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To prevent any misuse of artificial intelligence by public bodies we encourage best practice and advice through the Scottish Government’s Public Sector AI Task Force which meets on a monthly basis to support the safe adoption of AI, finding synergies and reducing the risk of duplication. The Task Force currently has over 200 individual members from all areas of the Scottish public sector. The meetings’ agendas and minutes are openly available online.

Scottish Ministers also mandated the use of the Scottish AI Register for Scottish Government and core agencies in April 2024. The Register enables safe and transparent development and use of AI in the public sector, and offer the public a simple and effective platform to have a say in how AI is used to make decisions and deliver public services. Consisting of a public facing website, and underlying resources and governance tools for public sector developers, the Register helps ensure we manage AI risk effectively and consistently, whilst also sharing best practice and reducing duplication.

To protect creativity, we have responded to the UK Government’s “Copyright and AI” consultation and asked them to reconsider their proposed plans which would significantly impact creative talent. Officials are closely monitoring the current back-and-forth in the UK Parliament over the UK Data Bill, stemming from the amendments introduced by Baroness Kidron to protect creative talent, and the UK Government’s refusal to accept them. We understand that the UK Government now plan to delay addressing the AI copyright issue until the passing of a specific AI Bill, which they had announced last year for 2025, but is now not expected until 2026. We will continue to engage with UK Government on the future UK AI regulations to ensure Scottish creative talent is protected.

The Scottish AI Alliance, the delivery body of our AI Strategy are also working to understand and support creatives with the potential and the impact of AI in the creative sector, with an event on this topic taking place in Glasgow on the 13th of June.

The Scottish Government will seek to review and revise the current guidance in the coming months. However, this review will need to be cognisant of the likely requirements of the alignment position with the recast Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, which proposes further measures in relation to the operation of wastewater networks.

The Scottish Government monitors trends across the whole childcare sector, drawing on data published by the Care Inspectorate. In recent years the Scottish Government has published financial sustainability health checks and the Sustainable Rates Review, which specifically considered the contribution of local authority sustainable rates to funded providers’ financial sustainability.

It is important to note that funded ELC is often delivered in a mixed economy model. The payments that providers receive from local authorities to deliver funded ELC therefore only form part of their total income. For example, the 2023 Financial Sustainability Health Check reported that public funding accounted for around 46% of overall income for private childcare services who delivered funded ELC.

The joint Scottish Government and COSLA Sustainable Rates Review identified a need to improve rates-setting processes to better support provider sustainability. As part of the evidence gathering phase of the review local authorities did however report that “they had seen very little evidence of funded services in the private, third or childminding sectors reporting to them that they had been under financial duress or of services closing due to financial sustainability pressures”.

The Scottish Government and COSLA are continuing to progress the reforms from the Sustainable Rates Review. This includes improving the data available to inform funded ELC rates-setting by contracting the Diffley Partnership to undertake a new funded ELC cost survey. The survey findings will inform future sustainable rates-setting and the Scottish Government and COSLA’s future financial planning.

Further information about support available to ELC providers, including the Nursery Rates Relief Scheme, which provides 100% relief on Non-Domestic Rates to eligible day nurseries in Scotland and is estimated to be worth around £11 million a year, is available on the Scottish Government website.

Foreign authorities sometimes request assurances from Scotland in response to an extradition request because they must be satisfied that requested persons will not be subject to treatment that breaches their human rights. Assurances, by their nature, require more work to be done in order to secure the extradition of a requested person, therefore, all cases where assurances are sought necessarily involve some element of additional delay. The most commonly sought assurances relate to prison standards and the nature of healthcare available in prisons.

Pre-Brexit, assurance requests from the EU were rare due to the principle of mutual trust and respect accorded between EU member states. However, post-Brexit, the number of assurances and the complexity of the specific asks increased as courts, both Scottish and Foreign, must consider the system the requested person will be surrendered to in greater detail and with greater scrutiny due to the loss of mutual recognition between the UK and EU.

