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The delivery of the McCloud Remedy is the key priority for the SPPA, balancing the significant and complex work associated with delivery alongside routine administration.

The scale of challenge that SPPA has faced in delivering the McCloud Remedy cannot be overstated and is one shared by other public sector pension scheme managers across the UK. Although progress is being made, SPPA took the difficult decision to extend the target date of 31 July 2025 for delivery to retired officers to the end of 2025.

This did not constitute a regulatory breach as the extension was made in accordance with the legislation. The SPPA CEO has discussed the decision with both the Pensions Regulator and the Scottish Police Pension Board, and SPPA has written to the remaining members directly to ensure they are kept informed.

SPPA has invested time and personnel to address this broader exercise and has introduced new automated processes that will begin to deliver at pace. SPPA has already delivered approximately 98% of RSS to serving officers and 85% of RSS to retired officers. The remaining cases are more complex, and will take longer to complete manually as they cannot yet be produced through automated processes.

Revenue expenditure from the Housing Revenue Account in North Ayrshire Council is detailed in Table 1. Revenue expenditure is the cost of delivering services each year and includes loan charges, supervision and management, repairs and maintenance, allowances for bad debts and other expenditure.

Table 1 - Housing Revenue Account Revenue Expenditure Summary, North Ayrshire, Year Ending 31st March, £ Millions.

The Scottish Government welcomes the Lancet Commission’s research, which highlights that up to 60% of liver cancer cases are preventable through reducing alcohol consumption, tackling obesity, and increasing hepatitis vaccination.

Preventing more cancers is a key ambition of our 10 year Cancer Strategy for Scotland 2023-2033 and Cancer Action Plan for Scotland 2023 – 2026. We are taking actions to reduce the consumption of alcohol, to promote healthy weight, increase hepatitis vaccinations and to address health inequalities – all key contributors to liver cancer risk.

These include delivering on the 20 actions within our Alcohol Framework which sets out our priorities for preventing alcohol-related harm, developing an implementation plan of preventative actions to improve Scotland’s food environment and continuing to target support for babies born to hepatitis B positive mothers. Encouragingly, Public Health Scotland (PHS) published data shows strong uptake of the hepatitis B vaccine in children (over 94%).

We are also working with PHS and NHS Boards to strengthen adult vaccination uptake, improve data systems, and reduce inequalities in access to vaccination.

Cancer remains a national priority, within the Scottish Government and across NHS Scotland. Our 10 year Cancer Strategy for Scotland 2023-2033 and Cancer Action Plan for Scotland 2023 – 2026 set out a comprehensive approach to improving cancer outcomes, with earlier and fast diagnosis a key ambition.

We are working in partnership with Alcohol and Drug Partnerships and NHS Boards to increase awareness of liver disease and support for early detection and treatment. This includes developing a nationwide model for the early detection of alcohol-related liver disease, building on learning from the innovative intelligent Liver Function Testing (iLFT) pilot pioneered by NHS Tayside and the Scottish Government through the National Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD).

The Accountant in Bankruptcy (AiB) publishes the number of bankruptcies by local authority area in the Annual Scottish Statutory Debt Solutions statistics publication. The latest available data for the April 2023 – March 2024 are available here: Scottish Statutory Debt Solution Statistics 2023-24: Comprehensive Excel Tables | Accountant in Bankruptcy the number of bankruptcies by local authority are on the sheet labelled Table_la_2a.

The 2024-25 publication is due for release on the 27 August 2025 where these figures will be updated.

There is a strong tradition of partnership working between local authorities, particularly through Regional Economic Partnerships. This partnership is a key way that services can be delivered more efficiently, and opportunities can be scaled. This is exemplified by the Northeast Regional Economic Partnership, involving Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council, who are delivering the Northeast Investment Zone in partnership with both the Scottish and UK Governments.

Regional Economic Partnerships are delivered via bespoke regional arrangements, and many other examples of joint working are on a case-by-case basis, so formal monitoring of the “level” of joint working would not be possible.

However, the Scottish Government has committed in the Programme for Government to working with local authorities and other key partners, to identify how to strengthen these partnership arrangements. This work is not yet complete, and it would not be possible to comment on outcomes at this time.

The Scottish Government does not have any current plans to review the number of NHS Boards.

In the NHS Scotland Service Renewal Plan, we have already committed to the creation of a new single body called ‘NHS Delivery’, which will bring together the existing functions of NHS National Services Scotland and NHS Education for Scotland, and will allow us to review and consolidate other crosscutting delivery functions.

We will continue to strengthen collaboration across NHS Bodies to ensure a more strategic, population-based approach to planning and keep governance arrangements under review to ensure they support the needs of Scotland's population and deliver best value for public services.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting stronger regional working. In the Programme for Government we provided that we would:

Work with regional and local partners to identify how best to formally devolve further elements of decision-making and delivery to Regional Economic Partnerships (REPs), and present options before the end of this Parliament.

Officials undertaking this work are engaging with a range of partners across the public, private and third sectors, as well as further and higher education partners, the UK and Welsh governments, and regional groupings elsewhere in the UK in order to understand how best to empower regional partners.

The Scottish Government is also working with COSLA on the Local Governance Review to consider how power and resources should be shared between national and local government and with communities. From the extensive engagement to date, there has been no specific proposals to introduce elected mayors or provosts.

The views of Local Government would inform any future changes to Local Government’s structure or governance arrangements. This is in line with the Scottish Government’s commitment to respecting Local Government’s democratic mandate as part of the Verity House Agreement.

The Scottish Government Planning Application Statistics (PAS) asks planning authorities to indicate the number of planning applications they have decided for major housing developments (50 or more dwellings or a site area that is or exceeds two hectares) and local housing developments (less than 50 dwellings or a site area of less than two hectares). This is expressed as a number in the published statistics, but it can also be expressed as a percentage.

The PAS does not include the number and percentage of new homes approved in each reporting period. However, the Scottish Government does publish statistics on the number of new build properties completed in its Housing Statistics for Scotland Quarterly Update: New Housebuilding and Affordable Housing Supply to end March.

The methodology used to collect Scottish Government Planning Application Statistics (PAS) is an Excel-based survey which is completed biannually by planning authorities. The production of PAS uses a combination of manual and automated methods including Excel without macros, Excel with macros, R programming and Word. The PAS are Scottish Government official statistics meaning they are quality assured to a very high standard and they have been reviewed by Office of Statistics Regulation (OSR) which is independent of Scottish Government.