Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government is committed to establishing Scotland as a leading start-up nation that fosters innovation, creates jobs, and accelerates economic growth.

Scotland’s National Innovation Strategy noted the importance of investing in innovation and since its publication in 2023, the Scottish Government has delivered the following as part of its investment in innovation:

• Invested almost £3 million in a Proof of Concept Fund to support university researchers to develop their innovative ideas and technologies and bridge the gap between groundbreaking research and commercial applications.
• Continued to invest in the Techscaler programme which now in its third year has supported member companies to collectively raise over £195 million to date - demonstrating Scotland’s growing reputation as a leading tech hub.
• Since 2023, the Ecosystem Fund has invested £2.4 million across 70 projects that strengthen the infrastructure supporting innovators and entrepreneurs to commercialise their ideas and access the resources, knowledge and capital needed to bring innovations to market.

The Scottish Government has also provided £5 million to support accelerated growth of Scotland’s innovation clusters and launched our AI Scotland programme, including a pilot scheme for SMEs that positions Scotland as a creator and supplier of AI technologies.

In line with their scaling innovation mission Scottish Enterprise(SE) has also supported industries where Scotland has global strengths to convert and scale innovation into growth. During 2024 – 2025 SE invested £43m into approximately 100 innovative, high-growth potential, early-stage companies leveraging £111m of external investment. Additionally, SE has supported 66 companies to raise
£132 million in growth funding, supported 46 innovative spinout projects, including the creation of three new spinouts, and backed ten female academic founders through market explorer programmes.

I am disappointed that, based on latest estimates, we have not met our target to reduce food waste by 33% by 2025. The reasons behind this are complex, and partly reflect changed consumer behaviour since the pandemic. Scotland is not alone in facing this challenge and higher food waste levels have been observed across the UK.

However, I am taking action to reset the Government’s approach and the Circular Economy and Waste Route Map sets out how we will deliver more targeted action to support householders and businesses.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6O-02777 on 23 November 2023 on advising that in 2023 the Scottish Government discussed school provision in the Dargavel and Bishopton areas with Renfrewshire Council. While the Scottish Government has since sought updates, it has had no role in developing the Park Mains High School expansion planning application (25/0510/PP), submitted to Renfrewshire Council on 30th June 2025. It is the statutory responsibility of local authorities to manage their school estates. Answer to oral questions can be found: Meeting of the Parliament: 23/11/2023 | Scottish Parliament Website

Primary responsibility for determining planning applications and local planning matters lies with the local planning authority in the first instance. All planning applications must be determined in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. As this is a live planning case it would be not be appropriate to comment on the merits or handling of the case.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-41180 on 28 October 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’s Fair Work Action Plan includes a commitment to working with employers, workers and trade unions to strengthen effective voice, through a range of appropriate channels. Worker representation on company boards could be a potential channel for effective voice, noting that the forms of worker representation will vary across sectors and organisations.

While employment and industrial relations legislation continue to be reserved, the Scottish Government cannot mandate employers to provide effective voice channels for workers however recipients of public sector grants awarded on or after 1 July 2023 are now subject to Fair Work First conditionality. This requires them to pay at least the real Living Wage to their workers and provide appropriate channels for effective workers’ voice.

Local authorities receive money through the general revenue grant, and it is the responsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financial resources available, including on support for bus services, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled its statutory obligations. In 2025-26 the Scottish Government provided record funding of over £15.1 billion to local authorities, a real terms increase of 5.5%.

The Scottish Government continues to provide financial support for bus services, including subsidised bus services, with £49.5m allocated in 2025-26 for the Network Support Grant.

The Scottish Government delivered all the powers within the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, which enables each local transport authority to determine the options that are available to them to improve bus provision in their area.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

There has never been a provision in law for supervised working while organisations were waiting to obtain a Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme record. Until 1 April 2025, the PVG scheme was not a legal requirement therefore organisations could choose to have people in regulated work without seeing PVG scheme membership.

In forecasting volumes resultant from the legal requirement to be in the PVG scheme if carrying out a regulated role, Disclosure Scotland expected 50,000 additional applications against normal levels and diverted 10 full-time equivalent staff from other areas of the business to help manage delivering disclosure processing and support services. Planning included that, from 1 April onwards, application volumes and resources were monitored daily through checkpoint meetings to enable timely decision-making.

Within normal resource, Disclosure Scotland has historically exceeded its Service Level Agreement (SLA) of 90% of applications processed within 14 days. In 2023-24, 95.3% of applications were completed within 14 days and in 2024-25, 97.7% within 14 days.

Disclosure Scotland is currently performing within its SLA to process 90% of applications within 14 days.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving perinatal and infant mental health services across Scotland. Anyone with more complex grief where engagement with specialist mental health services would be particularly beneficial should be able to access support through Maternity and Neonatal Psychological Intervention (MNPI) services, as part of their maternity and neonatal care.

Since 2019, our continued investment has resulted in a substantial increase in MNPI services across Scotland. All NHS Boards now provide these services either from a dedicated local team or, for very small Board areas, via pathways to MNPI care in larger Boards that host the maternity hospitals where the patient is receiving inpatient care.

To support greater funding stability, since 2025-26, funding is now included in the recurring baselined funds made available to NHS Boards to use flexibly to deliver the outcomes in the Enhanced Mental Health Outcomes Framework, which includes outcomes related to improving Perinatal and Infant Mental Health services.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40861 on 28 October 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.