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Decisions on the deployment of police officers are a matter for the Chief Constable. As of 30 September 2025, K Division, which covers Renfrewshire and Inverclyde had 618 officers. This is 18 more than the previous quarter, and 17 more than the same point last year. A summary of the relevant statistics is shown in the following table.

The definition of ‘rewilding’ in the report ‘Defining Rewilding for Scotland's Public Sector’ prepared for the Scottish Government by the James Hutton Institute, has never been adopted by the Scottish Government.

While the Scottish Government does not use the term rewilding, it recognises that the term includes many interventions which the Scottish Government and NatureScot actively support. For example, our £65 million Nature Restoration Fund has committed over £65 million since 2021 to unlock the full potential that nature restoration projects can bring to communities.

In addition, our Biodiversity Delivery Plan sets out over 100 actions that need to be taken to ensure a nature-positive Scotland by 2030. A key action in the first Delivery Plan is the creation of Nature Networks in each local authority area in Scotland. These create habitat corridors and stepping stones, which help species to migrate in response to our changing climate.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

"Environmental Standards Scotland has recently welcomed that Scottish Water and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) are working to develop an approach to identify overflows where action is needed to prevent dry weather spills from happening.

In the first instance, Scottish Water responds to and carries out any operational interventions to check for blockages, misconnections or other potential faults where any overflow events appear to be happening in dry weather. Scottish Water has also proposed a definition for dry day overflow events and is working in the background to investigate overflows using data from Event Duration Monitors installed as part of commitments made in its ‘Improving Urban Waters Route map’. Where overflow events are confirmed to be occurring in dry weather because of insufficient capacity in the sewerage system, a process is being developed whereby these will be identified as Unsatisfactory Intermittent Discharges (UIDs) and will be agreed with SEPA as a priority for improvement."

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water currently has around 1,400 overflow monitors in place (covering over one third of all intermittent discharges). Scottish Water has plans to increase monitor coverage to around 2,000 locations in total (nearly 50% of intermittent discharges) and will look to determine an approach to establish how many more monitors should be installed in 2026 and beyond.

A significant number of overflow locations are predicted never to spill and monitoring these locations would generate limited value beyond proving that overflow events do not occur. Monitors are relatively expensive to install and deploying these without generating any environmental benefit is unlikely to represent good value for customers.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of youth perpetrated attempted murders, as the data we receive from Police Scotland for the Recorded Crime statistics is a simple count of the number of recorded crimes by crime type.

Police Scotland have provided the following management information on the number of people under the age of 18 who were accused of attempted murder between the first quarter of 2024-25 (i.e. 1st April to 30th June 2024) and the second quarter of 2025-26 (1st July to 30th September 2025). Data for earlier years are not available from the single standardised national system used by Police Scotland to gather details of those involved in crime, which became fully operational from January 2024.

It should be noted that the table below is not a total of attempted murders by those under the age of 18 as some cases may have had multiple perpetrators.

SPPA's telephone lines are open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Thursday, and 9am to 1.30pm on Friday. SPPA has handled over 70,000 calls in 2025, with the average call lasting seven minutes. This reflects the service SPPA is committed to giving scheme members.

Whilst the introduction of new digital channels is improving SPPA's customer service model, this will not limit accessibility for those who prefer to contact SPPA by telephone.

Section 1 of The Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 (The Act) outlines the duty of local authorities to provide an adoption service. Sections 9, 10 and 11 of The Act require local authorities to assess a person’s needs for adoption support services and then provide that support if it is deemed necessary. This applies both pre and post adoption to children, young people, adoptive and birth families and adult adoptees.

Section 45 of The Act also requires local authorities, who have decided that adoption support is needed by a person or family, to prepare an adoption support plan setting out how the person or family’s needs will be met by adoption support services.

In addition, under Part 3 of the Adoption Support Services and Allowances (Scotland) Regulations 2009, every local authority is required to establish an Adoption Allowance Scheme. An adoption allowance may be paid where the local authority determines that one or more of the circumstances set out in Regulation 10 apply. These include supporting the placement of the adoptive child, facilitating special arrangements for placement or adoption, or supporting the continuation of adoption arrangements after an adoption order is made.

The Scottish Government does not hold information at the level of detail requested. Analysis of related data collected for Looked After Children Statistics is included in the following table.

The Scottish Government does not hold the requested information.

The Scottish Government does not collect patient data directly. It is for Public Health Scotland (PHS) to collect outpatient, inpatient and day case activity data from hospital administrative systems.

PHS publishes official statistics on cross boundary flow quarterly within its Stage of Treatment Waiting Times publications. This includes inpatient, day case, and new outpatient data. The most recent publication that includes cross boundary flow data can be accessed here: Stage of treatment waiting times - Inpatients, day cases and new outpatients 28 October 2025 - NHS waiting times - stage of treatment - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

PHS’s annual Acute Hospital Activity and NHS Beds Information report includes information on cross boundary flow. The latest publication covers the period between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025 and can be found here: Acute Hospital Activity and NHS Beds Information (Annual) - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

Costs associated with patient travel, accommodation, subsistence and funded patient escorts are managed locally by individual NHS boards and are funded from their respective budgets. The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally and there is currently no intention to standardise national reporting on these measures.

Similarly, there are no current plans to nationalise reporting on the use of remote consultation platforms, including Near Me.

The Scottish Government’s approach reflects the principle of local accountability for service delivery and associated costs. NHS boards are responsible for managing patient transfers and related expenses within their allocated budgets. National reporting is focused on treatment activity and waiting times, which are published by PHS to ensure transparency and consistency.