Programme for Government 2024-25: Serving Scotland

Delivering on our four priorities

1 Eradicating Child Poverty

Eradicating child poverty is the single greatest priority for this Government. No individual’s opportunities should be dictated by the circumstances they are born into. Sustained and cohesive effort is needed across local and national government, the third sector, businesses, and communities to work collectively to achieve this, especially at a time when the public finances are under acute pressure.

We are already delivering within our devolved powers and budget, investing around £3 billion a year to eradicate poverty, mitigate the impacts of the cost‑of‑living crisis, and prioritising prevention to break the cycle of poverty. This Government has put in place the widely praised Scottish Child Payment, expanded funded early learning and childcare, as well as investing around £1.2 billion mitigating the impacts of 14 years of UK welfare policy.

The Child Poverty Action Group estimates that low‑income families in Scotland will be around £28,000 better off by the time their child turns 18, compared to families across the UK, while our analysis estimates around 100,000 children will be kept out of poverty this year, thanks to our support.

We know that some families have a far greater risk of poverty – including minority‑ethnic, lone‑parent, and those which include a disabled adult or child – and that women’s and children’s poverty are inextricably linked. Tackling barriers and improving opportunities for people, especially women, will deliver on our equality and human rights ambitions to ensure that the generational cycle of poverty is broken.

We also know that children and families benefit when they can access the support they need when and where they need it – not directed to several disparate services, each in a different location, and with their own distinct contacts and processes. How services are delivered is key and that relies on the contribution of many partners. Many of the enabling conditions already exist to bring about greater cohesion and a stronger focus on whole family support, particularly through the Verity House Agreement – setting out how national and local government will collaborate to deliver our shared priorities, including eradicating child poverty. We must now go further if greater impact is to be achieved.

We are already investing in some specific geographical areas to explore what is needed to deliver that flexible, person‑centred, whole family support. Delivery partners and families themselves have told us the system could be made simpler and more efficient. The Scottish Government will respond to this feedback. We will first look at our own structures and budgets and convene partners in designing the best way of deploying money and services so that their delivery responds to families’ needs, not frustrate them.

Over the year ahead, we will work with partners to introduce additional local flexibility in how existing budgets and services can be reconfigured in the pursuit of a whole family approach – the next part of our national public sector reform programme – including:

• Using evidence to assess what services the Scottish Government needs to invest in to improve outcomes for low‑income households.
• Working with local partners to pool budgets and streamline reporting requirements, where possible, with clear local plans in place for delivering shared outcomes.
• Identifying where improvement in performance is needed, and open dialogue about the barriers to change.
• Ensuring a revised approach to service co‑design – to design support services with communities, based on people’s need, to make it easier for people to navigate and access the help on offer.

Experience across a range of pilot projects, coupled with clear evidence, shows this is a proven approach which works to tackle child poverty. We will work with partners already involved in these local projects to agree what further flexibilities can deliver better outcomes and engage with wider partners to extend this approach across the country – ensuring its benefits are more widely shared.

A national approach, locally delivered

Our aspiration to ensure services are available when and where they are needed requires more pooling and flexibility of spend locally, as well as a clear and accessible way to access them. We must maximise the availability and consistency of the key services that people tell us they are most likely to need and where that can have the greatest impact in eradicating poverty. Our collective efforts to do that starts with the availability of early, preventative interventions. We will provide investment and support across every local authority to:

• Ensure access to affordable, high‑quality funded early learning and childcare services by continuing to invest almost £1 billion a year. If eligible families paid for this themselves, it would cost them more than £5,500 per eligible child per year.
• Work with local authorities to increase take up of funded early learning and childcare for eligible 2‑year‑olds, with a particular focus on boosting take up among the families most at risk of poverty and areas with some of the lowest take up rates.
• Provide employability support to meet the needs of all parents or carers on a demand‑led basis – ensuring closer working across childcare, education, housing, justice, and health services, so that people can quickly and easily access the support needed to enter and stay in work.
• Ensure that national initiatives such as the Family Nurse Partnership are integrated into that approach – supporting young mothers at‑risk of poverty to access and engage with wider services and support available.
• Ensure that these national entitlements are locally integrated where possible – with services readily available at the point of need, irrespective of the first port of call.

