Chamber and committees

Through Equally Safe, we are working closely with local government and third sector partners to ensure victims and survivors of domestic abuse are aware of all sources of support. This year we are providing over £7.5m to Women’s Aid groups in Scotland, through our Delivering Equally Safe Fund, that provide vital and sometimes lifesaving support through a range of channels, including online and print materials. In addition to this we are also supporting Scotland's Domestic Abuse & Forced Marriage Helpline with over £550,000 funding to also ensure this information is widely available to those who need it.

The Scottish Government also funds the Scottish Women’s Rights Centre, which provides online guidance on legal and housing options available to women experiencing domestic abuse.

The previous UK Government’s No Recourse to Public Funds policy prevents local and national government in Scotland from being able to provide appropriate, safe housing and accommodation solutions for women who have restricted immigration status. It is not acceptable that people, including women are fleeing domestic abuse, face destitution or are forced to remain in unsafe conditions because of their immigration status. Scottish Ministers raised this issue repeatedly with the previous UK Government and will continue to engage with the new UK Government to urge change to these policy conditions.

The Scottish Government and COSLA continue to work together to deliver the vision and principles of Ending Destitution Together, to improve access to support and services for people who are subject to UK Government immigration policies, as far as is possible within devolved powers. During 2024-25, the Scottish Government provided £440,000 to Fair Way Scotland to enable the increased capacity of case workers across Scotland, supporting those who are risk of, or experiencing homelessness and destitution. This investment will help people exercise their rights to eligible public funds and access emergency cash support.

Our code of guidance on homelessness is designed to give the best possible support to frontline practitioners in their work to prevent homelessness. It sets out the importance of staff training for homelessness officers, particularly in the requirements of the homelessness legislation, the code of guidance, anti-discrimination legislation and the relevant local authority's housing and homelessness policies.

More recently we have supported the development of a housing options training toolkit. The toolkit is a learning and development resource platform for housing officers and frontline staff to aid them in providing housing options advice, including to people experiencing domestic abuse.

Additionally, as part of the homelessness prevention duties within the Housing (Scotland) Bill, we will work with stakeholders and delivery partners to identify the training and guidance required to support relevant bodies to meet their new obligations.

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to introduce a transition course for paramedics unable to find employment with the Scottish Ambulance Service.

The Scottish Government sets policies and frameworks at a national level, and it is the role of Health Boards, as the employers, to recruit graduates through a fair and consistent recruitment practice. When making recruitment decisions, Health Boards have to consider current turnover, retention, absence rates and budgets.

The Scottish Ambulance Service is in the process of recruiting paramedic positions for the remainder of the 2024-25 financial year.

We continue to work with SAS to explore how the role of a paramedic can expand into primary and secondary care further, offering new and different employment opportunities.

The Rural Affordable Homes for Key Workers Fund is a five year demand led fund of up to £25 million from the Affordable Housing Supply Programme budget and is available to local authorities and registered social landlords to purchase existing suitable properties in rural and island areas to provide affordable homes for key workers where there is identified need. The fund will run from 2023-24 to 2027-28. There are no plans for the fund to be made available to landlords in the private rented sector.

Scotland is the only part of the UK that already offers 1140 hours (equivalent to 30 hours per week in term time) of funded ELC to all 3 and 4-year-olds regardless of whether their parents are working or not because we are committed to promoting equality for all Scotland’s children, putting their interests first. We also make 1140 hours available to around a quarter of 2 year olds and to all children whose entry to primary school is deferred.

It is far from clear that a universal system of ‘free’ childcare for everyone would deliver either value for money for the Scottish taxpayer or the best outcomes for our children and young people. Despite the unprecedented financial challenges facing the Scottish Government we have prioritised tackling child poverty and expanding access to funded childcare for those families who stand to benefit most.

That is why over the next two years we are investing £16 million within six early adopter communities to continue our work to understand what it takes to design and deliver local childcare systems that support those families most at risk of living in poverty.

In addition we are also continuing to support the ‘Extra Time’ Programme, investing £4 million in a partnership with the Scottish Football Association to deliver before, after school and breakfast clubs, providing 3,000 targeted free places each week for children and their families.