The Scottish Government is aware of one extradition which was temporarily blocked by an Irish court in 2023 following a negative judicial finding regarding the first set of assurances provided. The requested person was subsequently extradited to Scotland in 2024 following the provision of updated assurances by the Scottish authorities.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any other international or foreign court blocking any extradition.

The primary driver for introducing a national policy was to achieve a level of consistency and resolve the situation where some NHS Boards were already reimbursing the electricity costs associated with home dialysis, some partially reimbursing and others making no reimbursement at all. The Scotland-wide policy allows for Boards to determine reimbursement rates for home dialysis whilst recommending the standard UK Kidney Association (UKKA) calculator as a basis.

A review of implementation of the national policy found that all Boards had reimbursement policies for eligible patients. The policy requests that Boards proactively identify patients eligible for reimbursement but does not mandate how Boards may manage the reimbursement process; this is a local decision for each Board.

The application window for the Scottish Upland Sheep Support Scheme (SUSSS) in scheme year 2025 does not open until 1 September 2025.

Payments under the SUSSS for scheme year 2024 commenced in May 2025, as set out in the 2024 Payments Strategy timetable.

As per the payment strategy timetable, there are no delayed payments and as at 9 June 2025, 98% of eligible applicants have been paid with 17 applicants still to receive a 2024 SUSSS payment. There are various reasons why a payment has not yet issued, for example, information has still to be provided by the applicant or application processing has still to complete. All remaining payments will be processed and paid as soon as is possible.

The citation of witnesses is a matter for the independent Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The Scottish Government is, however, supporting justice partners to drive reforms to improve our criminal justice system to make it more efficient and ensure that it works better for everyone.

That will include reducing the number of police witnesses who are required to attend court and reducing the length of time that cases take. It will also mean enabling more cases to be concluded earlier, and fewer victims and civil witnesses needing to come to court.

Two key programmes being rolled out across Scotland are the judicially led summary case management programme, which provides a new approach to summary criminal cases, and the digital evidence sharing capability programme, which allows digital evidence to be shared at the earliest opportunity including the evidence from Body Worn Video technology which is being rolled out by Police Scotland this year. It is anticipated that combined these will deliver benefits for both civil and professional witnesses.

Ministers have no plans to consider business travel under the Air Discount Scheme, as this would be in breach of current State Aid compliance.

Ministers are currently considering the scope and structure of the Air Discount Scheme review, including how the views of stakeholders can best be taken into account.

A key priority for the Scottish Government is to encourage apprenticeship delivery in island and rural communities to support inclusive growth. Through Skills Development Scotland we introduced a rural uplift for Modern Apprenticeship delivery which is an increased payment to training providers to encourage provision in island and rural areas.

Travel and Subsistence (including accommodation) funding is also available to support Apprentices who must attend structured and formal off-the-job training (outwith normal daily travel requirements) where this is required by the Modern Apprenticeship Framework.

Section 259 of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 gives people with a mental illness, learning disability, dementia and related conditions a right of access to independent advocacy. It confers a duty on each relevant local authority and relevant health board to secure the availability of independent advocacy services and to take appropriate steps to ensure that those persons have the opportunity of making use of those services.

The Code of Practice Volume 1 for the 2003 Act states that independent advocacy organisations may provide individual or collective advocacy, but notes the Act is not specific about the type or types of independent advocacy services to which an individual should have a right of access. It goes on to acknowledge that any or all of the various types of independent advocacy may be appropriate depending on the circumstances and personal preferences of the individual concerned.

The total cost of work considering and progressing misogyny legislation by the Scottish Government was £143,668.13. This includes:

• The fee paid to Baroness Helena Kennedy KC in her role as Chair of the Independent Working Group on Misogyny and Criminal Justice in Scotland;
• Costs associated with Working Group;
• Publication of the Scottish Government consultation paper on draft legislation to implement the Working Group’s recommendations;
• Analysis of the responses received to the consultation; and
• Publication of consultation analysis.

This does not include the cost of time spent by Scottish Government civil servants as the work was carried out by staff working on a range of different areas including but not limited to misogyny legislative policy. As such, it is not possible to quantify the cost of staff time involved.