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We plan to introduce amended regulations for charities accounts by the end of 2025. These will raise the audit income threshold for charities registered in Scotland from £500,000 to £1 million. The amended regulations will also include changes to UK accounting standards following a new Charities Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP), which is due to be published in the Autumn.

The Scottish Government welcomes Kidney Care UK’s recently published report and its important findings and recommendations. These will be carefully considered and reflected as appropriate in future policy planning for long term conditions like chronic kidney disease.

While there are no current plans to conduct a national audit, we expect all NHS Boards to adhere to existing guidelines and best practice in delivering psychosocial care. Our Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, MentalHealth Core Standards and the National Specification for Psychological Therapies and Interventions set out clear expectations for the delivery of high-quality, person-centred support across Scotland.

More broadly, the Scottish Government recently consulted on a Long Term Conditions Framework, which will help inform future approaches to prevention, diagnosis and care, including support for mental health and wellbeing.

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring people living with kidney disease can access safe, effective and person-centred care, including appropriate psychosocial support.

The Scottish Government has undertaken a range of stakeholder engagement prior to the development of a long term conditions framework consultation, including meeting with fifteen clinicians representing seven policy areas (stroke, respiratory, cardiology, chronic pain, neurology, diabetes and long COVID) between August and September 2024. These engagements captured a mixed response, with some raising concern that moving to an integrated approach risks losing focus and progress for policy work in these areas. However, the potential transition to an integrated approach was also seen as more equitable, with value in conditions working together. All clinical leads were able to identify opportunities within their specialty for beneficial joins to be made across conditions.

Additionally, in September 2024 the approach set out in the consultation was presented to the Scottish Government Professional Advisory Group, which involves clinicians working across a wider range of specialties including primary care and allied health professionals, to discuss the proposed changes in approach to long term conditions. This meeting involved discussion of opportunities to simplify, make efficiencies and provide effective interventions while taking a whole person approach, starting with the person rather than the condition.

We will continue to engage with the clinical community and lived experience groups as the Framework develops. The public consultation on long term conditions closed on 20 July, and analysis is ongoing.

The food environment, including promotions, significantly influences the food choices people make, both in and out of home. This report adds further to (the evidence base and) our understanding that promotions can encourage impulse spend and can lead to people buying more than they need, overlooking cheaper and healthier alternatives.

The Scottish Government is taking forward wide ranging action to support people make healthier choices in the out of home sector.

On 17 June, the Scottish Government confirmed that it will introduce regulations to restrict the promotion of food and drink high in fat, sugar or salt to the Scottish Parliament this autumn. These regulations will, amongst other things, restrict unlimited refills for a fixed charge of non-prepacked soft drinks with added sugar in qualifying out of home businesses. Further detail on the final scope of the policy is available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/restricting-promotion-food-drink-high-fat-sugar-salt-hfss-consultation-detail-proposed-regulations-scottish-government-response/.

We are working with Food Standards Scotland and Public Health Scotland to develop our Eating Out Eating Well Framework https://eatingouteatingwell.publichealthscotland.scot/, one of the actions from our Out Of Home Action Plan https://www.gov.scot/publications/diet-and-healthy-weight-out-of-home-action-plan/. The new Framework is designed to help businesses serving food out of home, such as restaurants and cafes, to provide healthier options for customers, and includes developing a Code of Practice for children’s menus. Further detail is set out in the answer to question S6W-39402 on 8 August 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/questions-and-answers.

The Scottish Government will consider further action to improve the food environment, including in out of home settings, under the Population Health Framework.

The letter of 11 July sets out that the Scottish Government internal Trans and Non Binary Equality employment policy is under active review in light of the ruling in For Women Scotland V The Scottish Ministers.

This is an internal employer policy that covers Scottish Government staff. Changes to our workplace policies and procedures will be consulted on in line with normal practice, including: internal staff engagement in line with our organisational vision and values; engagement with relevant corporate and policy teams; and partnership working with the Council of Scottish Government Unions.

