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I was informed of the publication of cancer waiting times, scheduled for 24 June 2025, and provided with pre-release access to the statistics on 19 June 2025.

The tool is currently live in six territorial boards, and work is continuing to implement the tool for the remaining territorial health boards and National Hospital Golden Jubilee. In line with the NHS Scotland Operational Improvement Plan (https://www.gov.scot/publications/nhs-scotland-operational-improvement-plan/pages/1/), all territorial health boards, and National Hospital Golden Jubilee, have been scheduled into the current theatre scheduling tool rollout plan, as at the end of June 2025.

Tax code matters such as allowances and reliefs are reserved to the UK Government. The Scottish Government has no plans currently to change the number of Income Tax bands

Projections for social security costs in the coming years are established in the recently published Medium-Term Financial Strategy. Our approach to taxation is established in the Tax Strategy, which has already set out that we will not introduce any new bands or increase the rates of Scottish Income Tax in this parliament.

The Scottish Government recently published the Tax Strategy for Scotland, which along with Scottish Budget 2025-26 and the Medium-Term Financial Strategy, sets out the next steps in our approach to tax, identifying priorities to support economic growth and Government objectives of eradicating child poverty, tackling the climate emergency and improving public services.

We are engaging a range of stakeholders and women and girls with lived experience in the development of Scotland’s first equality strategy for women and girls.

The strategy will be co-designed with the First Minister’s National Advisory Council for Women and Girls (NACWG) and the Empowering Women Panel (EWP). The NACWG was established in 2017 to give advice to government on what needs to happen to tackle gender inequality in Scotland. The EWP was started in 2023 and is a group of 20 diverse women and girls from all parts of the country and all backgrounds who don’t normally have the chance to influence policy.

We are engaging widely and the first phase is ongoing, this will include:

• Inviting over 50 organisations to engage with the women and girls they work with to share their views on the development of the strategy.
• Two roundtables hosted by the NACWG with gender equality stakeholders and wider equality stakeholders to seek their expertise on the strategy.
• A round table with members of the Senior Leaders Forum to understand how the strategy can support public leaders to work collaboratively to deliver further progress in equality for women and girls.
• Individual meetings with stakeholders with key roles in the delivery of the strategy such as COSLA.
• A workshop with groups that hold gender critical views to ensure that we hear a breadth of views.
• Peer led research from the EWP seeking the views of diverse women on the development of the strategy.

The views and expertise from these meetings will be considered by the Scottish Government, NACWG and EWP and used to develop the content for the first phase of the strategy. There will be further opportunities to influence the strategy in phase two of its development due to commence later this year.

The commitment to deliver 40,000 additional operations and diagnostic tests was set out in the NHS Recovery Plan published in 2021. Progress reports have been published annually, the most recent being in December 2024: NHS Recovery Plan 2021-2026: annual progress update report 2024 - gov.scot.

In his speech on NHS reform and renewal in January this year, the First Minister announced that in 2025-26 the NHS will deliver of 150,000 extra appointments and procedures as part of the Operational Improvement Plan (OIP). This will be done through recruitment, extended working and regional and national working, including in the National Treatment Centres.

This additional activity will be backed by an additional investment of over £100 million this year. Activity will be targeted at long waits, ensuring that by March 2026 no one is waiting longer than a year for their new outpatient appointment or inpatient/day-case procedure.

As noted within the OIP, SG will report against progress publicly and to Parliament within 2025-26, using published statistics.

In April, the Chief Planner and I required planning authorities to report every six months on their local development plan timelines and actions they are taking to avoid delays and accelerate the process.

We have not yet received the initial formal six-monthly updates, which are to be sent to the Scottish Government by 30 September 2025. We will analyse and share details from the progress updates in due course.

In this year’s Programme for Government, we committed to providing local authorities with additional capacity and expertise, through the National Planning Hub. This includes prioritising action where evidence shows that authorities are having challenges in meeting timescales or where there are delays in producing local development plans. Planning authorities were advised of the support available to them in a letter from the Chief Planner issued in May. Since that letter, the Hub has been working with a number of local authorities to provide direct support at the earliest opportunity in response to their specific pressures and needs.

We are continuing to work with the National Planning Improvement Champion, the Improvement Service and Heads of Planning Scotland to raise the imperative of making timely progress with local development plans, to encourage proactive steps to accelerate timelines, and to provide support to authorities who have identified slippage as a concern.

The Scottish Government is currently developing the mandatory planning training for elected members. This includes commissioned research by Planning Aid Scotland to inform the development of the content and roll-out of the training, working with stakeholders in the creation of a training package and piloting and evaluation of the training. This is to ensure the end product meets policy objectives to build trust and confidence in the planning system and to ensure the effective implementation of the mandatory training. The Regulations will be brought forward following the completion of this work, which is scheduled for 2026, to be ready in advance of the Scottish Local Government elections in May 2027. In the meantime, based on a survey that was completed at the start of the year, by Heads of Planning Scotland, a high number of Councillors receive planning training at the local level.

The Scottish Government engages with Local Authorities on a wide range of education-related issues.

In Scotland, the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 and Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006 place a duty on an employer and other dutyholders who have control of safety obligations in respect of non-domestic premises, which includes educational establishments, to carry out a fire safety risk assessment, take adequate fire safety measures and keep the assessment under review. Fire safety measures include formulating an emergency fire action plan with evacuation arrangements for all people likely to be in the premises, including disabled people.

For staff and children in educational premises who may not be able to self-evacuate, a Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan (PEEP) should be discussed and developed as part of their enrolment and subsequently practiced, to ensure any necessary amendments to the plan are made.

Scottish Government guidance on Practical fire safety guidance on the evacuation of disabled persons from buildings is well established and is available on the Scottish Government website for those who seeking further information and guidance on this issue. Scottish Government Education officials have highlighted this important guidance again to Local Authorities through their Scottish Heads of Property Services and Association of Directors of Education in Scotland networks.