- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 October 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom Arthur on 6 November 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what equality and human rights impact assessments have been carried out regarding the operation of so-called First In, First Out-only waiting lists for children’s neurodevelopmental services.
Answer
The Scottish Government is responsible for setting the overall policy direction for neurodevelopmental services, and for working with and funding NHS Health Boards and local authorities to ensure they plan and deliver appropriate local services. It is for local NHS Boards and local authorities to decide how they implement these policies to ensure that their local population have the highest quality of care, support and treatment at the right time and in the right place. This includes carrying out the required impact assessments.
Individual health boards are responsible for the management of their waiting lists. Boards are expected to ensure that their approaches to service delivery are consistent with national guidance, including the National Neurodevelopmental Specification for Children and Young People. The Specification complements and sits within the Getting It Right for Every Child approach, and reflects the principles of UNCRC.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 October 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom Arthur on 6 November 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take to ensure that NHS boards’ neurodevelopmental pathways comply with the National Neurodevelopmental Specification, which was published in 2021 and requires needs-led, case-by-case assessment, rather than purely chronological waiting lists.
Answer
The National Neurodevelopmental Specification for Children and Young People sets out the seven standards for all children’s services to support children and young people with neurodevelopmental support needs, including NHS boards and local authorities.
The Specification takes a needs-based approach to providing neurodevelopmental support. It is underpinned by principles of GIRFEC and intended to be delivered by all children’s services partners through a multi-agency approach.
The National Neurodevelopmental Specification should be used by all children’s services, including health boards, local authorities and community partners through a whole system, multi-agency approach. It is vital that the support provided by these children’s services are based on the Getting it Right for Every Child approach.
The Scottish Government is working to support children’s services partners to implement the Specification in full and, in partnership with COSLA, has undertaken a review of implementation. This was informed by engagement with local authorities, health boards and a range of stakeholders – including representatives of parents and lived experience.
The review identified a number of key challenges in implementing the Specification and set out a number of actions to support progress. The Scottish Government and COSLA are working with the newly established Children and Young People’s Neurodevelopment Taskforce to take forward these actions, which will support local authorities and NHS Boards to implement the Specification.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 10 October 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi McAllan on 4 November 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a date for the commencement of its proposed review of possession grounds within the private rented sector, and whether third sector organisations will have an opportunity to feed into the review.
Answer
The Housing (Scotland) Bill introduces a requirement on the Scottish Ministers to carry out a review of the repossession grounds under the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016 within 2 years of the day after Royal Assent and lay a report before Parliament.
This provision will be commenced in the current parliamentary term.
The views and experiences of landlords and tenants will be considered as part of the review.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 16 October 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 3 November 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with NHS boards regarding the use of combustible façade material on hospital buildings, in light of the remediation efforts currently underway at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
Answer
In June 2017, following the tragic events at Grenfell Tower in London, the Scottish Government requested information regarding the NHSScotland estate, owned or otherwise, in respect of external cladding systems. Health Facilities Scotland issued an email to all Boards. There were two buildings identified as having combustible cladding. Of these two buildings one has had the cladding removed and the other has been confirmed that it does not present a hazard.
Any new hospitals must comply with current building standards, which include a requirement for non-combustible cladding material at a storey height of over 11m. High risk MAC-PE cladding material is banned on buildings of all height. It is the statutory responsibility of Health Boards to manage their estate, and we expect them to provide safe environments for all hospital users.
NHS Scotland Firecode, Scottish Health Technical Memorandum (SHTM 81) Fire Safety in the design of healthcare premises stipulates that external wall systems, including cladding and insulation, on all hospitals with a total floor area of more than 200m2, should be constructed of products achieving European Classification A1 (non-combustible) or A2 (will not significantly contribute to fire load and fire growth). Combustible façade material is not permissible on new hospital buildings.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 16 October 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 3 November 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether all hospitals, including those with a storey at a height above and below the 11m threshold, have been assessed to ascertain whether combustible façade material is present in their external walls, and if so, how many are affected.
Answer
In June 2017, following the tragic events at Grenfell Tower in London, the Scottish Government requested information regarding the NHSScotland estate, owned or otherwise, in respect of external cladding systems. Health Facilities Scotland issued an email to all Boards that stated - Provide a list of all buildings within your Board area that have external cladding fitted to the original structure other than concrete, render, brick or blockwork
Two hospitals were identified as having combustible cladding:
- The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow
- The Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh
Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding was subsequently removed from areas of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital as a precautionary measure and replaced with non-combustible cladding and insulation.
The Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh was constructed with sandwich panels that contain insulation treated with fire retardancy. Health Facilities Scotland commissioned Glasgow Caledonian University to carry out an assessment of the cladding including fire engineering computer modelling. The report concluded that the cladding would be very difficult to ignite, the cladding would not continue to burn unless there was an external and sustained heat source, therefore it was considered that the cladding system does not present a hazard in terms of life safety.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 October 2025
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 6 November 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what it anticipates to be the baseline figure for its ambition towards all-tenure housing delivery of a 10% increase in housebuilding each year over the next three years.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 6 November 2025
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 16 October 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Ben Macpherson on 29 October 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has allocated in each of the last five years to support construction skills training, broken down by how much of this has (a) been directed through (i) colleges and (ii) training providers, and (b) reached small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the construction sector, and what mechanisms are in place to ensure that SMEs can directly access such funding for workforce development.
Answer
The matter raised falls within the remit of Skills Development Scotland (SDS), the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB).
The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 10 October 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Ivan McKee on 28 October 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to use the powers granted under the Legislative Consent Motion on the UK Government’s Pension Schemes Bill to create pooled investment schemes or “megafunds” similar to the ones allowed in England and Wales, and what assessment it has made of any potential benefits and risks of such funds.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-41180 on 28 October 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.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 10 October 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Ivan McKee on 28 October 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of contributions held by the Scottish Local Government Pension Scheme funds are invested in Scotland, and how this compares to the rest of the UK and internationally.
Answer
This information is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 10 October 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Ivan McKee on 28 October 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, following the passage of the Legislative Consent Motion on the UK Government’s Pension Schemes Bill, what next steps it plans to take, and what timeline it envisages for any reforms to the Scottish Local Government Pension Scheme.
Answer
The proposed powers in the Pensions Schemes Bill ensure Scottish Ministers maintain parity of powers with the UK Government for the respective Local Government Pension Schemes.
Our Programme for Government demonstrates our commitment to encouraging investment in Scotland, and we are actively engaging with pension funds, including the local government funds, to collaborate and explore opportunities to support the growth of the Scottish economy.
