Seòmar agus comataidhean

Study leave for resident doctors is managed centrally by NHS Education for Scotland. All resident doctors in training, irrespective of board location, have access to the study leave budget. This includes regional or nationally provided courses, and individual training programme budgets. For further information, I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-41661 on 13 November 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

GP Sustainability Loans are made by agreement between Health Boards and individual GP surgeries: the Scottish Government does not oversee an application process.

The following table shows how many loans have been agreed between Health Boards and individual GP surgeries in each year since 2018 and how much has been allocated to Health Boards by the Scottish Government for disbursement.

In recognition that Scotland’s colleges are a vital part of our economy and wider society, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) allocations provide a 2.6% sector increase in teaching funding for 2025-26 compared to last year, with an increase of almost 5% in capital maintenance funding over the same period.

The Scottish Government is engaging very closely with Colleges Scotland on issues affecting the sector, while the SFC robustly monitors the position of the sector and the challenges faced, and considers appropriate forms of support, including to address short-term cash flow challenges.

The Scottish Government commissioned the report: Pupil projections and implications for teacher resourcing needs: education workforce modelling and research - gov.scot, which was published on 7 May 2024.

This independent research has informed our engagement with partners on the commitment to reduce class contact time for teachers. The modelling allowed for a range of scenarios based on various assumptions which indicates that phased implementation could begin provided teacher numbers were restored to 2023 levels.

The budget agreement reached with COSLA will therefore provided funding to Local Government to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels, to allow meaningful progress on reducing class contact time for teachers to be made. We remain committed to working with the teacher unions, and COSLA, through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers, to agree our approach to delivering a reduction in class contact time.

Individual colleges are responsible for their own operational decisions, including course provision, as they are best placed to respond flexibly to emerging trends at local and regional level.

It is appropriate that course provision is reviewed by colleges on a regular basis, and there are many factors that can cause changes beyond the requirement to make savings. For example, this could include to refresh and update course content or to retire courses that no longer have student demand or support employer needs.

In response to a challenging fiscal environment, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) are seeing colleges take a variety of approaches. These include reviewing teaching provision, with a view to consolidating or rationalising curriculum, and the closure of courses that are not core to their strategic plan and are no longer financially sustainable.

Analysis of data from 2021-22 to 2022-23 by SFC showed, in the majority of cases, courses that are withdrawn tended to have low levels of uptake.

The SFC engages with institutions and other stakeholders, including employers, in line with their Outcomes Framework and Assurance Model - Scottish Funding Council (OF&AM). If any common themes are identified across the sector that suggest course provision is being negatively impacted, this will be further investigated.

The statutory guidance to local authorities sets out how they should exercise their powers under the Act to implement Firework Control Zones lawfully. It takes into consideration wider legal requirements than just the Firework Control Zone provisions in the Act as passed by Parliament.

The guidance notes that the geographic size and area of a zone must be evidence-based and proportionate. It states that firework control zones have not been designed as a measure to cover a whole local authority area, or to cover extensive parts of a local authority area.

The Scottish Government understands that some local authorities will have their own protocols and processes for reporting graffiti that may constitute a hate crime. We would strongly encourage local authorities to ensure that hate crime is reported to Police Scotland.

This is a matter for individual public bodies. This information is not held centrally.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

The Disclosure Scotland helpline received 129,575 calls over the past 12 months. Customers waited an average of 16 minutes and 18 seconds to speak to an advisor, with the longest recorded wait time being one hour, 49 minutes and 32 seconds. Call volumes to the Disclosure Scotland helpline usually range between 6,400 to 10,400 per month. From April to July 2025, Disclosure Scotland experienced higher than normal call volumes, which reflects the application volume peak during this period and has increased overall average wait time in the 12 month period.

Monthly calls received and wait times are provided in the following table:

The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) advice is challenging for a number of our key stocks this year across the Northeast Atlantic, not least the iconic stocks of cod and mackerel. There are many factors that may be contributing to this, such as natural mortality, climate impacts and low recruitment across the North East Atlantic.

North Sea cod is not collapsing. The ICES advice shows a stark picture of the health of the southern substock, and this is primarily what is driving down the overall advice. The immediate priority must be the implementation of spatial management measures that restrict potential catches of that southern stock. We already have significant measures in place in Scottish waters and we are reviewing these to see what, if any, improvements can be made.

The advice for mackerel is unprecedented, well below anything we have seen on the ICES advice sheetsat least since 1987. Scotland continues to work with the UK Government and our Coastal State neighbours to agree a comprehensive sharing arrangement. ICES advice clearly demonstrates the importance of the interim steps taken by the UK, Norway and the Faroe Islands, whose agreement immediately reduced the total outtake of the stock, representing a step towards more sustainable fishing, whilst the wider sharing discussions continue.

Our stocks are jointly managed with the fishing nations around us, with negotiations currently ongoing. It is important that we continue to work together to balance sustainably managed fish stocks and a sustainable and prosperous industry and coastal communities. Whilst there is some challenging advice there are also many stocks where the picture remains more positive and the overall trend is good. The Scottish Sustainable Fishing Indicator (SFI), which summarises the sustainability status of commercial fish and shellfish stocks in Scottish waters, shows that the sustainability status of stocks in Scottish waters has increased through time, from 39% in 1995 to 73% in 2023.