications processed for Carer Support Payment by financial year and processing time.

Processing time	Total	Financial year 2023-2024	Financial year 2024-2025
Total applications processed	10,375	430	9,945
Applications processed in 121-180 working days	0%	0%	0%
Applications processed in 180 or more working days	0%	0%	0%

Question reference: S6W-37922

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 10 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many current vacancies there are in local authority planning services.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of vacancies in local authority planning services. The resourcing and staffing of planning services is a matter for individual local authorities.

Recognising the financial and capacity pressures on the planning system, the National Planning Hub is offering support to authorities including capacity and access to expertise to help them determine applications for renewable energy and housing projects.

Question reference: S6W-37920

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 4 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the current average time taken for a decision to be made on planning applications is.

The average time taken to determine planning applications not subject to processing agreements for the first two quarters of 2024-25 in Scotland was as follows:

• for local developments: 11.1 weeks in Q1 and 11.9 weeks in Q2; and

• for major developments: 35.5 weeks in Q1 and 35.2 weeks in Q2.

Statistics for the average length of time to determine planning applications subject to processing agreements are not held centrally. For those applications, statistics are published on the number and percentage of decisions meeting the timescales agreed through processing agreements.

The average time taken to determine planning applications for Q1 and Q2 of
2024-25 for each local authority can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/planning-application-statistics-2024-25-april-2024-september-2024/.

The planning application statistics for Q3 and Q4 of 2024-25 and the annual statistics are not yet published. These will be available on the Scottish Government website at: https://www.gov.scot/collections/planning-statistics/.

Question reference: S6W-37921

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 4 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many staff are currently employed in local authority planning services, and how many staff were employed in 2015.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of staff currently employed in local authority planning services.

However, each planning authority in Scotland has recently participated in the new National Planning Improvement Framework (NPIF), which is being led by the National Planning Improvement Champion. The performance assessments for 22 authorities are available at: https://www.improvementservice.org.uk/products-and-services/planning-and-place-based-approaches/national-planning-improvement/national-planning-improvement-framework/improvement-action-plans-and-performance-assessments. The reports include information on the number of staff in individual authorities.

The Scottish Government recognises the financial and capacity pressures on the planning system and is taking forward a package of changes to provide authorities with additional resources. Planning fees were increased in line with inflation last December, and further changes are due to come into force this month. Through the National Planning Skills Commitment Plan, we are coordinating skills development across the planning sector in Scotland.

In addition, Scotland’s National Planning Hub is providing additional surge capacity and resource to help authorities to respond to current challenges, and to enable them to accelerate their activities this financial year.

We are also supporting an increase in planners coming into the profession, particularly through direct recruitment and training in our Future Planners programme, and a trebling of the planning bursaries we are offering this year.

Question reference: S6W-37796

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 3 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when the Future Farming Investment Scheme will be launched.

Question reference: S6F-04138

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 May 2025

To ask the First Minister for what reason there has reportedly been no financial agreement between the Scottish Funding Council and the University of Dundee, in light of the alternative financial recovery plan being launched four weeks ago.

Question reference: S6W-37318

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 19 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6O-04562 by Neil Gray on 24 April 2025, whether the progress made towards meeting the child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) waiting time standard would have been possible without changes in the approach to making neurodevelopmental assessments, such as NHS Tayside CAMHS no longer accepting neurodevelopmental referrals for young people without co-morbid mental health problems.

The Public Health Scotland CAMHS waiting times statistics capture children and young people who meet the CAMHS criteria. We continue to see a significant and sustained improvement in CAMHS waiting times, despite continuing high demand from children and young people who need mental health support.

The CAMHS waiting time statistics do not include children seeking a neurodevelopmental assessment unless they have a comorbid mental health condition because they do not meet the CAMHS criteria. This is stated in the publication of CAMHS statistics.

CAMHS is a specialist mental health service and is simply not the appropriate service for children and young people seeking diagnosis of a neurodevelopmental condition, unless they are seeking support for a co-existing mental health condition. For many young people, support through a neurodevelopmental pathway will be more appropriate.

Question reference: S6W-37319

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 19 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government which NHS boards’ child and adolescent mental health services are not accepting referrals for neurodevelopmental assessments of young people without co-morbid mental health problems.

The Scottish Government is responsible for setting the overall policy direction of mental health services, and for working with and funding NHS Health Boards and local authorities to ensure they plan and deliver appropriate local services. The design and management of these services is for local NHS Boards and local authorities to decide, and each will have their own arrangements in place.

CAMHS is a specialist mental health service and is not the correct service for children seeking a diagnosis for a neurodevelopmental condition, unless they have a co-existing mental health condition. For many young people, it is more likely that a neurodevelopmental pathway will ensure that the right help and support is provided. This approach is intended to ensure that young people who need support for their mental health from CAMHS are able to receive it in a timely manner, and also that specialist neurodevelopmental support is available whenever needed

Question reference: S6W-37324

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 19 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the most common reasons that are currently being given by NHS boards for not accepting referrals to child and adolescent mental health services.

Question reference: S6W-37322

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 19 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the proportion of referrals not accepted by child and adolescent mental health services has reportedly increased over the last year.

There will always be referrals to CAMHS that are not accepted as CAMHS only provide the right support for a small proportion of children and young people. Children who require neurodevelopmental support are not reported in these statistics unless they have co-morbid mental health issues, but may be included within total referral figures, leading to lower accepted referral rates in some Boards.

Public Health Scotland has started publishing data from the CAMHS and Psychological Therapies National Dataset (CAPTND), including referrals to CAMHS by sex, age and SIMD as well as reasons for referral not being accepted.

However, CAPTND is still under development, and any inferences or conclusions drawn from this data should be treated with caution. Work is ongoing between NHS Boards, Public Health Scotland, and the Scottish Government to improve the consistency and completeness of the information.