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

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-39151 on 24 July 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.

Scottish Government funding in 2024-25 enabled Police Scotland to undertake the highest level of recruitment since its inception, and Scotland continues to have more police officers per capita than England and Wales.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government has increased police funding year-on-year since 2016-17, investing more than £14.6 billion since the creation of Police Scotland in 2013, with £1.64 billion being invested in policing in 2025-26.

Decisions on how these resources are allocated, including the deployment of police officers, is a matter for the Chief Constable, who confirmed to the SPA Board on 27 March 2025 that the “Scottish Government funding allows us to continue officer recruitment for a full time officer establishment of around 16,500, while modernising the workforce to release experienced officers from roles which don’t need warranted powers so that we can prioritise, maximise, and support the frontline to deliver for our communities.”

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

As the Agency Accountable Officer, I am accountable to the Scottish Ministers for the day-to-day operations of SPS, this includes, but is not limited to, legal compliance with the Prison and Young Offenders Rules (Scotland) 2011.

As defined in these rules, the Governor in Charge (GiC) must establish a System of Privileges, taking into consideration numerous factors, including security.

SPS remains committed to prepare those in our care for a return to their communities and, for some, this includes accessing personal items through various forms of media. However, access to watching DVDs is at the Governor's discretion and remains a privilege, not a right.

There are currently no plans to review this practice.

The Scottish Government is aware of the Law Commission’s report on the common law offence of misconduct in public office in England and Wales and its recommendation that this is replaced with two statutory offences. The common law offence of misconduct in public office does not exist in Scots law. However, there is a comparable common law offence in Scots law of wilful neglect of duty. The Government is actively considering the Law Commission’s recommendations. Any changes to this area of law will require further examination.

The Scottish Government provided funding of over £1.1m from the Equality and Human Rights Fund to organisations working to promote LGBTQI+ equality in Scotland in 2024-25.

This funding provides support for a range of initiatives, including supporting policy development for LGBTQI+ people, research into the lives of the LGBTQI+ community and an LGBT helpline.

Detailed information on funding the Scottish Government has provided LGBTQI+ charities and organisations in the financial year 2024-25 has been published on our website. You can view this at Equality and Human Rights Fund: projects funded - gov.scot.

Data are available on the number of SMEs operating in Scotland, that are registered for VAT and/or PAYE, broken down by Scottish parliamentary constituency. These estimates, sourced from the Businesses in Scotland 2024 publication, are shown in the following table.

Table 1: Number of registered SMEs operating in Scotland, by Scottish Parliamentary Constituency, March 2015-2024

The Scottish Government is responsible for setting the strategic policy direction for NHS Scotland and its workforce. Operational matters, including the staffing of individual services, are the responsibility of each NHS Scotland Health Board.

Workforce statistics, including statistics on certain roles within dermatology services across NHS Scotland, can be found at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

The Scottish Government works with a stakeholder group (which includes NHS Education for Scotland, the British Medical Association, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and various Health Board representatives including regional workforce planners) to undertake annual reviews of the number of specialty training places (for resident doctors) needed across all specialties (including dermatology) in order to meet anticipated future service demand and consultant need.

At a local level, the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 places duties on Health Boards to ensure that at all times suitably qualified and competent individuals are working in such numbers as are appropriate for the health, wellbeing and safety of patients, the provision of high-quality care and the wellbeing of staff.

Through our £106 million additional investment targeted at the longest waits, NHS Boards plan to deliver more than 300,000 appointments and procedures this year.

The additional appointments and procedures are expected to break down as follows:

• 195,000 imaging scans;
• 31,000 inpatient or day-case procedures; and
• 88,000 new outpatient appointments.

A proportion of funding will also support cancer activity and provide critical supporting services which help our NHS deliver activity including pathology, diagnostic reporting and pre-assessment.

In addition, the Government has also now committed a further £4 million to deliver extra dermatology activity, bringing total additional funding for this year to over £110 million. This will support a planned:

• 4,100 new outpatient appointments; and
• 1,500 ‘see and treat’.

This funding will also see photo-triage of up to 8,300 digital images, allowing clinicians to triage, diagnose and assess some skin conditions, leading to a better and quicker service for patients.

Today’s announcement means 213,000 more appointments will be delivered this year than in 2024-25 and exceeds our Programme for Government target of delivering 150,000 extra appointments by more than 60,000.

NHS Boards will receive their allocated funding on delivery of activity. The Scottish Government may move funding between Boards and specialities throughout the year, subject to progress.

While a patient has the right, at any time, to exercise choice and seek private treatment, we recognise that excessively long waits for NHS treatment are not acceptable.

We’re determined to reduce patient waits in the year ahead and our investment of £106 million additional funding will help us to deliver more than 150,000 extra appointments and procedures in 2025-26. The funding has been assigned to specialty areas for the year ahead where it can have the greatest impact against the longest waits – this includes £25 million for trauma and orthopaedics, £21 million for imaging, more than £12 million for ophthalmology, over £9 million for Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) and over £8.8 million for Gynaecology.

This funding is just part of our record investment of £21.7 billion for health and social care this year.

In support of the Budget and wider Public Service Reform agenda, the Scottish Government is proactively addressing the need to control workforce size.

From March 2022 to March 2025, the total workforce in the Scottish Government has reduced by 5%. This reduction has been achieved through prioritising reductions in contingent workers, natural attrition and enhanced recruitment controls. There are currently no plans for redundancies for this financial year.

As the Public Service Reform Strategy is taken forward we will establish how this will shape the future workforce plan for the Scottish Government organisation and the wider Civil Service.