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The new Code of Practice for Statistics was published on 30 October 2025. The Code states that statistics producers should “make impartial decisions about statistics, under the direction and authority of the Chief Statistician/Head of Profession for Statistics”. This means that statistical decision making should be free from political interference and produced in accordance with the public good to drive trust in statistics.

Statistical decisions, such as publication of workforce absence data, should be made based on the oversight of the wider user needs, the data landscape in the topic area and resources available.

The Scottish Government’s ‘A Fairer Scotland for Older People: framework for action’ contains a dedicated strand focused on activity we are undertaking to ensure people can access public and other services as they age.

We provide funding of £3.2 million over three years, through the Equality and Human Rights Fund, to older people's organisations and age equality projects. This funding is delivering a range of initiatives that tackle inequality, including among older people. A copy of the fund's progress report can be found here Equality & Human Rights Fund Impact Report Final_ Oct 21-Mar25 and provides details on initiatives we are delivering with this funding.

The Scottish Government recognises that an ageing population increases demand for accessible environments and services. Our Disability Equality Plan, supported by a £3 million investment, including a £1.5 million Improving Access Fund aims to improve access for disabled people, including older individuals with mobility or sensory impairments.

We also fund Access Panels across Scotland, which work locally to promote inclusive design and planning. These panels take a pan-disability approach, ensuring older people's needs are considered in accessibility improvements.

The Scottish Government promotes good practice in completing Equality Impact Assessments (EQIAs) by conducting them at the earliest stages of developing new policies or revising existing ones. This includes strategies, legislation, guidance, frameworks, training, funding, reviews, and any other activities that affect different groups of people, particularly those with protected characteristics as defined by the Equality Act 2010. This includes consideration of impact on different age groups.

The Scottish Government has not undertaken a risk assessment or evaluation of the liabilities of pharmacist independent prescribers who do not have read/write access to patient records. However, other organisations make clear the clinical and professional expectations required to support all prescribers, including pharmacist independent prescribers, to work safely and effectively.

All qualified pharmacist independent prescribers must adhere to robust policies, competency frameworks and requirements, as set out by Health Boards, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), the pharmacy regulator, and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), the professional leadership body. For every prescribing consultation, pharmacist independent prescribers must use their professional judgement and take into account the person’s best interests to decide whether they have the information they need to prescribe safely.

The Scottish Government continues to expect NHS Health Boards to work towards achieving the Scottish Stroke Care Standards.

All the standards, and the cohort of patients who will be included in the standards, have been carefully reviewed by the Scottish Stroke Care Audit Steering Group, which represents clinical, management and third sector stakeholders from around Scotland.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with Health Boards and stakeholders to ensure that data is being collected robustly and that patients who could realistically be expected to reach the target are included in the audit. The 100% standard reflects best guideline-based care and should be the goal for all appropriate patients in Scotland.

Information on the Scottish National Audit Programme audit governance process can be found at: Escalation of issues - Our audit governance - Overview of the Scottish National Audit Programme (SNAP) - Scottish National Audit Programme (SNAP) - Health strategy and outcomes - Resources and tools - Public Health Scotland

The Scottish Government does not collect information on the immigration status of those applying to local authorities in Scotland for homelessness support.

The eligibility status for main applicants is collected, although this is not the same as immigration status.

The following table shows how many people associated with homelessness applications in Glasgow were in a temporary accommodation placement at any point between January and March 2025, broken down by eligibility status of main applicant.

Execution of warrants is a matter for Police Scotland, who remain focused on the investigation of crime and keeping our communities safe. The service has been clear that they prioritise all arrest warrants according to threat, risk and harm, deploying national specialist resources and intelligence techniques to locate and apprehend those who pose the greatest risk to communities.

The Scottish Government is investing a record £1.64 billion for policing this year, and our continued investment enabled Police Scotland to take on more recruits in the last financial year than at any time since 2013, including an intake this month. Scotland continues to have more police officers per capita than England and Wales and recorded crime has fallen by more than half since 1991.

The figures recently reported in the media stem from a Freedom of Information request made to Police Scotland and relate to a single day snapshot of the situation as of 3 September 2025.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-41532 on 11 November 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

The Scottish Government firmly opposes the inappropriate use of zero-hours contracts and other non-standard types of employment that offer workers minimal job or financial security. We support the overall ambitions of the UK Government’s Employment Rights Bill and welcome changes being brought forward to strengthen workers’ rights, including the measures providing protections for workers on zero hours or low hours contracts. The gains this legislation will make for workers’ rights must be protected, and that is why we continue to advocate for the devolution of employment powers as the best way to protect workers’ rights in Scotland from any future UK Government actions that might remove these protections.

In the absence of devolved employment powers, Fair Work First criteria in procurement and grants, alongside provision of grant funding to the Real Living Wage accreditation scheme, are the tools we use to raise employment standards in Scotland. Since implementing more stringent grant conditionality from July 2023, requiring payment of at least the Real Living Wage and provision of appropriate channels for effective workers voice, between 1 July 2023 and 31 March 2025 it is estimated that over £6 billion in public sector grants was awarded with Fair Work First criteria attached. The number of accredited Living Wage employers is up from 14 in 2014 to over 3,900 in 2025, with at least 72,000 workers in Scotland getting a pay rise resulting from accreditation.

We expect NHS Health Boards to identify aspects of their stroke services which do not meet the Scottish Standards and to work to improve their standards of care locally.

We know that meeting the Standards is challenging. That is why the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme team, reflecting on the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme 2025 annual national report, continue to work with individual boards and plays an important role in supporting service colleagues to drive forward improvements in stroke care throughout Scotland.

Every Health Board now has an accountable senior individual responsible for standards of stroke care. I chaired a roundtable meeting with these accountable individuals on 6 November to review progress.

We use the annual statistics published by Public Health Scotland for Infant Feeding to evidence our progress towards our stretch aim to reduce drop off in breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks by 10% by 2025. The last published statistics are for 2023-24 and show that drop-off at 6-8 weeks was at 27.3%. The commitment is for a relative drop-off in any breastfeeding, beginning with the baseline position in 2017-18 of 34.5%. We will formally update on our progress after the 2024-25 infant feeding statistics are published in November this year.

We have set out how we intend on delivering against the six strategic goals, over the next five years, in the road map within the Breastfeeding and infant feeding: strategic framework 2025-2030 and we will continue to work with Health Boards and partners to do so. Much of this work is already underway, including our commitment to Unicef UK Babyfriendly Achieving Sustainability across maternity, neonatal and community settings. A delivery plan for 2025-26 was also set out and we will report on progress of that and share our 2026-27 delivery plan by Summer 2026.