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Scottish Government sets the strategic direction for the NHS in Scotland, operational matters including staffing and the recruitment is the responsibility of health boards as autonomous institutions.

Decisions will depend on the service needs of each board taking account of national, regional and local priorities, and we expect NHS boards to plan and provide safe, effective and high-quality care, in line with their statutory service provision and workforce planning responsibilities.

The NHS Scotland Operational Improvement Plan, set out the actions Scottish Government have identified to improve NHS Scotland delivery.

This will primarily be driven through reform of NHS Scotland care delivery such as, increasing capacity by optimising national and regional working across Health Board boundaries, reducing waiting lists and targeting investment into the system where it can be most effective. This includes targeted funding for extra recruitment, with assurance provided to Health Boards on recurring funding.

Official NHS Workforce Statistics are published by NHS Education for Scotland. This data shows the NHS Scotland Consultant Radiologist workforce grew by 2.3% over the last year. Over the last decade the NHS Scotland Consultant Radiologist workforce has grown by 28% and now stands at 388.9 Whole Time Equivalents.

We know many people are still waiting too long and this is not good enough. We are determined do more. This year, more than £106 million has been allocated to health boards to help tackle the longest waits for procedures and operations.

The funding has been assigned to specialty areas where it can have the greatest impact against the longest waits – this includes £21 million for imaging.

Over the next year we will reduce the radiology backlog so that 95% of referrals are seen within six weeks by March 2026, through expanding to seven day services, recruitment, and utilising mobile scanning units. We want to make progress on improving our NHS and our Budget will drive the long-term and lasting improvements – and the healthier population – that we all want to see.

While we work with boards through planning to make best use of existing NHS resources and capacity, Health Boards will continue to use the private sector in a structured and prioritised manner. As new, better and more sustainable ways of delivering services to improve access for patients are developed, we expect the need for private sector capacity to lessen. It is for local NHS health boards to determine how they use the private sector and to agree any contractual arrangements.

This information is available from the Office of Rail and Road statistics portal, published on its website. The Member may wish to access the following link, which will provide the information requested: Passenger rail usage | ORR Data Portal

Scottish Government officials, supported by Zero Waste Scotland, are in regular contact with representatives of public agencies as well as private sector businesses to help ensure readiness for the forthcoming ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste.

This engagement will continue, in order to ensure the effective implementation of the ban as part of our progress towards achieving our net zero ambitions.

The project is being delivered by Amey through the Network Management Contract as emergency works. As design and construction are progressing concurrently, there are few mechanisms to penalise later than expected completion under the terms of this contract.

Transport Scotland has an experienced Project Board in place to oversee the governance of the project. The Project Board provide financial oversight and evaluate performance. They also monitor project progress and decision making with scrutiny of Amey and the internal project team. Gateway reviews have also been undertaken, in consultation with Scottish Government’s Internal Audit and Assurance team, to ensure successful project delivery.

Transport Scotland also has the Performance Audit Group (PAG) who ensure value for money through auditing, monitoring and reporting on the financial, technical and performance aspects of this project. In addition, further support is provided by Turner and Townsend, who apply expert scrutiny of the programme and project risks.

Zero Waste Scotland undertook an options appraisal in 2024/25 to assess the impact of introducing kerbside collections for plastic film and flexibles in terms of recycling tonnage, carbon impacts and costs. This will be published later in 2025.

At a national level, the analysis projected that collecting film and flexibles loose with other plastics as part of existing collections would lead to a saving of £680k per annum due to reduced disposal costs, as recycling films and flexibles is cheaper than current costs for disposal. Alternatively, the options appraisal projected that if plastic film and flexible packaging is collected within a bag (to aid segregation at a material recovery facility), this would result in additional costs of £1.4million per annum nationally due to the cost to local authorities to purchase and provide bags to households. These estimates do not include costs related to modifications that may be required at waste transfer stations to segregate these materials.

The cost to local authorities for introducing household collections for recyclable plastic film and flexible packaging will vary between authorities, based on the approach they take to collecting these materials, existing service set-up, contractual arrangements and the reprocessor gate fee they are able to negotiate.

The procurement process for the replacement Intercity rail fleet is ongoing. Releasing any details related to the live procurement would substantially harm economic interests of ScotRail, thus affecting the Scottish Government’s ability to secure a good value for public purse.

Information on the procurement of a replacement Intercity fleet has been published on the Public Contracts website and can be found here: View Notice - Public Contracts Scotland

Investment of such scale is approved by the Investment Decision Making Board comprised of Directors and Chief Executive of Transport Scotland. The aforementioned senior officials have been involved in the project at various stages, as required.

A swift yet satisfactory conclusion is essential to minimise impacts on Scottish Water customers, both in the near term and for the future. The Scottish Government continues to urge all parties to continue negotiations in good faith to find a solution which is within the spirit of the Government’s public sector pay policy; is affordable to Scottish Water; and represents a fair offer to Scottish Water’s employees. It is for Scottish Water and the Joint Trade Unions to agree a settlement which is fair and affordable.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS recognises that where the Court supports a claim, the appropriate compensation should be paid. This may include incidents where the belongings of someone in custody have been lost or damaged, where an injury has occurred or in the limited occasions where someone has been detained in error.

SPS can confirm that in the last five years, prisoners have been awarded compensation. Compensation has been awarded for reasons such as personal injuries, damaged or lost property and unlawful detention, however we are unable to release the specific reasons for individual compensation payments, as this could lead to the indirect identification of the person involved.