- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 22 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Ivan McKee on 30 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to review national guidance to ensure that any local authority contract enforcement failures do not undermine public trust or distort competition in public procurement.
Answer
Public bodies, including local authorities, are expected to comply with all relevant procurement legislative requirements. Public bodies are responsible for deciding their actions in individual cases.
In addition to following organisation-specific guidance, the Scottish Procurement Policy Handbook provides guidance on the rules and policies that apply to the procurement activities of public bodies in Scotland. Additional and more specific guidance and e-learning is available to public bodies in various forms such as via the Procurement Journey website, Sustainable Procurement Tools and various Scottish Procurement Policy Notes.
The Scottish Government reviews its guidance on an ongoing basis to ensure necessary and helpful updates are made as appropriate.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 22 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Ivan McKee on 30 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on conducting an independent review of local authority contract enforcement practice to best ensure transparency, fairness and compliance with procurement law.
Answer
Local authorities are autonomous corporate bodies, accountable to their electorates, and are responsible for managing their own procurement processes in line with statutory duties and national procurement legislation.
The Scottish Government does not independently review local authorities. The Accounts Commission and Audit Scotland provide independent scrutiny of local government performance. These bodies can consider concerns raised by the public or elected members and use this information to inform their audit work. Parties which have suffered, or risk suffering, loss as a result of an alleged failure to comply with the procurement legislation also have the option of bringing action under that legislation in the courts.
There are a variety of targeted capability and improvement programmes at national and sectoral level to review, support and underpin local performance against agreed national standards and policy aspirations, helping to strengthen the systems, skills and processes that support audit and governance.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 22 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Ivan McKee on 30 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, what discussions it has had with the City of Edinburgh Council regarding the handling of Contract CT2978, which has been referred to Audit Scotland and relates to the provision of services for the Edinburgh Winter Festivals, and whether these discussions included the reported failure, without elected member approval or any clear delegated authority, to (a) apply mandatory temporary traffic regulation order parking compensation charges and (b) enforce Clause 37 of the contract, following the reported non-payment by the contractor by the specified deadline.
Answer
Local authorities are autonomous corporate bodies, accountable to their electorates, and they are responsible for managing their own procurement processes in line with statutory duties and national procurement regulations. As such, I am not aware of any such discussions.
The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 provide for parties which have suffered, or risk suffering, loss as a result of an alleged failure to comply with any duty in those regulations to bring action under that legislation in the courts.
The Scottish Government is not responsible for ensuring local authorities’ compliance with legal obligations.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 22 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Ivan McKee on 30 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what safeguards there are to ensure that local authority officers do not exercise their delegated powers to waive contract terms or financial obligations without democratic oversight.
Answer
Local authorities are entirely separate entities from the Scottish Government and it is the responsibility of each local authority to manage its day-to-day business, including meeting statutory obligations in relation to procurement processes.
The rules public bodies, including local authorities, must comply with in relation to procurement in Scotland are set out in the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, the Procurement (Scotland) Regulations 2016, the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, the Utilities Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2016 and the Concession Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2016. Parties which have suffered, or risk suffering, loss as a result of an alleged failure to comply with the procurement legislation may bring action under that legislation in the courts.
- Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 30 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the commitment in its fiscal sustainability delivery plan to “simplify the education and skills public body landscape”, which public bodies will be (a) merged and (b) closed; what the timeline is for this, and what financial savings will be made.
Answer
The Post-School Education and Skills Reform Programme includes work to simplify the funding body landscape. Subject to approval by the Scottish Parliament, the Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill allows responsibility for securing and funding all apprenticeships to be consolidated at the Scottish Funding Council. Responsibility for funding further education student support is moving from the Scottish Funding Council to the Student Awards Agency Scotland administratively. These changes simplify roles and responsibilities, but nobody is being merged or closed. These changes will happen over financial year 2026-27.
The Scottish Government responded to the Stage 1 Report on the Bill, from the Education, Children and Young People Committee, on 19 September 2025. This included an update on the costs and savings for the Bill in Annex A of the Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill - response to Stage 1 Report. Minister for Higher and Further Education; and Minister for Veterans
Furthermore, the Education Reform programme is making good progress in improving the landscape of national education bodies. The passing of the Education (Scotland) Act 2025 provides a platform for the establishment of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) and for Qualifications Scotland to replace the Scottish Qualifications Authority. The programme is ensuring that these are both more focused on their role in improvement for learners and able to function as efficiently as possible. This has included, for example, models which support increased use of shared services. Alongside this we are also working to ensure that a refocused Education Scotland is streamlined and focussed on curriculum improvement.
- Asked by: Beatrice Wishart, MSP for Shetland Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 30 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the paper, An approach to using stranding data to monitor cetacean population trends and guide conservation strategies, published in Scientific Reports on 20 August 2025, which identified an increase in marine mammal strandings in Scotland, and what assessment it has made of these results in relation to industrial activity in the seas around Scotland.
Answer
The Scottish Government is aware of the recently published paper which investigates patterns and trends in cetacean strandings across Scotland since 1992.
While the paper reports increasing strandings rates across species groups, it also acknowledges that strandings do not always represent an increase in mortality in a population; they can also reflect either an increase in abundance, or periodic movements of individuals into an area. Furthermore, the detection of stranding events has also improved over time with increased awareness, volunteer coverage, social media and cultural engagement with cetacean conservation.
Any applications for development in Scotland’s seas involves careful consideration of the project’s potential environmental impact, including on European Protected Species.
The Scottish Government will more fully consider the findings of the report.
- Asked by: Beatrice Wishart, MSP for Shetland Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 30 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many thefts of global positioning system (GPS) units from farm machinery have been recorded in each of the last five years, broken down by the estimated total value of these units, and how many subsequent (a) prosecutions and (b) convictions there have been.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold information specifically on the number of recorded thefts of global positioning system (GPS) units from farm machinery or any subsequent prosecutions or convictions for this type of theft.
Accredited Official Statistics are published by Scottish Government on recorded crime and criminal proceedings (see links below). However, it is not possible to break these statistics down by type of motor vehicle, which items were stolen or the value of these items. It should also be noted that the type of crime recorded for thefts of global positioning system (GPS) units from farm machinery will vary depending on the circumstances in which the crime occurred.
Latest statistics on the recorded number of thefts are published in Table 1 in the Recorded Crime in Scotland, year ending June 2025 publication.
Latest statistics on the number of people proceeded against and convicted for the crimes of theft are published in Tables 4a and 4b the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland 2022-23 publication.
It should also be noted that these two sets of statistics are based on separate and distinct data sets. They count different things (crimes versus people) at different times (date a crime was recorded versus date a case concludes in court) in fundamentally different ways and cannot be linked.
- Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 29 September 2025
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 30 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the report from the Scottish Funding Council stating that universities and colleges are in unsustainable financial situations, with some at risk of insolvency in the current financial year.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 30 September 2025
- Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 29 September 2025
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 30 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has issued an extreme wildfire warning for the first time in September since 2020.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 30 September 2025
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 29 September 2025
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 30 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason patients across Scotland will reportedly not be able to fully access the new MyCare NHS app until 2030.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 30 September 2025
