Chamber and committees

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-37246

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many property factors have been removed from the property factor register as a result of contraventions of the Code of Conduct for Property Factors in each year since 2011.

Question reference: S6F-04032

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 28 April 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 May 2025

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to reports of local authorities suspending council housing allocations.

Question reference: S6W-36248

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 31 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when the out-turn report for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme between 2022 and 2024 will be published.

The Out-turn report for the 2022-23 Affordable Housing Supply Programme was published on 17 January 2025.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/affordable-housing-supply-programme-out-turn-report/

As stated in the answer to question S6W-32145 on 18 December 2024, the 2023-24 out-turn report is still in progress and we do not, at present, have an identified publication date . 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

Question reference: S6W-36245

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 31 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to publish in full the report of the review of the Affordable Housing Supply Programme; if (a) so, when and (b) not, whether it plans to publish the review’s conclusions, and, if so, when.

Question reference: S6W-36195

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has provided to the Scottish Assembly, which supports people with learning difficulties to access services, in each of the last five years.

Details of funding provided to the Scottish Assembly from the Scottish Government’s Mental Health budget over the last five years are as follows:

2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25
£0	£132,836	£184,736	£209,600	£214,313

In addition, the Assembly is receiving £107,152 in the first six months of 2025-26, with bids for three year funding from the Learning Disability Support Fund currently being considered. We expect successful bids to be confirmed in May 2025, with funding starting in October 2025.

Question reference: S6W-36197

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it anticipates will be made available from the Learning Disability Support Fund to the Scottish Assembly over the next three years.

Question reference: S6W-36196

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide details of any changes to the funding criteria for the Learning Disability Support Fund, which will operate from October 2025, for organisations such as the Scottish Assembly and the leadership framework that it operates.

The Learning Disability Support Fund aims to sustain and support organisations working directly with people with learning disabilities in Scotland to build a more inclusive society, reduce inequality and provide opportunities for fulfilling lives.

Funded work will contribute to at least one of the following objectives:

A more inclusive society
Improved health outcomes for people with learning disabilities
People with learning disabilities have a social network and safe relationships

Further details on the Learning Disability Support Fund can be found via the fund manager, Inspiring Scotland’s, website here Learning Disability Support Fund - Inspiring Scotland.

Three year funding was provided separately to the Scottish Assembly for the Leadership and Engagement Framework project. This was a time-limited project which came to a natural conclusion in 2024-25.

Question reference: S6W-36137

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 2 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, what its response is to the Shelter Scotland report, In Their Own Words: Children’s Experiences in Temporary Accommodation, and what its position is on whether children living in such accommodation are having their best interest rights upheld, as per the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, including their right to (a) an adequate standard of living, (b) healthcare and (c) leisure and play.

The Scottish Government shared its response to the Shelter Scotland report, In Their Own Words: Children’s Experiences in Temporary Accommodation with the Scottish Parliament on 4 March 2025. Parliamentary Question S6T-02391 refers, which can be accessed via the following link: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/questions-and-answers/question?ref=S6T-02391.

The legal duty to accommodate homeless households and the responsibility for ensuring that temporary accommodation is of a suitable standard lies with local authorities. When making their housing allocation decisions, local authorities are encouraged to take a children’s right approach and are expected to consider the Scottish Government’s statutory guidance on meeting the best interests of children facing homelessness: https://www.gov.scot/publications/best-interests-of-children-facing-homelessness/.

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2024 expects public authorities to do all they can to implement and uphold children’s rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The Scottish Government is supporting public authorities to understand and fulfil their UNCRC duties and take a children’s human rights approach in the design and delivery of services.

We are also funding the Improvement Service to assist local authorities and their partners to successfully implement the UNCRC at a local level, and NHS Education Scotland to support health boards to fulfil their UNCRC duties.

The Scottish Government published the temporary accommodation standards framework in 2023. The framework sets out the physical, location, service and management standards to ensure that temporary accommodation is of good quality, is safe, warm and affordable, and provides the household with an adequate standard of living, including provision of space for children to play.

Most households with children are placed in suitable temporary accommodation in the social rented sector. However, the Unsuitable Accommodation Order (UAO) was extended in 2020 to ensure that no homeless household has to stay in unsuitable accommodation, such as hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation, for more than seven days.

The service standards in the temporary accommodation standards framework states that local authorities should assess the needs of all members of the household to provide services. These should be followed up with referrals and support to enable the household to engage with the relevant housing, health, education, social care service and independent advice services.

The temporary accommodation standards framework also states that local authorities should offer support to enable households to access information and appropriate services, including counselling, substance use, mental health, domestic abuse, medical, dental, optical and money/welfare advice services.

Question reference: S6W-35577

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 19 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will accelerate plans to amend the rent adjudication framework to remove the ability of the rent officer or tribunal to determine a rent that is higher than that requested by the landlord, in light of the ending of the temporary restrictions on rent increases from April 2025.

Question reference: S6W-35576

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 19 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the recommendations in Shelter Scotland’s report, In Their Own Words: Children’s Experiences in Temporary Accommodation, how it will ensure that local authorities receive long-term funding and the appropriate guidance to accelerate the delivery of social housing, provide permanent family homes and reduce waiting times for families stuck in temporary accommodation.

Increasing housing supply is key to reducing levels of homelessness. In 2024-25, we made additional funding of £40 million available to local authorities, taking investment in affordable housing to almost £600 million. 80% of the additional funding has been targeted to areas with the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures to increase the supply of social and affordable homes through acquisitions and to bring long term empty social homes back into use. This will help to increase the supply of settled homes of the right type and size, including larger properties suitable for families.

The 2025-26 budget of £768 million represents a 38% increase when compared to the 2024-25 original published budget of £555.8 million – an increase of £181 million capital (44%) and an increase of £30.8 million (63%) in financial transactions. Supported by our guidance on the planning and delivery of the affordable housing supply programme, this investment is estimated to enable the delivery of approximately 8,000 homes while contributing towards our target of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032. This significant increase in our budget will allow us to prioritise proposals that aim to reduce the number of families with children in temporary accommodation. To the end of September 2024, 24,382 homes have been delivered towards this target, of which 18,539 (76%) are homes for social rent. And an estimated 2,776 households with children have been helped into affordable housing in the year to September 2024.

Our long term commitment of £100 million over several financial years for mid-market rent will, with institutional investment, grow to at least £500 million and will support the delivery of around 2,800 affordable homes.

Through our engagement with local authorities, we know that efforts are being made at a local level to help reduce the time between a household accepting an offer of settled housing and moving into their home.

However, the most effective way to reduce the flow of households into the homelessness system is to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place. The measures in the Housing (Scotland) Bill are designed to make the prevention of homelessness everybody’s business and to ensure that people get the help they need to prevent their homelessness earlier.