Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-37740

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 30 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many individuals assessed as eligible for social care support have not received their full entitlement in each year since 2018, and what proportion of individuals assessed as needing social care support received only a partial care package in each of the last five years, both broken down by NHS board.

Under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships have a duty to assess the social care support needs of people and decide, in light of that assessment, to arrange suitable services, if required.

While the Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care support policy in Scotland, it is for local Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) to ensure that social care support services are in place to provide their population with the appropriate support in the right place and at the right time.

The Scottish Government do not hold information centrally in relation to the level of support packages provided.

Question reference: S6W-37703

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 16 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 30 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide the most recent data on how many (a) full-time equivalent, (b) part-time, (c) casual and (d) other employees it has in each local authority area.

The Scottish government publish official workforce statistics on a quarterly basis. The latest available data, is for December 2024 Scottish Government workforce information - gov.scot.

The following table provides details of the working location of directly employed Scottish Government staff, split by Local authority, Full time/Part time working pattern and Permanent/Temporary status.

Scottish Government - Directly employed workforce headcount, December 2024
	Permanent - Full time	Permanent - Part time	Temporary - Full Time	Temporary - Part Time	Total
Aberdeen City	199	47	1	0	247
Aberdeenshire	62	17	1	0	80
Angus	3	1	0	0	4
Argyll and Bute	32	9	0	0	41
Clackmannanshire	0	0	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	25	5	0	0	30
Dundee City	42	6	0	0	48
East Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	0
East Dunbartonshire	0	0	0	0	0
East Lothian	0	0	0	0	0
East Renfrewshire	0	0	0	0	0
City of Edinburgh	5169	1029	28	3	6229
Falkirk	35	22	0	0	57
Fife	3	1	0	0	4
Glasgow City	1800	272	8	2	2082
Highland	124	36	0	0	160
Inverclyde	0	0	0	0	0
Midlothian	0	0	0	0	0
Moray	11	0	0	0	11
Na h-Eileanan Siar	23	8	0	0	31
North Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	0
North Lanarkshire	0	0	0	0	0
Orkney Islands	15	2	0	0	17
Perth and Kinross	79	29	0	0	108
Renfrewshire	0	0	0	0	0
Scottish Borders	33	12	0	0	45
Shetland Islands	12	3	0	0	15
South Ayrshire	39	9	0	0	48
South Lanarkshire	23	7	0	0	30
Stirling	0	0	0	0	0
West Dunbartonshire	0	0	0	0	0
West Lothian	26	4	0	0	30
Outwith Scotland	29	1	2	0	32
	7784	1520	40	5	9349

Question reference: S6W-37516

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 30 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Goldman Sachs report, Carbonimics: Tariffs, deglobalization and the cost of decarbonization, which reportedly estimates that the cost of certain decarbonisation measures could rise as a result of global trade tariffs, and whether it will assess any potential impact on Scotland.

The Scottish Government recognises the investment and funding challenges associated with the transition to a net zero and climate adapted economy. Meeting the costs will require close working between the public and private sectors domestically, as well as with our trading partners. Delivering our climate and economic growth ambitions will provide opportunities that support jobs, trade, investment, and growth.

The Carbonomics report notes that promoting local manufacturing (deglobalisation and protectionism) can increase costs for certain clean technologies, thus slowing the overall rate of global decarbonisation. There is therefore a trade-off between fostering domestic industries and ensuring affordable clean energy solutions from abroad.

Global challenges require global solutions; it is through cooperation, not isolation, that the world will tackle the climate crisis. Scotland is committed to a rules-based trade agenda and supports open, fair, and transparent trade. Trade should also be a lever to increase progress towards a green economy, including through increasing trade in environmental goods and services.

Question reference: S6W-37511

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 30 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many High Speed Trains are operating on the ScotRail network.

Question reference: S6W-37513

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 30 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has paid the social research agency, The Lines Between, in each year since 2021-22, broken down by project.

Question reference: S6W-37833

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 30 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what productivity measures it will introduce alongside the NHS pay deal.

Question reference: S6W-37832

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 30 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether the NHS pay deal will affect resource allocation to frontline services.

The Scottish Government recognise that workforce and pay costs driven by a period of prolonged high inflation are now contributing to significant budget pressures across health and social care, the wider Scottish Government budget and the whole of the public sector. This Government has been clear that the extent of these challenges will not be addressed in a single year and we will continue to make the tough choices necessary to support sustainable public finances, whilst also seeking to minimise the impact on frontline services as far as possible.

Question reference: S6W-37711

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 30 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the average waiting time has been for social care services in each year since 2018, broken down by NHS board.

The Scottish Government does not hold data which would answer this question.

However, data up to 2022/23 on Social Care eligibility and waiting times is publicly available at Local Authority level via the following weblink:

Social care: eligibility criteria and waiting times Scotland 2022-2023 - gov.scot

Data showing the time waited between referral first contact and completion of a community care assessment service in the final quarter of each financial year can be found in the ‘waiting times new clients’ tab of the Excel workbook which accompanies the publication.

Data showing the time waited between completion of a community care assessment and delivery of a new personal care service in the final quarter of each financial year can be found in the ‘Waiting times new personal care clients’ tab of the Excel workbook which accompanies the publication.

However there are a number of caveats with these data:

The data return template sent to LAs is aggregate, and only grouped time periods are collected. Therefore it is not possible to calculate an average waiting time - only a distribution of time periods is possible.
Many local authorities have reported difficulty in providing the information asked for in this data collection and therefore not all data is available for every year.
Due to the gaps in the Local Authority level data, we cannot effectively aggregate to Health Board. Completeness levels for each LA can be found within the ‘Data completeness’ tab of the Excel workbook which accompanies the publication.

Due to the issues faced in collecting this data from LAs and due to the lack of completeness, this data collection has been paused while we explore alternative methods of obtaining higher quality information on eligibility criteria and the length of time people wait for services. Therefore the most recent data available is for
2022-23.

Question reference: S6W-37737

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 30 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what any shortfall in the social care workforce has been, in terms of hours of unmet care, since 2018, broken down by NHS board.

While the Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care support policy in Scotland, it is for local Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) to ensure that social care support services are in place to provide their population with the appropriate support in the right place and at the right time.

The Scottish Government does not hold information centrally in relation HSCP’s workforce numbers and in turn could not comment on how this impacts unmet need. This information would need to be provided by local areas themselves.

We understand the pressures being faced and addressing long waiting times for social care support is one of the reasons that the 2025-26 Budget prioritised both the Local Government Settlement and the Health & Social Care portfolio with both receiving record funding allocations.

This includes almost £2.2bn for social care and integration – increasing investment by £1.2bn since 2021-22. On top of that, our Budget makes a record £15 billion available for councils for 2025-26.

Question reference: S6W-37739

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 30 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on the number of unmet care hours due to a shortage of carers in each year since 2018, broken down by NHS board.

Health and Social Care Partnerships provide Public Health Scotland with a weekly snapshot of the current demand for Care at Home services. The data includes information on the total number of hours of care that people were waiting to receive, following an assessment of their needs. This information is available via the following weblink: Dashboard - People requiring a social care assessment and care at home services.

Please note that the information does not include the reasons why these hours of care were yet to be provided, nor does the Scottish Government hold information on local social care staffing levels.

Fiscal Year	Spend
2021-22	£121,086.90
2022-23	£399,965.36
2023-24	£477,423.47
2024-25	£549,284.31

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