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The local authorities who received support to clear their known school meal debt to 31 March 2024 have now reported on the funding they received. While this report will be published in due course, it is clear that local authorities collect data in different ways and therefore it is not possible to differentiate between the number of children and families funding has helped. However, from reports we believe that in excess of 70,000 instances of support were provided to children and families by this fund.

The former Minister for Housing, Paul McLennan MSP, met with representatives from Scottish Veterans Residences on 28 February 2024. This was immediately followed by a meeting with the Veterans Scotland Housing Group. These meetings focused on veterans and housing-related issues, including homelessness.

At these meetings, the former Minister for Housing confirmed that he had written to housing providers to highlight the relevant recommendations from the veterans homelessness prevention pathway.

I am due to meet with the Scottish Veterans Commissioner soon to discuss veterans and housing.

We are currently assessing the outcomes of the cladding remediation information and assurance exercises, as described in the Next Phase Plan of Action, and will be sharing this with Parliament shortly.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-39185 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 www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/questions-and-answers.

We know that there is a gap in protection for seasonal workers and it is something we are very keen to address as urgently as we can.

As I stated during the Housing Bill debate, I do not think that it is appropriate to require ministers to make byelaws and therefore don’t feel that we should be considering reviewing section 315 of the Housing (Scotland) Act.

Instead, the Scottish Government will look to introduce a set of bespoke statutory accommodation standards, for all seasonal workers, and all routes will be considered for what will be the best path to take when introducing these standards.

No civil servants are employed by Scotland’s Migration Service. Officials from the Population and Migration Unit oversee the delivery of Scotland’s Migration Service.

There is no business requirement for officials to record the time spent on specific tasks or their work more generally. These are completed as part of normal duties, along with other tasks appropriate to roles as civil servants.

Information relating to the number of buildings which have undergone a Single Building Assessment is published on the Scottish Government’s website as Official Statistics in development on a monthly and quarterly basis.

The priority group applicants who were successful were those who provided a combination of accurate information in their application, sufficient detail of their planned investment and their planned investment demonstrated strong alignment with the scheme objectives.

Although eligible applications from priority groups were given an uplift as part of the scoring criteria, priority status alone did not guarantee funding. Funding was awarded only where applications met all verification checks and the planned capital investment would deliver strongly against the schemes objectives, which is why only a proportion of priority applicants ultimately received support.

Skills Development Scotland publish annual Regional Skills Assessments (RSAs), which provide detailed information on regional labour markets. The latest RSA for the South of Scotland region was published in October 2025.

Through delivery of our Addressing Depopulation Action Plan, £30,000 was provided to Dumfries & Galloway Council with £30,000 in 2024-25 to undertake research into the local drivers of depopulation. The local authority has also received a total of £120,000 across 2024-25 and 2025-26 to scope and deliver locally-led depopulation interventions, including increasing local economic opportunities as a key priority.

We continue to engage closely with local authorities through the jointly chaired SG/COSLA Population Roundtable and our Population Programme Board includes representation from both COSLA and South of Scotland Enterprise, to ensure we are collaboratively addressing local depopulation trends.