The timing and approach will be shaped by the emerging advice. This is a complex area of law involving the interaction between different pieces of legislation, and we want to ensure we get it right for all our staff.

We are working with Food Standards Scotland (FSS) and Public Health Scotland (PHS) to develop our Eating Out Eating Well Framework, one of the actions from our Out Of Home Action Plan https://www.gov.scot/publications/diet-and-healthy-weight-out-of-home-action-plan/. The new Framework is designed to help businesses serving food Out Of Home, such as restaurants and cafes, to provide healthier options for customers, and includes developing a Code of Practice for children’s menus.

PHS has recently completed a pilot for our new Eating Out Eating Well Framework. Papers for the pilot and more detail about the Framework have already been published and can be found at: https://eatingouteatingwell.publichealthscotland.scot/

We are also currently working with PHS and FSS to review learnings from the pilot. Once this review has been concluded and its recommendations considered, the Framework will be finalised and published.

Scottish Government does not hold centralised figures for Microsoft 365 license spend across the entire public sector, however, information is held on spend through the Scottish Government Microsoft Enterprise Agreement and spend on all Microsoft products through the Software Value Added Reseller Services (SVARS) framework.

iTECS can confirm that the Scottish Government spent a total of £6,514,529.39 on Microsoft 365 licences in the most recent financial year, through the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement. This figure includes all licences held under the SCOTS Connect tenancy, which supports both SG Core and Non-Core customers. It is important to note that this cost includes licences for 55 SCOTS Connect customers on the network, which partially covers some of the wider public sector in Scotland. However, iTECS does not collate or hold centralised figures for Microsoft 365 licence expenditure by the NHS, local authorities, or the Scottish public sector as a whole.

Breakdown of Costs by Licence Type

Supporting the construction industry and its workforce is a priority for the Scottish Government. The Minister for Business and Employment chairs a Construction Leadership Forum that has oversight of a 2024 Transformation Action Plan and a skills and workforce working group, which is progressing the commitment to increase the capacity, capability, and diversity of the workforce with a focus on future skills and industry attractiveness. The sector continues to have one of the highest apprenticeship intakes, with construction occupations accounting for 25.6% of Modern Apprenticeship starts in 2024-25.

We encourage community or affordable housing projects returning empty homes to use to consider how skills development may be incorporated. Scottish Government funding allocated through the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership (SEHP) in 2024-25 enabled one such project to happen in Dundee. More information about this project is available here: https://www.the-cii.org/strong-foundations-scotland/.

While shops, and other rateable non-domestic properties, will have been liable for a higher property tax under the combined poundage plus Large Business Supplement (up to 31 March 2020) or Higher Property Rate (from 1 April 2020 onwards) over the last decade, the Scottish Government continues to offer a competitive non-domestic rates regime and the 2025-26 Budget delivered the lowest Basic Property Rate in the UK for the seventh year in a row.

Over 95% of shops in Scotland are liable for the Basic or Intermediate Property Rates, and this is estimated to have saved them £11.5m over the same timeframe compared with what they would have been liable for under English rates (note that this is a gross estimate and has not been adjusted for any reliefs).

In addition, the Small Business Bonus Scheme remains the most generous scheme of its kind in the UK. The retail sector continues to be one of the main beneficiaries of the scheme, with shops claiming relief worth £84m in 2024-25 alone.

The figures above have been calculated using property class. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property and does not necessarily accurately reflect the actual use of a property.

The Scottish Government remains committed to implementing a high quality and clinically safe thrombectomy service that is available across Scotland whenever people need it. The majority of NHS Boards can now refer to thrombectomy Hub centres, increasing geographical access to thrombectomy procedures.

Scottish Government officials and NHS planners have been asked to work at pace on developing a plan for the next steps for service expansion. While there is not a specific date for publication, we expect the next steps for service expansion to reflect work to align the governance and delivery of thrombectomy with similar national programmes. This alignment with wider health service planning aims to support oversight of thrombectomy planning for the NHS Chief Executive Group and encourage greater collaboration between NHS Boards in delivering this vital service.