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The Scottish Government undertake a range of regulatory and advisory activities to support the delivery of good indoor air quality in our homes. This includes:

• All new homes and new building work are subject to building regulations which include provisions on the supply of outside air and removal of pollutants to address indoor air quality.
• To comply with the statutory Tolerable Standard, all housing in Scotland must have satisfactory provision for lighting, ventilation and heating.
• Our Warmer Homes Scotland programme requires a ventilation plan for each home, to make sure the right ventilation systems are properly planned and installed where needed.
• Our Area Based Schemes (ABS) programme requires councils to plan projects that ensure adequate ventilation for households as part of a broader compliance to the PAS 2035 design and installation standard.
• The importance of warm homes as a factor in prevention of respiratory conditions is recognised in our clinical Respiratory Care Action Plan for Scotland.

The operational guidance used to keep firefighters safe is an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS). Firefighters in Scotland do not currently have wearable tracking devices to record their heart and breathing rates. SFRS is exploring whether the specification for replacement Breathing Apparatus can monitor breathing rates as part of the integrated communication capability.

The equipment used by firefighters is an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. SFRS has invested over £600,000 in purchasing 300 new thermal imaging cameras and every front line appliance with breathing apparatus has a thermal imaging camera (TIC). Spare TICs are stored at SFRS Asset Resource Centres rather than in fire stations.

Supporting families through access to high quality, affordable and accessible childcare is critical to the First Minister’s mission of eradicating child poverty. That is why, since 2021, the Scottish Government has prioritised investment of £1 billion per year in funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) for all 3- and 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds whose entry to primary school has been deferred, and those 2-year-olds who need it most.

Scotland is the only part of the UK to already offer 1,140 hours a year of funded ELC to all 3 and 4-year-olds and eligible 2-year-olds regardless of their parents’ working status – putting children first. If families paid for this offer themselves, it would cost them more than £6,000 per eligible child per year.

Scotland continues to face one of the most difficult public spending environments since devolution. Despite this the Scottish Government remains committed to reaching more younger children with funded ELC that need it most, and the Programme for Government, published on 6 May 2025, set out that this year we will work with local authorities to maximise uptake of our existing offer for eligible 2-year-olds to ensure that as many children as possible benefit from the current offer.

In terms of planning for a future potential expansion, we are investing up to £16 million over 2 years within 23 Early Adopter Communities (EACs), across 6 local authority areas. The EACs are helping the Scottish Government and our local partners to understand what it takes to deliver childcare systems that support families with children from the early years to the end of primary school. This work is expanding access to affordable childcare for low-income families with children and evaluating the difference this can make.

It is important to recognise that the UK Government’s offer is not an expansion of universal childcare for all children under three. The new entitlement is only available to working families in England - those where parents earn at least the National Minimum Wage or Living Wage and work for 16 hours a week on average. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has made clear that, despite billions of investment by the UK Government, “the poorest one third of families will see almost no direct benefit from the new entitlements”. The difference in entitlements between the UK Government and Scottish Government reflects the Scottish Government’s policy intention that access to more hours of funded ELC is an investment in all children’s later outcomes - underpinned by national and international evidence.

Information on average waiting times for psychological services specifically following (a) pregnancy loss, (b) stillbirth, and (c) neonatal death is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Psychological services are delivered by NHS Boards. Boards report their overall performance against the 18 week referral to treatment standard, and this data, published quarterly by Public Health Scotland, does not include the reason for referral at this level of detail.

We continue to work with all NHS Boards to improve access to mental health and psychological services, including specific support for perinatal mental health and bereavement.

The guidance on the education of children and young people unable to attend school due to ill health was published in June 2015 and remains current.

Ministers have committed to ensuring the national guidance remains up to date and will review, if appropriate, whether or not amendments require to be made. The overall decision making, in relation to charging however, is ultimately a matter for Local Authorities and Health Boards.

Microsoft 365 licences are required for the 1654 users of the Parliament IT systems to access their emails, SharePoint, MS Teams, and MS Office applications as well as providing advanced security features. The annual cost for these licences is £549K and covers the period 1 July 2025 – 30 June 2026.

The operational guidance used to keep firefighters safe is an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS). Currently every frontline fire appliance has 4 sets of Breathing Apparatus (BA), 2 of which have integrated radio communication. SFRS will shortly be procuring BA sets to an upgraded standard and all of these will have integrated communication as standard.

The operational guidance used to keep firefighters safe is an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS). Firefighters in Scotland do not currently have wearable tracking devices but this is an area that SFRS are exploring for the future.

The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) is the regulator for the social work, social care and early years workforce in Scotland. The Council protects the public by registering workers in social services; setting standards for their conduct and education. While the SSSC will set the minimum level of qualification required for an individual to maintain their registration, it is the duty of employers to ensure their workers are equipped with the appropriate specialist skills to safely and effectively carry out their role.

Ensuring a sustainable, skilled and supported workforce is fundamental to the future of secure accommodation and other care settings where children with complex needs require care and protection. Pages 16-17 of the Scottish Government’s response to reimagining secure care, published on 26 June, sets out a number of actions the Government is taking to support this:

• a commitment to continuing to pay for up to 16 beds across the secure estate in 2025-26 and 2026-27, to maintain capacity and to provide a level of financial security and resilience to secure providers.
• a commitment to raise the status of children’s social care as a profession, which is key to delivering quality care to vulnerable children.
• a further investment of £1.4 million in 2025-26 to the secure care workforce as part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to Fair Work in children’s social care. This investment will continue to address recruitment and retention challenges in the sector and contribute to its sustainability now and in the future.
• supporting improved implementation of national policy informed by frontline practice, and oversight of social work and the issues affecting the workforce through the establishment of the NSWA by April 2026.
• bringing both national and local government together to address workforce issues through the establishment of the Scottish Social Work Partnership.
• uplifting the value of the social work postgraduate bursary administered by the Scottish Social Services Council to £11,000 per year of an eligible qualifying course, from academic year 2025-26.
• working at pace with industry leaders and Skills Development Scotland to introduce a Graduate Apprenticeship, a new work-based professional social work qualification for academic year 2025-26.