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The Scottish Government’s position is that we are unable to support long-term working outside of the UK unless there is a genuine requirement to do so in the role, i.e. working from one of our overseas Scottish Government offices. However, we do not consider staff who work permanently in one of our overseas offices to be working remotely from outside of the UK as the role that they are employed to undertake is fully based in the relevant overseas office. In addition, as such staff have diplomatic status, there are no residency or tax implications and they continue to be subject to paying income tax in the UK.

Staff may be required to work outside of the UK temporarily for brief periods when travelling on official business, for example, accompanying a minister overseas or attending a conference and they may be required to undertake work remotely during such events. In addition, consistent with other parts of the Civil Service, the Scottish Government allows staff to work remotely from outside of the UK for up to a maximum of four weeks per annum subject to meeting eligibility requirements, which includes having the right to work in the overseas country, and meeting any costs and potential liabilities from working abroad. Tax codes do not change when working abroad for these brief periods. We do not collate data that specifically captures instances of remote working from overseas.

The Scottish Government is taking this issue seriously. As well as regular meetings with the Medicines Healthcare and products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer (CPO) has met with Police Scotland and Healthcare Improvement Scotland and plans to issue communications for healthcare professionals in Scotland on how to report known or suspected illicit prescribing of these medicines.

The CPO has also met with the Advertising Standards Agency to discuss their work in tackling adverts for weight-loss prescription-only medicines targeting members of the public.

The report on women and girls’ safety on public transport recommends measures to enhance security and comfort. These include better lighting, surveillance, greater staff presence, clear reporting, use of technology, public awareness campaigns and stricter enforcement of safety policies. These recommendations align to work underway by the transport industry and Transport Scotland. Therefore not all have specific commencement dates, but build on already established activities.

To share good practice and improve awareness, in May 2024 Transport Scotland published research around the use of personal safety apps in public spaces. In November 2024, Transport Scotland launched a dedicated webpage which provides links to the Transport Scotland’s research and engagement, as well as how violence against women and girls is being tackled by the Scottish Government.

Transport Scotland continues to work with the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) to support sharing of best practice amongst bus operators including on data, education and driver training, and last met in January 2025. In addition, Transport Scotland are developing actions to tackle antisocial behaviour on the bus network, which includes the development of a behaviour code for those using the National Concessionary Travel Schemes and a process for temporary suspension or withdrawal of concessionary travel entitlement.

On the rail network, ScotRail, Network Rail and British Transport Police are working together with stakeholders to deliver a activities to reduce anti-social behaviours. British Transport Police’s (BTP) “Text 61016” service allows all passengers to discreetly report any incidents they witness on trains or at stations directly to BTP. ScotRail are reviewing their existing processes for responding to customer reports of anti-social and unacceptable behaviour, and in February 2025 further expanded their “Travel Safe Team”. To further improve joint working and reporting, BTP have established a Strategic Safer Transport Group which ensures partnership working between organisations to create a safer transport network across Scotland.

Regarding staff presence, ScotRail must have a member of staff other than drivers on all train services and they are reviewing changes to ticket office opening hours to allow more staff to be present at train stations. ScotRail have piloted conflict management training for front-line staff with a view to rolling this out further. Transport Scotland’s SQUIRe team inspect trains and all stations in Scotland in a four week period, ensuring that aspects such as CCTV, station help points and lighting are all working appropriately.

The Scottish Government recognises the growth in the number of pupils with an additional support need since the pandemic.

Local authorities have the statutory responsibility for delivering education and for ensuring that those pupils identified with an additional support need are fully supported to learn, in the environment that best suits their needs. Most children and young people’s needs are met through a universal level of support and 95% of children and young people with ASN were educated in mainstream classes in 2024. This includes adapting learning and teaching approaches to support children in the classroom. There remains a broad consensus from children and young people, parents and carers, the teaching profession and others that the Scottish approach to inclusive education continues to be the right one.

We continue to seek ways to improve the experience of inclusion for all of our young people and the 2025-26 budget sets out an additional £29 million for additional support needs.

The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people is a top priority for the Scottish Government. We continue to provide £16 million per year to enable local authorities to provide access to school counselling services for pupils aged 10 and over.

Our national guidance on mobile phones in Scotland’s schools sets out the considerations schools and education authorities should give to respectful and responsible use of mobile phone policies. While the guidance is clear that headteachers can ban mobile phones if they think this is the appropriate approach for their school environment, the guidance takes a broader approach to identifying the features that should comprise a respectful and responsible use of mobile technology policy. This includes digital etiquette (standards of conduct when using mobile phones); digital rights and responsibilities (what individuals can and cannot do); and safe and secure use of mobile technology (precautions that can be taken to ensure digital safety).

