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The development of the National Treatment Centre programme is currently paused, therefore there are no revised costs for the five projects. As part of our Scottish Spending Review, the Scottish Government are undertaking a full review of our capital spending to prioritise the available funding towards projects that drive progress against our priorities.

We will provide clarity over which projects and programmes will receive funding in the medium term when we publish our new Infrastructure Pipeline, alongside the 2026-27 Budget and Scottish Spending Review.

Telecommunications policy, which includes mobile connectivity, is currently reserved to the UK Government. Whilst the Scottish Government has not conducted any analysis on the economic impacts of poor mobile connectivity, we do recognise the social and economic importance of high-quality and reliable mobile services, particularly for our rural and island areas. Through our Scottish 4G Infill (S4GI) programme, we have invested £28.75 million to deliver and activate 55 mobile masts in areas that previously had no coverage.

Social Security Scotland does not currently publish statistics on the number of people who receive more than one benefit from Social Security Scotland. Social Security Scotland recently published and in 2024-25, Social Security Scotland paid 962,525 individual clients (excluding clients in receipt of Carer’s Allowance Supplement).

The Scottish Government does not collect data on the scale of organised child sexual exploitation. External agencies such as Police Scotland, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and local authorities collect and record concerns and/or offences related to child sexual abuse and exploitation tailored to their statutory and operational responsibilities.

Ensuring accountability and value for money is a key priority for the Scottish Government and Scottish Development International (SDI).

To support this, several oversight mechanisms are in place for export and investment support policies, with all programmes designed to support the Scottish Government’s growth strategies, i.e. our Inward Investment Plan and A Trading Nation. These include:

1.Regular Performance Reporting: Mutually agreed bimonthly and quarterly reporting tracking both quantitative and qualitative metrics e.g. number of businesses supported, markets accessed, and the forecasted return on investment of these. As part of this there are project management reviews and programme boards at both operational and strategic levels.

2.Independent Evaluation: Partner and delivery agencies, including SDI’s performance were assessed through external independent evaluations of both Trade and Inward Investment, which was published in 2023.

3.Transparent Reporting: Annual results, research and insight reports, including case studies, are published on Scottish Enterprises website.

The Scottish Government will continue to actively evaluate its trade and investment support programmes through structured internal assessments and independent evaluations to ensure that our package of support remains effective, impactful, meets business need and provides value for money. Updated evaluations have already been commissioned for both inward and export support/promotion and are expected to be completed this financial year.

Scottish Development International (SDI) is the international arm of Scottish Enterprise (SE). The SDI teams in overseas offices are made up of staff employed by FCDO on behalf of Scottish Enterprise. The breakdown by location of these FCDO employed staff is included in the following table. There are also Scotland and London based staff working in the international arm of SE. SE's international teams based in Scotland currently employ 150 staff; and 8 in London.

According to the Employee-Owned Business Census Scotland 2024, undertaken by Co-operative Development Scotland, there were a total of 286 employee-owned businesses operating in Scotland as of 31 March 2024. This represents a 47% increase since 2022. A new Economic Democracy Group has formed to drive growth in social enterprises, co-operative business and employee owned firms. The Group held its first meeting in April and will take stock of the journey to the 2030 target, examining what action may be required.

In 2023-24 the vast majority (95.8%) of young people who left school at S4 achieved qualifications or units under the All SCQF measure. Less than 43.0% of S4 leavers left school without obtaining at least one qualification at SCQF Level 5 or above. However, many of these young people did leave with qualifications. Of the 3,476 S4 school leavers in 2023-24 without an SCQF Level 5 or above, 2,828 left with a qualification at SCQF Level 3 or 4 (81.4%), 48 left with other qualifications or units, 262 left with units only and 338 left with no qualifications or units (9.7%).

It is important to recognise that many of these young people will have gone on to apprenticeships, to study at college or otherwise remain in education or training, reflecting the strengths of our approach, in creating and supporting a range of pathways and qualifications for young people in Scotland. This is reflected in the statistical evidence which shows consistently high initial and follow-up positive destinations for young people leaving school. For example, the Follow-up Destination Statistics published on the 17th June show that 93.1% of school leavers were in a positive destination. This is the second highest figure since 2009/10.

The Scottish Government has not issued any direct grants to Alexander Dennis since 2010. Grants issued to Alexander Dennis Ltd by Scottish Enterprise are an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise, who will be able to provide further information upon request.

We have no plans to change tax policy in Scotland to finance a Minimum Income Guarantee. As part of Scotland's Tax Strategy, the Scottish Government has committed to exploring the reforms needed to continue to deliver sustainable and growing tax revenues in the future.