We have also invested close to £1 million to deliver free or subsidised school age childcare services through our Access to Childcare projects. These projects are also considering specific challenges for families including remote and rural childcare provision, and specialist provision for children with disabilities or complex additional support needs.

We remain committed to expanding funded ELC to reach more younger children and to building a system of School Age Childcare, and we are going as far and as fast as we can to deliver that.

Local authorities have statutory obligations in respect of the delivery of education, which includes ensuring they have a complement of staff to meet local needs.

In Scotland we have the most teachers per pupil and highest paid teachers in the UK. We are once again providing £145.5 million to local authorities for the purpose of protecting teacher numbers. We are also continuing to provide £20,000 bursaries to incentivise career changers to train in the hardest to fill teaching subjects. Since the introduction of the scheme, 659 bursaries have been awarded.

I have also asked the Strategic Board for Teacher Education, which is made up of a range of key education stakeholders, to look at issues around the recruitment and retention of teachers in Scotland in detail, including geographical and subject-specific issues, as well as how we can increase diversity within the profession and improve support for early career teachers.

We have 17,330 pupil support staff in Scotland, the highest level on record and an increase of more than 2,000 since 2020. This is a direct result of our continued annual investment of £15 million to councils.

As set out in our recent Programme for Government, we will provide nearly £2.5 billion in 2024-25, to support public transport, making our transport system available, affordable and accessible for all. We also committed, in the PfG, to work with local authorities to ensure as many children as possible can access their free bus entitlement, cutting travel costs and making sustainable travel a more attractive option.

The safety of all public transport users is crucial, and we are working with industry stakeholders to develop actions to tackle antisocial behaviour on the bus network. This includes a process for temporary suspension or withdrawal of concessionary travel entitlement.

Ministers continue to work closely with ScotRail to develop measures to tackle and prevent antisocial behaviour while maximising the safety of all rail passengers and staff. ScotRail has taken several steps to enhance the visible presence of staff on trains, especially on key routes identified as needing additional support. Initiatives such as the "Safer Shores" campaign demonstrate a collaborative approach, with ScotRail working alongside Local Authorities and British Transport Police to provide extra staff on trains to popular seaside destinations during peak times. ScotRail has invested £1.6 million to triple the number of body-worn cameras for frontline staff. ScotRail have also invested in improved CCTV with intelligent video analytics.

To remove barriers to public transport, we have supported operators to accept contactless payment, with about 98% of buses now enabled. We delivered on our PfG commitment to launch a new Traveline Scotland journey planning website and app on 17 September. This improves the quality and availability of travel data to provide a journey planner that is fit for the future.

Much progress has been made in recent years to improve smart, integrated ticketing and payment on public transport, as detailed in the Smart Integrated Ticketing Delivery Strategy, which was published in August this year. This strategy also outlines a programme of work and strategy for the next 5-10 years, building on this progress and including exploring options for a new national integrated ticketing system, reflecting passenger's desires for integrated contactless and digital ticketing.

We are committed to gathering evidence on maternity care experiences across Scotland and are currently developing the next iteration of the Maternity Care Survey, which was previously run in 2013, 2015 and 2018. Our intention is for the next survey to take place in 2025. The survey will ask about experiences of antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal maternity care, including questions about person-centred care, trust in healthcare providers, and the provision of advice and support. However this survey is not the right vehicle to ask about pregnancy related trauma, which requires sensitive and responsive inquiry.

In line with NICE guidelines, we would expect Health Professionals to offer advice and support to women who have had a traumatic birth and wish to understand and talk about their experience. We are working with NHS Boards to develop specialist Community Perinatal Mental Health services to provide assessment and care for women with moderate to severe mental illness, including psychological impact following the birth of a baby.

Through the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004, NatureScot can enter into Management Agreements to compensate land owners for stopping or not adopting management practices which would damage nature on Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Positive Management Agreements can also be agreed to support specialist management for nature which is not available through agri-environment or forestry support mechanisms. The amounts provided each year since 2020-21 are: