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The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that finances remain on a sustainable trajectory and that we continue to reach a balanced position each year. The upcoming Medium Term Financial Strategy and Fiscal Sustainability Delivery Plans will set out how we will progress work to achieve our financial aims over the next five years.

While the Scottish Government ensure devolved benefits are adequately and sustainably financed to provide meaningful support, we are deeply concerned about the cuts to sickness and disability benefits announced by the Labour Government. These changes will push 250,000 people, including 50,000 children into poverty by 2029-30, and will reduce the funding Scotland receives for devolved disability benefits.

Work by the Fraser of Allander Institute in 2023 estimated that in 2021 Scotland’s renewable energy industry and supply chain supported over 42,000 full time equivalent (FTE) jobs across the Scottish economy.

Of these, around 16,800 FTE jobs were associated with the supply chains of renewable energy companies.

Staging prostate cancer is often complex and whilst data published by Prostate Cancer UK in 2023 shows apparent variation across the UK nations. Comparison to other nations should be approached with caution due to differences in staging data collection methodology and definitions.

Survival rates, the most crucial measure for any patient, can however be robustly compared and Scotland’s five-year survival rate for prostate cancer is 85.7%, similar to that of the other UK nations.

Assaults committed against anyone including retail workers are unacceptable and law enforcement has a range of powers available in dealing with such behaviour.

Criminal Proceedings in Scotland statistics define a conviction rate as the proportion of people prosecuted in court that are subsequently convicted and are recorded in the financial year in which the case concluded in court. Where the main charge (the most serious offence) was under section 1 of the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-Restricted Products) (Scotland) Act 2021, the latest official data relates to the period 2022-23 and this showed a conviction rate of 95%, with 163 convictions out of 172 prosecuted persons.

More generally, the number of charges reported to Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service of offences under the 2021 Act in the period since it was introduced in August 2021 is 6,577. This is for the period up to March 2025. Please note it takes time for criminal cases to flow through the justice system from being recorded by the police through to reporting to prosecutors, decisions being made whether there is sufficient evidence to prosecute and a prosecution proceeding through to conviction and sentence. In addition, a single case may include multiple charges and in general counts of charges, cases and people are distinct and provide different perspectives on the justice system. As such, care must be taken in use of data which seeks to assess the rate at which reports made and recorded by the police lead to prosecution and conviction.

The next set of criminal proceedings data for the period 2023-24 is currently being processed and will be available later in the year. This will contain conviction rates for 2023-24, including the second full year under the 2021 Act.

Our programme of Public Service Reform is addressing all opportunities to remove duplication from the public sector landscape, including consolidation of public bodies where appropriate and where a value for money case can be made. This work is part of our wider focus on driving a culture of continuous improvement to support efficiency and effectiveness across the delivery of public services.

The Public Service Reform Strategy document is due to be published at the end of May.

Within Health and Social Care, delivery of efficiency savings has been a key focus for the Portfolio, reflecting the commitment to optimising use of core resources, ensuring that best practice is identified and implemented across NHS Scotland and delivering best value. Our Service Renewal Framework due to publish in the summer will explore opportunities to redesign the delivery of corporate functions as an integral element of the investment in new business systems including exploring using digital enablement to manage demand and improve access to services.

The Scottish Government estate is under review to allow us to plan for affordable, inclusive, accessible, modern, secure, energy efficient buildings of the right size to meet our changing needs and net zero ambitions, as well as to ensure best value for taxpayers’ money.

The Scottish Government is aware of concerns that have been raised on this important matter. We ran a consultation between December 2024 and February 2025, to seek views on how best to further regulate non-surgical cosmetics procedures. Over 2200 responses were received which the Scottish Government is carefully analysing.

We have also already engaged with, and will continue to engage with, a range of stakeholders including healthcare professionals as we consider the evidence gathered to date.

Our proposals aim to be both robust and proportionate, protecting the public and our precious NHS whilst supporting reputable business to operate safely.

We will publish the analysis and announce next steps which I have committed to doing before the Scottish Parliament’s summer recess in late June.

The Scottish Government established a small team of civil servants in the months following the publication of the 2019 Programme for Government until 18 March 2020 which had work to update Scotland’s Future as part of its remit. We cannot provide you with a specific figure on the costs of that work as a full financial year was not completed.

The staffing costs of the Constitutional Futures Division (CFD), for the years that a full financial period was completed, have previously been published in response to an FOI request and in response to question S6W-22623:

2022/23 - Written question and answer: S6W-22623 | Scottish Parliament Website

2023/24 - Various questions relating to Independence: FOI release - gov.scot

The CFD disbanded on 17th January 2025 and therefore, as advised above, we are unable to provide details of staffing costs as a full financial year was not completed.

The table below show the occupancy levels at Scottish Government (SG) core office buildings for which there is an available data set. The average daily desk occupancy rate has been calculated by dividing the number of unique building pass users recorded over a 24 hour sample period by the number of available desks. A sample is taken on one day of each week and totalled together with the other sample days in the year then divided by how many weeks occurred.

No. This information is not proactively published. Information on running costs for Scottish Government buildings has been previously provided, under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.