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The Dynamic Support Register (DSR) provides a mechanism for national data collection on people with learning disabilities and complex care needs. However, data collected through the DSR is not broken down by how many individuals with autism and learning disabilities remain in hospital settings, despite being clinically fit for discharge.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) collect and publish quarterly data, with the most recent collection, from 26 December 2024, published in March 2025. At that time, there were 1,273 people on the DSR, of which there were 84 delayed discharges and 51 inappropriate out-of-area placements.

The full March PHS report is available here:

The next DSR data collection will be published by PHS in June 2025.

Additionally, PHS publish monthly data on delayed discharges here: . This data is broken down to Health Board and Local Authority level.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills has met recently with the Principal of Edinburgh University to discuss its cost-saving programme and potential impact on staff.

Staffing and operational matters are the responsibility of individual universities as autonomous institutions, however the Scottish Government and Scottish Funding Councill will continue to engage closely with the sector and offer appropriate support to universities, including Edinburgh, as they develop their plans to address financial challenges.

Whilst Ministers cannot compel institutions to commit to no compulsory redundancies, the Scottish Government’s expectation is that universities work with staff to make every effort to protect jobs, and for compulsory redundancies to be considered as a last resort, after all other cost saving measures have been fully explored.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water, and the Scottish Government does not hold this information, I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water is investing some £36m every year to reduce leakage and this investment includes active leakage management to find and repair leaks, as well as repairs of visible and reported leakage and capital schemes to reduce leakage. This sum is part of a broader investment of some £110m every year in the operating and capital costs of managing leakage, repairing bursts, and rehabilitating water networks.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of skills provision to realising the potential of Project Willow, and to securing an industrial future for Grangemouth more widely. We are prioritising skills development through the Grangemouth Just Transition Plan which will be published shortly.

This complements the support the Scottish Government is providing to Grangemouth refinery workers to retrain into in-demand industries, including those associated with Project Willow.

Any project developer will have to satisfy environmental and planning regulations throughout the project lifecycle.

Local authorities must use the financial resources available to them as efficiently as possible to ensure the best possible value. How this is done is a matter for each council. Local Authority reserve balances in Scotland remain considerably higher than pre-pandemic levels.

The record funding settlement for Local Government in 2025-26 was the result of early and meaningful engagement between Scottish Government, COSLA and Councils. We remain committed to ensuring the sustainability of local services going forward and budget engagement ahead of the 2026-27 Scottish Budget has already commenced.

Yes, the Scottish Government does agree with this view and we continue to call upon UK Ministers to intervene at Grangemouth as it has done in other parts of the UK.

Singapore’s economic performance has been strong and it is always useful to look at international comparisons and learn from others. The analysis which the Scottish Government published in June 2022 as part of the first Building a New Scotland paper shows that independent, small Northern European countries are better comparators for Scotland. The evidence in our paper suggests that decision-making at Westminster and a UK economy which does not suit Scotland’s distinct circumstances has led to outcomes that fail to match Scotland’s potential.

In 2022, The Scottish Government published it’s National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET). This sets out a ten year transformation with the objective of creating a fair, green and growing economy and establishing Scotland as a world-class entrepreneurial nation and ensuring that its businesses, industries, regions, communities and public services are more innovative and productive than they have ever been. In the three years since NSET was published, we have made significant progress in delivering the strategy with 39% of the original action complete including the publication of the Green Industrial Strategy.

The Green Industrial Strategy (GIS) sets out our strategic approach to green growth, offering a clear view of the economic sectors and industries in which we have greatest strength and most potential. Alongside this, Scotland’s National Innovation Strategy identifies the sectors that drive economic growth, and the underlying actions required to deliver that growth.

The Scottish Government is committed to working across the economy to maximise the opportunities for economic growth in Scotland. Scotland’s economy is one of the best performing in the United Kingdom with GDP per person growing 10.3% since 2007 compared to 6.1% in the UK. Productivity has also grown at an average rate of 1.1% per year compared the UK average of 0.4%.

Our National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET) sets out an ambition that Scotland's economy will significantly outperform the last decade, both in terms of economic performance and tackling structural economic inequalities. The recently published Programme for Government lays out the action which we will take over the remainder of this parliamentary term to boost productivity and grow Scotland’s economy. Scotland’s National Innovation Strategy and Green Industrial Strategy identify the sectors that drive economic growth, and the underlying actions required to deliver that growth.

In response to the Independent Skill Delivery (“Withers”) Review and Purpose and Principles, we have committed to take responsibility for skills planning at the national level, while strengthening regional approaches so that we invest in workers and attract talent to address critical skills gaps in the economy.

We are implementing a co-ordinated programme of activity to attract capital investment to the priority areas of net zero, housing, and infrastructure and we will launch ‘Invest Scotland’, a new portal for investors to profile strategic investment opportunities and build on our new National Project Pipeline of strategic investment opportunities.

The successful New Deal for Business programme helped develop a clearer understanding across portfolios, of the need to consider the individual and cumulative impacts of government activity on business and economic growth and committed in the Programme for Government to create better certainty and stability to make it easier to invest and do business in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is continuing to take action to reduce inappropriate out-of-area placements and delayed discharges experienced by people with learning disabilities and complex care needs through our .

New Dynamic Support Registers (DSR) were introduced in May 2023 to help with local planning, building on our £1 million investment into Health and Social Care Partnerships through the Community Living Change Fund. It was encouraging to see an 18% reduction in numbers of people reported as being on the DSRs in the most recent quarter, but more needs to be done.

Our ongoing work combines a national focus with strong local leadership. A Peer Support Network has been established and has met a number of times. The Scottish Government and CoSLA co-chaired a Coming Home stocktake event on 12 May 2025, which was attended by system leaders from across health and social care. We are working with CoSLA, including via the co-chaired Collaborative Response and Assurance Group (CRAG), to collectively agree actions from this event and progress the Coming Home vision.

We have also consulted on how the proposed Learning Disability, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill can strengthen our work on the Coming Home programme, in particular the recommendation to establish a National Support Panel and whether there are opportunities to strengthen Dynamic Support Registers in the future.