This provides a minimum baseline of what families can expect and how we will ensure services are joined up and working for them. Over the year ahead, we will work intensively with partners to identify where improvements to service delivery can be achieved. This national approach will be founded on our network of community-based projects.

Across Scotland, national and local partners are working with their communities to provide effective whole family support in a place‑based way that works for people. We will invest in these initiatives to provide a template for future change and improvement, including:

• Expanding place‑based ‘fairer futures partnerships’ to five more areas (North Ayrshire, East Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Inverclyde, and Aberdeen City) – alongside three existing ones – supporting innovative, local approaches to joined‑up services that improve family wellbeing, maximise incomes, and support people into work. This will build an evidence base and share approaches that can be transferred to other parts of Scotland.
• Taking a community‑based approach to developing a future national childcare offer, which focuses on reducing costs and helping parents take up work or increase their hours. Over the next two years we will design and deliver a new childcare offer, backed by £16 million, for priority families within six ‘Early Adopter Communities’ – aligned with our fairer futures partnerships and offering easier access to the support families need.
• Investing in innovative, local projects to tackle child poverty, through a second round of our Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund.
• Helping island communities navigate higher costs of living by delivering our Islands Cost Crisis Emergency Fund – supporting projects which have included free school meal top‑ups, breakfast clubs, and a “Love Local” card for families on low incomes.
• Continuing to invest in the third sector across the Scottish Government, making improvements to grant making and continuing the implementation of the Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Act 2023 and related secondary legislation.

Place-based approaches to eradicating child poverty

Through our place‑based approaches, we are working in partnership to deliver better support to families in need, and helping to reshape those support services to deliver more effective, sustainable support by design rather than exception.

In Dundee, keyworkers first engaged with Kelly*, a single mother of three children, including one with additional support needs, through targeted home visits. Kelly was keen to get back to work but she was concerned about the cost of childcare.

Kelly received a ‘better off’ calculation at the weekly drop‑in centre and learned how much support she was entitled to from Universal Credit for childcare costs. The pathfinder is linked closely with Dundee’s Early Adopter Community – a Scottish Government-funded project testing innovative models of people‑centred, place‑based childcare for families who need it most – and Kelly secured a childcare place for her primary school‑aged child. Kelly then felt confident that, with this support, working 20 hours a week would leave her better off, which enabled her to get back to work.

With support from keyworkers, Kelly secured a role and after 6 months in post was offered a promotion. She said:

“the support has changed my life; this has helped me not only financially but mentally too.”

* Name changed to protect individual’s identity

While this approach places an intense focus on early intervention, for many the context in which they live remains very challenging. Scotland, like many countries, is still reckoning with increasing developmental concerns among children following the pandemic. Particularly for children in the most deprived communities, that brings poorer life chances. Efforts to address that must start before birth, with the circumstances experienced during pregnancy, at birth and during the earliest years having lifetime impacts.

Ensuring we give every child born in Scotland the best start in life, we are committed to reducing developmental concerns at 27‑30 months by a quarter by 2030 – resulting in the lowest levels recorded – and supporting babies, children, and young people through the early, formative years of their life. This year we will:

• Ensure more women receive care and support from the same midwife from pregnancy through birth, prioritising those who are most likely to benefit, such as minority ethnic women and women with additional social needs.
• Provide parents with better information about how they can support their child’s development through new content on the Parent Club website – accessed by over 55,000 people each month – across issues like pregnancy, child development, and infant feeding.
• Increase the take‑up of the three child health reviews and work with health visitors to reduce inequalities through prevention and early intervention.

Breaking the cycle of poverty means supporting the next generation to thrive and helping parents to get on in fair work. The gap between the proportion of school leavers from the most and least deprived areas going on to further and higher education, training, or work is at a record low. We want to ensure all young people achieve their potential – but we also know that children’s poverty is parents’ poverty, which requires further efforts to boost fair work and employment. Alongside our national employability offer, we will:

• Prioritise funding to increase the pay of workers in adult social care who are delivering direct care in commissioned services, early learning and childcare workers delivering funded hours, and children’s social care workers, so that they are paid at least the Real Living Wage from April 2025.
• Improve careers support so that there is better information on career choices, including potential job prospects and earnings, and connecting students, schools, and employers.
• Invest in community‑based youth work, focussed on reaching young people outside the classroom and supporting access to education, training, and employment.
• Continue work to improve access to higher education for students from the most socio‑economically disadvantaged communities – towards our goal of 20% of all entrants being from the 20% most deprived communities by 2030.

