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The Scottish Government acknowledges the challenges teachers face, including in managing excessive workload.

That is why we are working with COSLA and the teaching unions to develop a plan to reduce class contact time for teachers, which is supported by increased funding for councils of £186.5 million to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels.

In addition, we are undertaking a range of additional measures including plans to commission independent work to examine how reducing unnecessary bureaucracy in Scottish education can improve teacher workload, and how greater use of digital technology can be utilised to help free up teachers’ time.

In recent years, we have also allocated more than £2m to specifically support the wellbeing of the education workforce and address a range of support needs, including teacher burnout.

The Scottish Government’s housing emergency action plan published on 2 September sets out a suite of actions to help address the strategic challenges in providing homelessness services identified by the Scottish Housing Regulator. The plan commits to up to £4.9 billion over the next four years for the delivery of affordable and social homes. It ensures that £808 million will be available for affordable homes in Scotland this year, which includes an acquisition fund of £80 million targeted to the local authorities with the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures.

This fund will help to replenish temporary accommodation stock that has been converted to permanent homes. We are also funding a pilot private sector leasing scheme to reduce the use of unsuitable temporary accommodation, which will support local authorities to comply with their statutory homelessness duties.

I met with the Scottish Housing Regulator recently in October and attended their Board meeting on 5 November. We will continue to engage regularly with both local authorities and the Scottish Housing Regulator to support the local authorities most impacted in the challenges they face in providing homelessness services.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the transition to EVs by ensuring that charging infrastructure is comprehensive, convenient, and accessible to all. I understand the importance of enabling those without access to off street parking to charge their vehicles conveniently, safely and cost-effectively.

Under Section 109 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, local authorities have the power to issue permits for the installation of private apparatus, such as EV home charging points, therefore decisions about permitting cross-pavement charging are the responsibility of Scotland’s local authorities.

The Scottish Government is working closely with the Scottish Collaboration of Transport Specialists (SCOTS) – an organisation that helps councils across Scotland work together to improve roads, transport, and travel services - to develop national guidance to support local authorities, to enable cross-pavement charging by addressing the legal, safety, and practical issues associated with the provision of cross-pavement charging. This guidance is currently being finalised by SCOTS and is due to be published at the end of November.

In August I announced the launch of a new Cross-Pavement Charging Grant, offering up to £3,500 to support the purchase and installation of cross-pavement charging solutions for residents without off-street parking. This scheme is administered by the Energy Saving Trust and is supporting the installation of cross-pavement charging in partnership with a number of local authorities with a view to wider rollout following publication of cross-pavement charging guidance currently being finalised by SCOTS.

No further assessment of the cost of illicit drug use has been made by the Scottish Government since this report was published in 2009, nor has comparable research been produced or commissioned. However, the harms of problem drug use are clear and well evidenced, and the human cost remains deeply concerning.

It remains clear that drug deaths in Scotland remain far too high, but we are building a system that is more compassionate, better resourced, and more accountable than what came before. As we approach the end of the National Mission, we remain committed to continuing to combat this challenge. We are working closely with stakeholders, including those with lived and living experience, to develop a future alcohol and drug strategic plan to follow the Mission.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that survivors of domestic abuse receive the support they need. We recognise the vital role that local organisations, such as Inverclyde Women’s Aid, play in delivering frontline services and supporting women and children in their communities.

Through our Delivering Equally Safe fund, we are investing £21.6 million annually to tackle violence against women and girls. This includes a £2.4m uplift for 2025/26, ensuring all fund recipients can continue the vital work they undertake to prevent violence and support survivors. Of this total annual investment, £8.6 million is allocated to Women’s Aid organisations across Scotland with Inverclyde Women’s Aid receiving approximately £219,000 in 2025/26.

In addition, local organisations can access funding through the Victim Surcharge Fund. This fund allows any organisation of any size and in any location in Scotland, that support victims of crime including survivors of domestic abuse, to apply for a share of this Fund, which is financed by penalties imposed on offenders.

We also provide support through the Victim Centred Approach Fund which will deliver over £32 million to 23 organisations between 2025 and 2027, including £12 million for advocacy support for survivors of gender-based violence.

The Circular Economy and Waste Route Map sets out the Scottish Government’s work to promote reuse and recycling initiatives.

Our reuse initiatives include a variety of actions aimed at increasing the uptake of reusable packaging, taking action on single-use cups, supporting the development of construction material reuse hubs and improving reuse services.