Supporting children and young people to use mobile phones respectfully and responsibly is a key element of preparing them to be responsible citizens, successful learners, confident individuals and effective contributors. The Scottish Government wants children and young people to be protected, safe and supported in the online world and for them to be able to enjoy the internet, show resilience and take advantage of the opportunities it has to offer. We are committed to making sure child internet safety is properly recognised in Scottish education and wider child protection policies.

Education Scotland published Experiences and Outcomes for the Technologies area of the Curriculum including internet safety and cyber resilience. There are clear links between internet safety and Personal and Social Education/health and wellbeing and these statements will help teachers to know what to teach. Children and young people will learn about the safe and responsible use of different technologies, including the internet and social media, as part of their broad general education under Curriculum for Excellence.

Energy price setting and regulation is fully reserved to UK Government and the Scottish Government has limited powers to intervene. However, we continue to do what we can, within devolved competence, to support households in rural areas with their energy costs.

Our energy efficiency delivery programmes – Warmer Homes Scotland and Area Based Schemes – support households across the entirety of Scotland who are living in, or at risk of, fuel poverty.

Households in extreme fuel poverty in rural and island areas are able to benefit from energy efficiency improvements worth up to £21,100 as part of our local Area Based Schemes. These councils can apply a higher maxima of grant-in-kind for zero/low carbon heating measures of £9,000, which reflects the greater delivery costs in rural and island areas.

Warmer Homes Scotland (WHS) is our national fuel poverty scheme, designed to help those living in fuel poverty or at risk of fuel poverty through installing insulation and heating measures into individual properties. The scheme is delivered by Warmworks and applications are assessed by Home Energy Scotland (HES) under eligibility criteria based on “proxies” such as Employment Support Allowance (ESA) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) which are an indication of the likelihood of the household living in or being at risk of fuel poverty. To ensure that customers have access to the same set of measures in rural and island areas we use a National Customer Price, this ensures measures are charged at the same level whether they are in rural and remote areas or in the central belt.

We are also aware that island communities, in particular, experience acute financial pressures due to often higher costs of fuel, a colder climate, and a lack of consumer choices compared to the UK mainland. Since 2022, our Islands Cost Crisis Emergency Fund (ICCEF) has distributed £3.4 million, through local authorities, to support islanders most impacted by the cost of living. The 2024 Programme for Government commits the Scottish Government to continue delivery of this fund and we anticipate that it will be worth a further £1 million in 2025-26. This is in addition to our Winter Heating Benefits which provide guaranteed support to people who have an identified need for additional heat over the winter months, including low-income households, families with disabled children and young people, and pensioners.

However, the fundamental fiscal and policy levers to make a real difference lie with the UK Government. The Scottish Government has recently led and concluded a Social Tariff Working Group with energy suppliers and consumer organisations. We repeatedly called on the previous UK Government to introduce a social tariff mechanism as a means of targeted support for those who need it most and have written to the UK Government seeking urgent delivery of an automatic and targeted discount on energy bills to address unaffordable bills at source. We believe that a sophisticated set of metrics should be developed to determine eligibility, including rurality, recognising the additional costs faced by these households.

We have been clear that market reforms need to deliver tangible benefits and ensure Scotland’s communities feel the benefit of the energy transition. Rural households face a particular set of challenges and we will continue to advocate for their interests through our engagement with the UK Government, Ofgem, and wider industry.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

There are currently no plans at present to update The Prison and Young Offenders Institutions (Scotland) Rules 2011.

SPS focus remains on addressing the current population pressures across our estate as we will continue to work with the Scottish Government to achieve a sustainable long-term position concerning the management of the rising prison population in Scotland.

A small number of local authorities have provided indicative figures for the number of pupils enrolling in state schools from independent schools.

However, the annual fluctuation of pupil rolls in those local authorities is typically significantly larger than the increase in the number of pupils enrolling in schools from the independent sector that has been reported. We do not therefore anticipate the number of pupils transferring representing a significant issue for Local Authorities.

In terms of funding, the Scottish Government collects information on the number of pupils in state schools every September as part of the pupil census. The distribution methodology for calculating the Local Government Settlement is agreed with local authorities and is informed by a number of indicators including pupil numbers from the latest annual school census.

Local authorities have the statutory responsibility to provide education for children and young people in their area.

The Scottish Government ensures accountability and transparency in the governance of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) through the SPS Framework Document which was updated and published last year (2024). This includes the Chief Executive’s direct accountability to Scottish Ministers, financial and performance monitoring, ministerial oversight, and the role of the Portfolio Accountable Officer in overseeing the operational and financial performance of SPS.

The HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland (HMIPS) plays a key role in holding SPS to account by reporting on prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners, with recommendations for improvement that must be considered and implemented by the SPS where required.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-36670 on 6 May 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.