- Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 3 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to amend curriculum guidelines to promote any positive effects of learning in outdoor spaces, in light of the finding in the report, Schools Grounds in Scotland in 2025, that only around one third of secondary schools regard outdoor spaces as either very useful or essential learning resources.
Answer
The Curriculum Improvement Cycle is currently reviewing and strengthening Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence. Guidance, professional learning and resources on a wide range of matters will be considered as part of that process.
Education Scotland hosts and shares a range of guidance Outdoor learning resources | Resources | Education Scotland to support outdoor learning provision through the curriculum. Schools and local authorities can also access the GOING-OUT-THERE-PRINT-V3.pdf guidance and associated interactive toolkits online, which have been key to supporting delivery of safe and legally competent outdoor learning experiences.
- Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 3 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to promote any benefits of outdoor learning and access to high-quality green spaces in schools, in light of the finding in the report, School Grounds in Scotland in 2025, that almost 40% of Scottish schools have fewer than five trees within their boundaries.
Answer
Education Scotland, the national education agency, promotes the benefits of outdoor learning by sharing a range of resources, guidance and case studies via their new Learning for Sustainability webpage and by facilitating peer-to-peer learning through the Learning for Sustainability mentors’ network. The Scottish Government also provides funding to the Scottish Advisory Panel for Outdoor Education to maintain and update its “Going Out There” website which provides a range of toolkits, risk assessment guidance and online learning.
Outdoor learning features strongly in the government’s Learning for Sustainability Action Plan. As part of that plan, a dedicated outdoor learning national working group has been considering further ways to support and promote outdoor learning. The group will provide its final report and recommendations to Ministers later this year.
In relation to access to green spaces in schools, the £2bn Learning Estate Investment Programme (LEIP) is being delivered in partnership with local authorities and will benefit tens of thousands of pupils across Scotland. Through the LEIP, projects are encouraged to maximise the use of the outdoor environment for learning, social activities and recreation.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 1 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what urgent action it is taking to address the governance weaknesses in the NHS in Scotland as identified by Audit Scotland in its recent publication,
NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance.
Answer
The Scottish Government recognises the governance challenges highlighted in Audit Scotland’s NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on Governance report and is committed to a continuous improvement approach to strengthening Board effectiveness, transparency and accountability. This includes for example, a refreshed Model Framework and strengthened national oversight mechanisms.
We are also embedding the principles of the NHS Scotland Service Renewal Framework and the Population Health Framework to support more joined-up, preventative, and locally accountable decision-making. These measures aim to ensure NHS Boards are equipped to lead transformational change and deliver improved outcomes for patients and communities.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 1 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how it will address Audit Scotland’s comment in its recent publication,
NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance, that "NHS boards operate within parameters set by Scottish Government which impacts on how well they can plan and make decisions to deliver the reform needed".
Answer
The Scottish Government acknowledges Audit Scotland’s observation and is committed to ensuring that the governance framework for NHS Boards enables effective planning and delivery of reform. The recently published NHS Scotland Service Renewal Framework and Population Health Framework are key to supporting Boards to take a longer-term, whole-system view, with a greater focus on prevention, place-based care, and service redesign. These frameworks alongside our Operational Improvement Plan and are designed to reduce duplication, support local flexibility and strengthen alignment between national priorities and local delivery.
We continue to work closely with NHS Boards to identify and remove barriers to strategic decision-making that improves outcomes for patients and communities in Scotland.
- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 1 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-33389 by Neil Gray on 24 January 2025, whether it will provide an update on the business case for a new pre-hospital emergency critical care replacement service for the east of Scotland.
Answer
The Scottish Government is awaiting the final business case from the Scottish Ambulance Service.
Once received, it will be reviewed through the relevant governance processes.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 1 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many convictions for group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse there have been since 2010.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold this information.
The Scottish Government publishes data on individuals prosecuted and convicted in Scottish courts in the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland statistical bulletin. Although this data set includes information on individual charges prosecuted (e.g., those under Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 Part 4 Children) it does not allow for group-based charges to be identified.
We have been in touch with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, who confirmed that they are unable to provide this information, as group-based crimes cannot be reliably identified from their data either.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 1 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government which international markets are currently being prioritised by Scottish Development International, and for what reasons.
Answer
Scottish Development International prioritised 26 international markets as set out in our export strategy, A Trading Nation, which is available on the gov.scot website. At the time of publication in 2019, these 26 markets account for 80% of strongest export growth opportunities.
These priority markets were selected using a comprehensive evidenced based approach that reviewed over fifteen years of Scottish export data, alongside fifteen economic and political variables, to better focus Scottish Development International export support to match Scottish exports strengths with international demand.
The Scottish Government recently concluded further work on updating our priority markets. This revised list will ask SDI to transition towards focusing on twenty priority markets and six Special Interest Markets that have near term potential for export growth. The revised list is as follows.
| | | |
| Belgium Denmark France Germany Ireland Italy Netherlands Norway Poland Spain Sweden Switzerland | | |
Special Interest Markets include: Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, and Ukraine.
For opportunities in other markets SDI will leverage the international network of the Department of Business and Trade, and the expertise of our Global Scots, Trade Envoys.
The Scottish Government plan to publish the priority market update, including a methodology note, in due course.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 1 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has made an assessment of what ear, nose and throat (ENT) and hospital audiology waiting times would currently be had a community audiology service been treating the majority of age-related hearing loss patients since 2021.
Answer
The waiting time information available to the Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland (PHS) does not provide details on the reason an individual has been referred into a NHS service, including if the patient is experiencing age-related hearing loss. It is therefore not possible to make an assessment of what the waiting times for ear, nose and throat (ENT) and hospital audiology would be if a community audiology service had been treating the majority of age-related hearing loss patients since 2021.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Friday, 20 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 1 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of how many small and medium-sized businesses have returned to their pre-COVID-19 pandemic profit levels, and how the value of those businesses compares with pre-pandemic levels.
Answer
Data is available on the share of SME employers that report a profit. These estimates, sourced from the Small Business Survey, are shown in Table 1. In 2019, 78% of SME employers in Scotland reported generating a profit, this fell to 70% in 2020, with the latest data for 2023 putting the share back at 78%.
Table 1: Taking into account all sources of income in the last financial year, did you generate a profit or surplus? – SME Employers - Scotland
Business Response | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
Yes | 78% | 70% | 74% | 82% | 78% |
No | 17% | 24% | 21% | 15% | 19% |
Don't know | 4% | 5% | 5% | 3% | 2% |
Refused | 1% | 1% | [low] | 1% | 1% |
Scotland | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
Source: Small Business Survey Scotland
Notes:
1.SMEs are Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, that is businesses with fewer than 250 employees.
2.Some shorthand is used in this table: [low] = values between 0 and 0.5.
3.Totals may not sum due to rounding.
Data is also available on private sector SME turnover. These estimates, sourced from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR), are shown in Table 2. Note that there is an approximate two-year lag associated with the turnover data on the IDBR so, for example, the turnover data extracted from the IDBR in March 2024 is for 2022. The data in Table 2 puts SME turnover at £143.5 billion in 2022, which is 19% above the pre-pandemic level (£120.5 billion in 2019). However, it’s important to note that the turnover values are not adjusted for inflation. In terms of the SME share of private sector turnover; this fell to around 40% in the pandemic but has since returned to around 42% in the latest years for which data are available.
Table 2: SME turnover – Scotland
IDBR
Extract
Date | Approx.
Turnover
Date | SME
Turnover
(£m) | SME share of private sector turnover |
Mar 2019 | 2017 | 116,708 | 41.5% |
Mar 2020 | 2018 | 119,998 | 41.2% |
Mar 2021 | 2019 | 120,515 | 40.3% |
Mar 2022 | 2020 | 110,593 | 40.2% |
Mar 2023 | 2021 | 122,872 | 42.4% |
Mar 2024 | 2022 | 143,491 | 41.7% |
Source: Inter-Departmental Business Register, Businesses in Scotland: 2024 - gov.scot
Notes:
1.Excludes central and local government.
2.SMEs are Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, that is businesses with fewer than 250 employees.
3.Turnover for Financial and Insurance Activities businesses are not available on a comparable basis. Totals exclude turnover of such businesses.
4.Turnover values are in current prices, they are not adjusted for inflation.
- Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 1 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much it (a) has spent to date and (b) is projected to spend in total on implementing the national strategy for 20mph speed limits.
Answer
The Scottish Government allocated £4 million in 2024-25 to support road authorities in the development and implementation of 20 mph speed limits on appropriate roads. A further £7.6 million is available in the current financial year, reflecting the Government’s ongoing commitment to the rollout of 20 mph speed limits on roads where it is appropriate to do so by March 2026.
