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This information is publicly available on the Traffic Commissioner website under PSV notices and proceedings for Scotland. The address is https://www.gov.uk/guidance/notices-and-proceedings-for-scotland

In 2025-26 the Scottish Government provided record funding of over £15.1 billion to local authorities, a real terms increase of 5.5%. It is, however, the responsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financial resources available, including on support for bus services, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled its statutory obligations. Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to make local decisions on how best to deliver services to their local communities.

Further information on the local government finance settlements, including allocations for each local authority is published annually on the Scottish Government website. The settlement for 2025-26 can be found at the following link - https://www.gov.scot/publications/local-government-finance-circular-10-2024-settlement-for-2025-to-2026/

The amount of funding local authorities provided for bus in Scotland is detailed in our annually published statistics that can be found at the following link - https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/ea2pp3vv/sts-chapter-02-bus-and-coach-travel-reference-tables-accessible.xls. Table 2.9 provides details of funding to Local Authority bus support, concessionary fares, Network Support Grant from 2004-05 onwards. We do not hold the level of detail required to break this down by local authority area.

Prior to 2018-2019 site start dates were not collected as there was no requirement on our previous recording system for this information. Due to this, approval dates were used as a proxy for start dates. The following table provides an average time between approval and site start date for affordable homes between 2018-2019 and 2024-2025.

Decisions on the care and treatment of patients are always matters of professional judgement for the responsible practitioner having considered the needs of their patient and relevant clinical guidelines.

The Endometriosis Care Pathway has been developed for NHS Scotland and adapted from National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines. The pathway aims to support healthcare professionals to provide a holistic approach and timely care for those with endometriosis and endometriosis-like symptoms. Both the Pathway and NICE guidance recommend clinicians consider the patient’s circumstances including their age, symptoms, priorities and emotional needs. They also include advice on, referral to a paediatric and adolescent gynaecology service, or paediatric service, depending on local service provision. Clinicians may refer to NICE and ESHRE guidelines when following the endometriosis care pathway.

Following changes to the NICE guidance a review of the pathway will be part of the 2025-26 workplan for the CfSD Gynaecology Specialty Delivery Group.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring those living with endometriosis can access the best possible care and support. That is why endometriosis is a priority in the Women’s Health Plan and will continue to be so.

Scottish Ministers and Scottish Government officials frequently engage with a range of stakeholders involved in the rural off-gas heating market, both in direct meetings and as part of wider consultation events.

I hosted a series of roundtables on 6 August 2025 to discuss the proposed Heat in Buildings Bill at which a range of stakeholders were in attendance, including some representing rural and off-gas grid interests. These roundtables focussed on plans for the Heat in Buildings Bill and included discussion of how to overcome the challenges faced by some rural properties in transitioning to clean heating systems.

The then-Acting Minister for Climate Action, Dr Alasdair Allan MSP, met with the UK and Ireland Fuel Distributors Association, along with other representatives of the off-gas grid heating sector, on 26 February 2025. The discussion focussed on the role that renewable liquid biofuels may play in decarbonising heating in rural buildings. This is in addition to previous ministerial engagement on rural heat which has informed our approach to the Bill.

The Scottish Government publish accredited official statistics annually, which include information on diversions from prosecution and are available on the Scottish Government website. The Scottish Government statistics are not directly comparable to the COPFS figures and the Scottish Government statistics should be preferred for statistical purposes.

COPFS operates a live, operational database to manage reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. This system is designed to support the operational needs of criminal case processing, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.

Due to the way that decisions on diversions are recorded on this database, in order to provide an accurate response to the question regarding sexual assault cases, a manual check of the relevant cases has been undertaken.

For consistency, the Scottish Government’s classification of “sexual assault” has been adopted.

Based on the results of those manual checks, the following table has been compiled. It includes numbers of cases in which the accused was offered diversion and following that offer, the diversion was considered completed or is still considered ongoing.

The overall numbers of cases containing an allegation of sexual assault (which have not been checked) are provided as a point of comparison.

The Home Energy Scotland website has estimates on the potential annual savings from installing a standard air source heat pump where there is an existing oil or LPG boiler: https://www.homeenergyscotland.org/heat-pumps

We provide uplifts through our Heat in Buildings delivery schemes to help meet additional challenges faced by homeowners in rural and island communities. The Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan offers an uplift of £1,500 to the grant and loan funding available for energy efficiency measures in remote rural areas and islands. The Warmer Homes Scotland scheme operates a national customer price model to ensure equal access to grant funded installation of energy efficiency improvements across Scotland, including in rural and island areas. And both our Area Based Schemes and the Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund provide an uplift to reflect higher delivery costs in more remote areas, of 11% in rural areas and 22% in remote rural/island areas.

Heating oil and liquified petroleum gas supply chains and energy price regulation are reserved matters. We engage constructively with the UK Government on a regular basis.

The Scottish Government's most recent fuel poverty scenario modelling is for the July to September 2025 period under an Ofgem price cap of £1,720 for the typical dual fuel household. This analysis estimated a national fuel poverty rate of 32% (820,000 households) and an extreme fuel poverty rate of 17% (420,000 households).

When broken down by 6 fold rural urban classification 33% of rural households (140,000) were estimated to be in fuel poverty. Table 1 below breaks down the fuel poverty rate by 6 fold rural urban classification for all scenario modelling periods from January 2024 to present, as well as the 2022 and 2023 SHCS key findings figures. However, this modelling does not fully account for recent changes in the prices of alternative fuels such as LPG.

The Scottish Government has no powers over energy pricing which is reserved to the UK Government.

We are concerned that many rural consumers, who rely on unregulated alternative fuels to heat their homes and power their businesses, are not protected from price shocks and market volatility. That is why we continue to call on the UK Government to deliver a social tariff in the form of an automatic and targeted discount - including for those using alternative fuels - to address unaffordable bills at source. We have written to the UK Government sharing our Social Tariff Working Group’s recommendations and seeking urgent delivery of this crucial policy. The powers to implement this remain with the UK Government and we are committed to working closely with them, Ofgem, suppliers and consumer organisations, to advocate for the delivery of a social tariff across Great Britain.

Table 1: Fuel poverty rates by rural urban classification

We publish information on Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) average cost per unit in our annual out-turn reports, available here: Affordable Housing Supply Programme - More homes - gov.scot. The following table show the average cost per unit to deliver an affordable home in each year since 2007.

Since 2008-09 we have published information on Affordable Housing Supply Programme budget and actual spend in our annual out-turn reports, available here: Affordable Housing Supply Programme - More homes - gov.scot. Reasons for variance in spend against budget can include lower activity in some demand-led programmes, project delays or, as seen from 2020-21 onwards, the impact of COVID and related construction supplies and workforce issues. We continue to work closely with partners to utilise our investment to help maximise the pace of delivery of affordable homes.

In 2007-08 Communities Scotland, an executive agency of the Scottish Government was responsible for housing throughout Scotland. Communities Scotland was disbanded on 1 April 2008, when most of its responsibilities transferred to the Scottish Government.