In partnership with the other governments in the UK, the Scottish Government recently introduced extended producer responsibility for packaging. The scheme transfers the net cost of providing an efficient and effective service for managing packaging waste from the taxpayer to producers. It is intended to incentivise a move towards more sustainable packaging and drive local authority recycling performance. Packaging that has been reused is also exempt from fees under the scheme to incentivise reuse. The Scottish Government are considering further measures to promote reuse, including the potential for alignment with measures within the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste

Zero Waste Scotland, as part of a consortium funded by the European Circular Construction Finance project, is developing a model for a regional reuse hub for construction materials and a national roll out plan to maximise coverage. The project will also include consideration of the role of these hubs in reprocessing and recertifying products and materials, addressing some of the barriers to availability of materials. The initiative has significant potential to help businesses navigate rising material costs, achieve net zero ambitions and develop more resilient supply chains.

Scottish Government action to improve local recycling is led by the co-design of the new statutory Code of Practice for household recycling. The Scottish Government held co-design events with local government stakeholders in June and July 2025. The findings from these sessions are being used to inform the planning of wider stakeholder engagement with business, the third sector and citizens in the coming months. The new Code of Practice will be completed by the end of 2026, after which it will be made available for public consultation.

We are also making one of the biggest investments in a generation to modernise recycling in Scotland through the Recycling Improvement Fund. A total of
£66.6 million has now been allocated to 27 local authorities for 48 projects to increase the quantity and quality of recycling across Scotland. We are funding a range of improvements, including more frequent recycling collections, the extension of food and garden waste collections, and boosting Scotland’s capacity to recycle problematic materials like plastic films, which must be collected from households and businesses by 31 March 2027. Local authorities in Scotland will also see around £150 million per year in funding to support collection for household packaging waste through extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging.

On 21 October 2025 we published our draft Circular Economy Strategy for consultation. The draft strategy sets out our vision and outcomes to move from a linear “take, make and dispose” economic model to a circular economy where materials and goods are valued and kept in use for as long as possible, including through reuse and recycling. The consultation will close on 13 January 2026.

The Scottish Government recognises that the ongoing cost of living crisis and the impact of inflationary pressures on food and high energy costs are causing difficulties for many individuals and families in Scotland.

Scotland’s classroom teachers are currently the best paid in the UK. The top of the main grade scale for classroom teachers has increased from £37,575 in April 2018 to £50,589 in August 2024.

Between April 2018 and implementation of the previous pay award in August 2024, average teachers’ pay increased by more than 37% in cash terms, and by 7.7% in real terms compared with CPI inflation.

The Scottish Government is committed to eradicating child poverty and provides support which helps children, young people and families to address the cost of the school day, including for school clothing. In 2025-26 the Scottish Government has provided local authorities with £14.2 million in funding to offer school clothing grants to eligible low-income families. Those families will receive at least £120 per child in primary school and £150 for each pupil in secondary school.

We have published national guidance on school uniforms which makes clear that schools are expected to do all that they can to limit school clothing costs for families, aligned to our wider actions to end child poverty. Furthermore, schools should work closely with children and young people and parents and carers when designing or reviewing uniform policies.

The increase in employer’s national insurance contributions is imposing additional costs on businesses and public services in Scotland’s economy. Published Scottish Government analysis shows that for affected businesses, the average increase in NICs per employee is estimated to cost a business £850 and the total cost to a business is around £24,500 on average. These changes will disproportionately impact on businesses in industries such as hospitality or social care, hitting lower paid and part-time staff. This follows on from other UK Government decisions, such as austerity and Brexit, which have contributed to Scottish households now being over £10,000 worse off than other European countries.

Devolved Administrations are required to refer subsidies to the Competition and Markets Authority's Subsidy Advice Unit where any proposed subsidy has a value over £25million cumulative over three financial years. The Scottish Government does not anticipate that the cost of exempting the carriage of Highlands and Islands passengers from Air Departure Tax (ADT) is likely to exceed this cost threshold. However, policy costings for prospective ADT reliefs and exemptions will be kept under review.

The number of homelessness applications from former members of the armed forces, broken down by local authority, is published in Table 2 (T2) of the Veteran homelessness workbook available on the Scottish Government homelessness statistics webpage here:

Homelessness in Scotland: veteran homelessness - gov.scot

Data is not available prior to April 2007 as this is when data collection began.