Questions and answers

Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for ��˿�� to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-38247

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 18 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what recorded data it holds on the number of youth centres operating in Scotland, and whether this includes annual figures over the past five years, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-38241

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 18 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has undertaken of the impact of public funding levels on the long-term viability of (a) private and (b) third sector early years settings.

Question reference: S6W-38245

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 18 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it holds any national benchmarking or audit data regarding the accessibility and quality of youth centres.

Question reference: S6O-04770

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recent EY assessment of the Scottish economy.

Question reference: S6W-37806

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 4 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many early learning and childcare settings have failed to meet Care Inspectorate standards between 2015 and 2024.

The Care Inspectorate is the independent scrutiny body and regulator for care services in Scotland. It looks at the quality of care in Scotland (including in Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) settings) to ensure it meets high standards and to promote the safety, protection and wellbeing of all service users including children in ELC settings.

The Care Inspectorate publishes an annual report with their national findings on the availability and quality of registered daycare of children and childminding services for children and families across Scotland. The most recent report was published on 24 September 2024: .

Figure 10 in this report provides quality data in relation to all daycare of children and childminding services:

Figure 10: Percentage of services holding evaluations of good or better, and very good or excellent in all assessed themes or key questions, 2014 to 2023.

	All evaluations Good, Very Good or Excellent		All evaluations Very Good or Excellent
Year	Childminding	Daycare of Children	Childminding	Daycare of Children
2014	91.0%	90.3%	49.6%	42.2%
2015	91.8%	88.4%	48.8%	41.5%
2016	91.8%	87.6%	48.7%	40.3%
2017	92.1%	88.3%	47.6%	37.8%
2018	91.9%	88.0%	45.2%	35.7%
2019	91.7%	87.7%	44.0%	33.7%
2020	92.6%	88.7%	44.2%	33.0%
2021	92.8%	87.7%	43.9%	31.7%
2022	92.0%	88.5%	41.7%	31.5%
2023	92.6%	88.3%	39.6%	30.0%

Note: Any services that have not yet been inspected are not included in the table above.

Figure 18 in the report provides the data in relation to funded ELC settings.

Figure 18: Proportion of daycare of children services offering funded places holding evaluations of good or better and very good or excellent in all assessed themes or key questions on 31 December, 2014 to 2023.

Year	% of services found to be Good or better in all evaluations	% of services found to be very good or excellent in all evaluations
2014	93.2%	49.1%
2015	91.9%	48.1%
2016	91.4%	45.8%
2018	90.6%	40.5%
2019	90.2%	38.1%
2020	90.8%	36.9%
2021	89.4%	34.9%
2022	90.1%	34.6%
2023	89.8%	32.9%

Note: Any services that have not yet been inspected are not included in the above table.

Question reference: S6W-37810

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 4 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many local authorities have reported that its early learning estate is not fit for purpose, and what action it has taken in response to any such concerns.

To support the expansion of funded early learning and childcare (ELC) to 1140 hours per eligible child, the Scottish Government provided £476 million of capital funding to local authorities between 2017-18 and 2020-21. Supplemented by local authorities’ own funding, the 1140 expansion infrastructure programme includes 583 refurbishment projects, 124 extension projects and 157 new build projects. Over the course of the 1140 expansion infrastructure programme, no local authority has reported to the Scottish Government that its ELC estate is not fit for purpose. Statutory requirements for the fitness of premises to be used for the provision of ELC are set out in Section 10 of The Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Requirements for Care Services) Regulations 2011.

Question reference: S6W-37812

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 4 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many early learning staff have left the sector since 2021.

Question reference: S6W-37808

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 4 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) nursery and (b) early learning settings have been (i) temporarily and (ii) permanently closed due to building safety concerns, since 2015.

The information requested is not held centrally. Building management responsibilities are a matter for the owners and managers to ensure the safety of their premises. Statutory requirements for the fitness of premises to be used for the provision of early learning and childcare (ELC) are set out in Section 10 of The Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Requirements for Care Services) Regulations 2011. The Scottish Government does not routinely collect or hold data about the closure of ELC settings as a result of building safety concerns.

Question reference: S6W-37809

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 4 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many early learning settings have operated from (a) temporary and (b) modular buildings, since 2015

The information requested is not held centrally. Decisions about where to locate an early learning and childcare (ELC) setting are the responsibility of the service provider. The Scottish Government does not routinely collect or hold information about the characteristics of buildings from which ELC services are provided. Statutory requirements for the fitness of premises to be used for the provision of ELC are set out in Section 10 of The Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Requirements for Care Services) Regulations 2011.

Question reference: S6W-37814

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 4 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of early learning centres have failed to meet minimum staffing levels since 2015.