Seòmar agus comataidhean

Growing our economy is one of this Government’s top priorities. Scotland’s regional economies, and Regional Economic Partnerships (REPs), are key to delivering this, and we are committed to enabling effective regional decision-making.

The Scottish Police Authority (SPA) was created via the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 and is the primary governance body for policing in Scotland, holding the Chief Constable to account and to promote, support and oversee improvement in policing.

There are no plans to replace the SPA with another means to scrutinise policing in Scotland. In a report published last year, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Policing Scotland (HMICS) acknowledged considerable improvements in the governance of SPA and highlighted its effectiveness.

The 2012 Act has also improved local governance, ensuring each local authority can put in place a system which best meets their needs, requiring Police Scotland to involve individual local authorities in setting of priorities and objectives for the policing of its area, and take into account feedback received.

I fully acknowledge the work of the Scottish Retail Consortium in supporting its members when such businesses and their staff are victims of retail crime. The Scottish Government recognises the distress this kind of crime can cause and has made an additional £3 million available this year to help tackle it, as part of a record £1.64 billion investment in policing.

The COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on achieving the actions and outcomes set out in the 2019 Restorative Justice Action Plan. Many of the people involved – including stakeholders, support organisations (e.g. Victim Support Scotland, Scottish Women’s Aid, etc), partners within local government, and officials had to pivot and focus on emerging and critical issues. The same people were also involved in supporting the justice system to recover once restrictions started to relax.

However, with the hard work and support of stakeholders and partners involved, progress was made on developing and testing restorative justice services, despite the restrictions and challenges. Details on this are provided in the answer to S6W-40887 on 17 October 2025.

More information is available in the quarterly and annual report published by Community Justice Scotland and the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice.

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.

The Scottish Government’s Ready.scot website provides information on how the public can prepare their home, their family and their businesses for emergencies. It includes established advice on how to build a small emergency kit and keep it in a safe place. These proactive measures help support readiness for a broad range of emergency scenarios, and elected members of the Scottish Parliament can play an important role in raising the profile of this advice. The Scottish Government also works closely with UK Government colleagues and other devolved administrations to support the provision of relevant public information and advice on reserved matters in Scotland.

The Scottish Government remains committed to the vision of having restorative justice (RJ) available across Scotland to all those who wish to access it, and at a time that is appropriate to the people and case involved.

Test cases have been funded over the last 18 months. The findings from these cases will add to the option appraisal work already carried out and will be used to inform next steps and priorities.

The Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice is organising a restorative Justice workshop in November 2025, with a focus on the use of RJ that involves children and young people. Key stakeholders are invited, and the outputs from this workshop will also be used to identify priorities and next steps in developing the vision for RJ in Scotland.

Community Justice Scotland and the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice have set up and chair the Restorative Justice Development Forum, which meets bi-monthly. The first meeting of this forum took place on 6 May 2025. The remit of this forum is the exchange of knowledge practice regarding the development of RJ for those in a leadership role from both statutory and voluntary sectors across Scotland in their local areas.

I refer the member to the information about Outcome 3 of the Action plan provided in the answer to S6W-40887 on 17 October 2025 which sets out the progress.

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.

Restorative Justice Expenditure

The Scottish Government is not aware of any NHS Scotland Health Board that is unable to link outpatient and inpatient data in order to provide a complete record of patient pathways from referral to treatment.

I refer the member to the answers for questions S6W-40963 and S6W-40964 on 17 October 2025.

The Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 legislates that an eligible patient is to start to receive agreed inpatient or day case treatment within a 12-week Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG). This guarantee is based on completed waits where a patient is removed from the list after being admitted for treatment and does not include periods of waiting pre-decision to treat. Health Boards must take all reasonable steps to ensure they comply with this standard.

To support the above guarantee, 95% of new outpatients should wait no longer than 12 weeks from referral to being seen at a consultant-led clinic. This includes all referral sources.

We have seen progress in inpatient and day-case admissions, with 57% taking place within 12 weeks, up from the previous quarter, while a third of those still waiting had done so for less than 12 weeks. We expect NHS Boards to focus on these individual targets for each part of the patient journey, and we have routinely performance managed Boards on this basis since the implementation of the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011.

In addition, the Scottish Government’s NHS Scotland Waiting Times Guidance was updated in November 2023 to provide guidance for Health Boards to assist them in the delivery of the national waiting times standards. This guidance replaces the previous 2012 publication and continues to ensure that patients who are waiting for an appointment, diagnostic test or treatment are managed fairly and consistently across NHS Scotland. The changes made align to our commitment to deliver sustained improvements and reductions to waiting times through service redesign, as well as enhanced regional and national working across NHS Scotland.

Finally, our Budget is providing more than £110 million to Health Boards this year to support reductions to the longest waits for appointments and procedures.

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.