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The Scottish Government is clear that there should be no unnecessary delays in responding to patients, regardless of their location. The Scottish Ambulance Service’s 2025-26 budget is £437.2 million. This represents increased investment of £88 million from 2024-25, including additional funding to provide for prior year pay deals as well as a range of funding to support vital frontline services, including in rural and island communities.

Forestry and Land Scotland received independent professional advice prior to the purchase of Glen Prosen from their appointed advisers. That advice informed the decision to make an offer and its level.

The Scottish Government does not provide Scottish domiciled students with doctoral research loans.

Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of Scottish domiciled students accessing doctoral loans for universities out with Scotland.

The Scottish Government recognises that Scotland’s world class university research and its key outputs of new knowledge and insights, including the researchers who contribute to this excellence, are fundamental to Scottish society, economy and the environment.

We have prioritised funding to continue to support high-quality research and innovation across Scotland, increasing the investment in HE core funding for research by £11.3m (3.6%) for Academic Year 2025-26 to £328.5m to maintain and strengthen our research excellence. This includes investing £39.1m (increase of 3.1%) in the form of the Research Postgraduate Grant, providing an underpinning of support for institutions to attract, develop and nurture the next generation of world-class research talent in Scotland. Universities can use this grant to:

• Invest in a collaborative environment for research training and development that values positive culture, inclusivity and exposure to high-quality research as central to the postgraduate research experience; and
• Secure a pipeline of skilled postgraduate researchers, including at doctoral level, and support their career development in a way that meets the needs of academia, industry and society.

We are also investing money to support a critical mass of excellence by investing in a series of Alliances for Research Challenges, Innovation Centres, Interface and Converge, providing long-term support to the research sector in driving industry engagement, leveraging investment and promoting research skills development/ career development.

At this time the Scottish Government has no plans to review or revise our funding model for doctoral level study.

The Scottish Government holds no information on which public sector organisations have been awarded City of Sanctuary awards in the last 5 years. Some of this information is available in the Cities of Sanctuary UK 2024 Impact Report which is available on their website.

Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of postgraduate places that have been offered at Scottish universities.

Information on the number of students enrolled on postgraduate courses is published by the Scottish Funding Council annually. Latest publication: Higher Education Students and Qualifiers at Scottish Institutions 2023-24 - Scottish Funding Council.

The Scottish Land Commission has not incurred any expenditure on diversity, equality and inclusion officers in any year since 2021.

The Scottish Land Commission has not incurred any expenditure on diversity, equality and inclusion training in any year since 2021, with the exception of 2024-2025 when £59.40 was incurred.

Scottish Ministers are occasionally given prints and artwork as gifts. I have included a breakdown of the data you are seeking below:

Ministers may have received artwork or prints up to the value of £140 as gifts. Gifts under the value of £140 are not recorded by Scottish Government.

While, this is an operational matter for train operating companies, the Scottish Government expects that all operators in Scotland provide best possible assistance to all passengers, as appropriate.

For ScotRail specifically, the Scottish Government continues to specify a requirement that all its services should have a second staff member on board to assist passengers. This may include embarking or alighting from a train for passengers with mobility issues. This applies to all journeys at any time of day, evening and night.

Relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the school curriculum in Scotland. RSHP education focuses on equipping children and young people with the knowledge, skills and values to make informed and positive choices about forming relationships. This includes understanding of issues like consent, appropriate relationships and boundaries.

RSHP teaching guidance is specific about the need for children and young people to gain knowledge appropriate to their age and stage of education. The curriculum in Scotland is not statutory and therefore it is for teachers to decide the on the development and implementation of the curriculum. As such, teachers in Scotland have the flexibility to include content on non-fatal strangulation, for example as part of learning about abuse in relationships or on the impact of pornography, as part of RSHP lessons.

We are also funding Time for Inclusive Education’s Digital Discourse Initiative, which provides training for teachers and educators to address the effects of online hate and disinformation on children and young people.

In addition, the 2025-26 Programme for Government committed the Scottish Government to carrying out a comprehensive assessment of the law in relation to non-fatal strangulation to determine if there is further action that needs to be taken beyond existing provisions in law that could be used to tackle this issue.