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This information is not held by the Scottish Government as it relates to an operational matter for the children’s hearings system. Children’s Hearings Scotland (CHS) are responsible for the scheduling and administration of children’s panel members.

The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) publish annual statistics, which sets out a measure on time taken to progress referrals through the children’s hearings system. The information is available on the SCRA website: Official Statistics - SCRA.

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

Disclosure Scotland received 25 formal complaints regarding errors in Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) disclosures in the period since 2021.

A commitment to a round-the-clock thrombectomy service was set out in our Stroke Improvement Plan and this remains our aim for the thrombectomy service in Scotland.

NHS National Services Division have been commissioned by Scottish Government to lead on the development of a national thrombectomy service and have undertaken work to establish the current position of thrombectomy services. A task and finish group has been established, to undertake an assessment of updated capacity and analysis of clinical, operational, financial and workforce challenges to inform work on increasing provision.

Included in this will be to steps to benchmark against NHS England and international models.

The following stakeholders were invited to the Wildfire Summit on 14 October 2025:

Scottish Government

Forestry and Land Scotland

Cairngorms National Park Authority

Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority

Scottish Forestry

NatureScot

Scottish Environmental Protection Agency

Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

Firebreak Services

Police Scotland

Her Majesty's Fire Inspectorate Service

Brightsparks Burning Techniques

Scottish Land and Estates

Scottish Gamekeepers Association

British Association for Shooting and Conservation

National Farmers Union for Scotland

Scottish Crofters Federation

Scottish Countryside Alliance

Heather Trust

Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust

RSPB Scotland

John Muir Trust

National Trust for Scotland

Scottish Ramblers Association

Scottish Countryside Rangers Association

Trees for Life

UK Met Office – Scotland liaison

Association of British Insurers (ABI) – Scotland representative

Highland Council

Dumfries and Galloway Council

Highland Adapts

Local Gamekeepers

The focus of the summit was for stakeholders to share their views on addressing future wildfire risks, including what is needed to increase Scotland’s resilience to wildfires.

A roundtable on wildfires event will take place in the coming weeks at the Scottish Parliament which will provide MSPs with the opportunity to hear from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Scottish Government about a brief overview of the 2025 wildfires season, key outcomes from the Scottish Multi-Agency Resilience Training and Exercising Unit (SMARTEU) debrief, an overview of learnings so far from the series of engagements and to contribute to building resilience into our wildfire preparedness and response.

The Scottish Government published its response to Dr Colin Church’s second and final report of the Independent Review on the Role of Incineration in Scotland’s Waste Hierarchy (the Review) on 5 May 2023, which focused on options to decarbonise the residual waste infrastructure in Scotland.

In its response, the Scottish Government accepted Recommendation 17, that the Scottish Government and SEPA should put in place by 2025 robust arrangements to stop fossil-based plastic from being incinerated in Scotland from the beginning of 2030, except where required for hazardous waste disposal”, in principle. While the Scottish Government agrees that phasing out the incineration of plastic waste is key to decarbonisation, our approach must be balanced, as banning it outright could lead to an increase in inappropriate disposal.

Our Circular Economy and Waste Route Map (published in December 2024) sets out a series of ongoing and future policy commitments to deliver increased reuse and recycling in accordance with our Circular Economy goals and help drive the reduction in fossil-based plastics going to incineration.

This includes policies such as banning single use plastic items (came into force in 2022), the implementation of the packaging extended producer responsibility scheme (first payments in November 2025), the proposal to expand the UK Emissions Trading Scheme to include fossil-based emissions from incineration (from 2028) and a new, statutory household recycling Code of Practice to be co-designed with local authorities and other stakeholders (to be available for public consultation by the end of 2026).

We are also making one of the biggest investments in a generation to modernise recycling in Scotland through the Recycling Improvement Fund. A total of £66.6 million has now been allocated to 27 local authorities for 48 projects to increase the quantity and quality of recycling across Scotland. We are funding a range of improvements, including boosting Scotland’s capacity to recycle problematic materials like plastic films, which must be collected from households and businesses by 31 March 2027.

The Scottish Government published its response to Dr Colin Church’s second and final report of the Independent Review on the Role of Incineration in Scotland’s Waste Hierarchy (the Review) on 5 May 2023, which focused on options to decarbonise the residual waste infrastructure in Scotland.

In its response, the Scottish Government accepted Recommendation 17, that the Scottish Government and SEPA should put in place by 2025 robust arrangements to stop fossil-based plastic from being incinerated in Scotland from the beginning of 2030, except where required for hazardous waste disposal”, in principle. While the Scottish Government agrees that phasing out the incineration of plastic waste is key to decarbonisation, our approach must be balanced, as banning it outright could lead to an increase in inappropriate disposal.

Our Circular Economy and Waste Route Map (published in December 2024) sets out a series of ongoing and future policy commitments to deliver increased reuse and recycling in accordance with our Circular Economy goals and help drive the reduction in fossil-based plastics going to incineration.

This includes policies such as banning single use plastic items (introduced in 2022), the implementation of the packaging extended producer responsibility scheme (first payments in November 2025), the proposal to expand the UK Emissions Trading Scheme to include fossil-based emissions from incineration (from 2028) and a new, statutory household recycling Code of Practice to be co-designed with local authorities and other stakeholders (to be available for public consultation by the end of 2026).

We are also making one of the biggest investments in a generation to modernise recycling in Scotland through the Recycling Improvement Fund. A total of £66.6 million has now been allocated to 27 local authorities for 48 projects to increase the quantity and quality of recycling across Scotland. We are funding a range of improvements, including boosting Scotland’s capacity to recycle problematic materials like plastic films, which must be collected from households and businesses by 31 March 2027.

The requested information is not held by the Scottish Government.

Eradicating child poverty in Scotland is a national mission and this Government’s top priority.

The Scottish Budget for 2025-26 outlines wide-ranging investment to deliver progress on our national mission to eradicate child poverty. This includes investment in breakfast clubs, to expand the provision of free school meals to around 25,000 more children and to develop the systems to mitigate the two-child limit.

Our action is making a real difference to families. On average, households with children in the poorest 10% of households are estimated to be £2,600 a year better off in 2025-26 as a result of Scottish Government policies. This value is projected to grow to an average of £3,700 a year by 2029-30.

This information is not held by the Scottish Government as it relates to an operational matter for the children’s hearings system.

The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) publish their annual statistics, which sets out a measure on time taken to progress referrals through the children’s hearings system. The information is available on the SCRA website: Official Statistics - SCRA

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

15.8% of Disclosure Scotland’s total workforce is made up of agency or temporary employees. This is based on September full-time equivalent work figures and includes IT contractors as temporary employees.

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

Disclosure Scotland is currently performing within its Service Level Agreement (SLA) to process 90% of applications within 14 days.

Disclosure Scotland is forecasted to spend £9.84 million on staff costs in financial year 2025 to 2026 to deliver our disclosure processing and support services. This is against a total forecasted Resource Departmental Expenditure Limit (RDEL) spend of £34 million. Of the £9.84 million, £900,000 has been allocated to improve processing times this financial year.

Children’s Hearings Scotland is responsible for the recruitment, training and retention of children’s hearings panel members and is assigned funding through the grant-in-aid process. It is a matter for the National Convener to allocate resource to the training of panel members. Grant-in-aid funding is detailed in CHS' annual report.