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I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

In the past 12 months, Disclosure Scotland spent £300,321.94 in overtime payments.

Overtime allows us to be agile and responsive to changing demand, including handling application peaks, as we are a demand-led organisation.

Disclosure Scotland does not hold information on the reason for overtime; however, the use of overtime has been to respond to changing demand and higher than expected volumes in applications – for example, as a result of the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 introducing the legal requirement to be in the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme if carrying out a regulated role.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

Disclosure Scotland’s service level agreement is to process 90% of applications within 14 days and we are currently performing within this target.

As of Monday 20 October 2025, there were 1,132 Protecting Vulnerable Group (PVG) applications relating to people working with children outstanding beyond 14 days.

Note 1: Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) applications from 1 April 2025 onwards, with the implementation of the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020, represents: Level 2 PVG scheme disclosure (Join), Level 2 PVG scheme disclosure (Existing), Confirmation of PVG scheme membership (Join) and Confirmation of PVG scheme membership (Existing). Prior to 1 April 2025, PVG applications represents: Scheme Record Disclosure, Short Scheme Record Disclosure, Existing Scheme Record Disclosure and Statements of Scheme Membership.

Note 2: This figure relates to PVG applications solely applying to work with children with a processing time of 14 days and above at the time of data extraction.

Note 3: The processing time for applications currently being processed on the system incorporates all time between an application being received by Disclosure Scotland, through to the time of data extraction. Disclosure Scotland deducts any time which the application was suspended on our system, such as being suspended for customer contact. Weekend days are included in the number of processing days for applications, but national holidays and Scottish Government public and privilege holidays are excluded.

The Scottish Government has not incurred any spend on consultancy fees in relation to The Promise since 2020. Martin Whitfield may wish to refer to the recent Freedom of Information (FOI) response which provides a full breakdown of expenditure associated with The Promise

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

Disclosure Scotland is currently performing within its Service Level Agreement (SLA) to process 90% of applications within 14 days.

Disclosure Scotland is forecasted to spend £9.84 million on staff costs in financial year 2025 to 2026 to deliver our disclosure processing and support services. This is against a total forecasted Resource Departmental Expenditure Limit (RDEL) spend of £34 million. Of the £9.84 million, £900,000 has been allocated to improve processing times this financial year.

The Scottish Government remains resolutely committed to fulfilling all recommendations of the Independent Care Review and to Keeping The Promise by 2030.

The Promise Implementation Plan, published in March 2022, set out the Government’s approach to fulfilling these recommendations. A comprehensive update on progress was provided in the Implementation Plan Update published in September 2024, which outlined the actions taken and the ongoing work required.

Progress is being understood through the Promise Story of Progress, a joint approach co-authored by Scottish Government, COSLA and The Promise Scotland. One aspect of this is the Promise Progress Framework, which builds on a theory of change to identify outcomes for care-experienced children, young people, and families which need to improve by 2030, and national-level data that can help understand where change is happening.

The Scottish Government acknowledges that transformational change is required and that progress must be understood not only through outcomes, but also through the lived experiences and relationships that shape those outcomes. There are two further strands to the Promise Story of Progress, which seek to better understand organisational activity to Keep The Promise, and the voice of the care experienced community. The approach promotes shared accountability across the sector and supports continuous learning by identifying effective practices and areas for improvement, and is designed to evolve as new insights emerge. An update to all three these strands of The Promise Story of Progress will be published in December 2025.

The Government continues to work collaboratively across portfolios and with key stakeholders and delivery partners to ensure that the necessary changes are implemented and sustained.

The Scottish Government recognises that delays in securing permanence or adoption can negatively impact on children’s wellbeing.

We continue to work with organisations in Scotland to consider data and research on permanence, to understand where challenges remain, and what interventions are required to support positive change.

To promote consistent and effective practice in permanency, the Scottish Government commissioned the Association for Fostering, Kinship and Adoption (AFKA) Scotland to develop three national good practice guides on permanence in kinship care, foster care and adoption. These will be available in early 2026.

The Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on average current spend on play per child in Scotland and does not hold such data for England or Wales.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children across Scotland can access high quality play opportunities in a range of settings that will aid their growth, development and wellbeing. In March 2025 we published Scotland’s Play Vision Statement and Action Plan 2025-2030 that builds on our 2013 play strategy and emphasises our commitment to play and our vision for the future of play in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is also making the following investments in programmes that support play opportunities for children across Scotland:

• £60 million to renew play parks during the course of this Parliamentary term;
• £500,000 in 2025/26 for the Outdoor Community Play Fund to increase play opportunities for children and families in disadvantaged communities;
• £1.8 million funding to Scottish Book Trust to deliver the Bookbug Programme in 2025-26;
• £645,000 funding to Smart Play Network for the delivery of PlayTalkRead programme in 2025-2026;
• £250,000 funding to Actify, Inspiring Scotland and partners to explore how the reach and impact of Active Play can be extended across Scotland;
• Through the CYPFEI & ALEC and CYPFAL third sector funds we fund organisations that promote play, such as Starcatchers (£157,500), Play Scotland (£210,000), Outside the Box (£34,125), Learning through Landscapes (£52,500) and the Yard (£94,500);
• In a joint initiative with the Scottish Football Association, £5.5 million to fund the ‘Extra Time Programme’ in 2025-2026, supporting local football clubs and trusts to provide before, after school and holiday clubs to targeted primary school children from low-income families.

This information is not held by the Scottish Government as it relates to an operational matter for the children’s hearings system.

The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) publish their annual statistics, which sets out a measure on time taken to progress referrals through the children’s hearings system. The information is available on the SCRA website:

Health and Social Care Partnerships provide Public Health Scotland (PHS) with a weekly snapshot of the current demand for Care at Home services. The data includes information on the number of people waiting on an assessment for a package of care to allow them to live at home or in the community, the number of people assessed and waiting on Care at Home and also the number of hours of care that people have been assessed for but not yet delivered. The data is published monthly on the PHS website. The data does not break the figures down by either client group or age. Therefore, the Scottish Government does not collect or hold information on disabled children awaiting a care package centrally.

It the primary duty of Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) to strategically plan the delivery of integrated adult health and social care provision in a local authority area. This duty will include the gathering of information regarding recruitment and retention of staff. Therefore, the Scottish Government does not collect or hold this information centrally.