For those households struggling now, boosting incomes through social security and benefits in kind and cutting the costs of living is one of the most direct things we can do to lift them out of poverty. Our overall investment in social security now totals over £6 billion and is expected to support over 1.2 million people. This year we will:

• Help around 100,000 carers eligible for Carer Support Payment – including, for the first time, some carers in full‑time education – and through the Carer’s Allowance Supplement.
• Launch Pension Age Disability Payment, the third of our major disability benefits, and Carer’s Additional Person Payment.
• Invest an additional £1.5 million to expand advice in accessible settings, including community centres and hospitals, with eight new projects this year. In its first year, the programme has helped over 5,500 people access financial gains of over £7.5 million.
• 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.
• Work towards further expanding free school meals to those in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment in Primary 6 and Primary 7, and provide £21.75 million for free school meal alternatives in all school holidays for eligible families.

Having a warm, safe, place to call home is the foundation of family life and a direct contributor to tackling poverty. Our approach to tackling the housing emergency will increase the right mix of housing supply, in the right place – ensuring families have secure and affordable homes that meet their needs and helping boost economic growth.

Between March 2022 and March 2024, we helped partners deliver 21,092 homes towards our 110,000 affordable homes target, with 15,964 for social rent. We also helped local authorities and registered social landlords to acquire homes to bring into affordable use, with almost 1,500 properties delivered through acquisitions in 2023‑24. In the coming year we will deliver homes at pace and scale, and help to reduce the number of households and children in temporary accommodation, including:

• Investing nearly £600 million in affordable housing in 2024‑25. The majority of this will be directed at boosting social housing supply – keeping rents lower and benefitting around 140,000 children in poverty each year.
• This includes up to £40 million to bring existing homes into affordable use through acquisitions, and where appropriate also bring long term voids back into effective use.
• Committing £100 million to grow with institutional investment to at least £500 million, supporting the construction of around 2,800 mid‑market rent homes.
• Providing £2 million in additional support to local authorities facing the most significant and sustained temporary accommodation pressures to maximise the use of existing housing stock and minimise turnaround times for vacant social homes.

Social Security Scotland: enabling carers to participate in further education

Carer Support Payment is designed to support carers on low incomes. Unlike the DWP’s Carer’s Allowance – the benefit it is replacing – Carer Support Payment is available to many full‑time students.

For mum‑of‑two Gemma and many like her, this change means she can pursue her dreams of studying while continuing to care for her children and grandparents.

Gemma*, 37, said:

“I've worked since I was 13 but had to give up my job seven years ago because my oldest needed me so often that I was always having to take time off.

“I’ve always dreamed of going to university but didn’t think it would happen as I couldn’t afford to lose Carer’s Allowance. Being able to get Carer Support Payment while studying will be life changing. It gives me an opportunity I didn’t think was possible.

“A lot of people don’t realise they are carers, especially mums. They think they’re just being a mum and technically they are but they’re also dealing with a lot that other parents don’t, so they are much more than that. It’s important they know that help is available.”

*Name has been changed and illustrative image used to protect individual’s identity

• Work with local authorities and registered social landlords on effective void management and a pragmatic approach to vacant property refurbishment to help drive down void property levels at pace – supporting efficient housing management and increasing the supply of available social and affordable homes.
• Tackling the challenge of unoccupied housing by updating guidance to encourage councils to focus their resources on homes that have been empty for longer than 12 months. We will also consult on modernisation of the compulsory purchase system to help deliver a wide range of projects in the public interest, including bringing empty properties back into productive use.
• Working with local authorities to accelerate development of strategic sites such as Granton, unlocking opportunities for investment and economic growth and the provision of new homes of all tenures.
• Ensuring the planning system responds to the housing emergency. We will support planning authorities to allocate a pipeline of land for new homes and promote consistent monitoring of its delivery. We will also work to extend the services offered by our new Planning Hub to support housing developments. This could for example focus on the delivery of homes on larger, legacy, and stalled sites.
• Protecting residents by accelerating progress on cladding, commencing the newly passed Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act, delivering assessment, risk mitigation and remediation measures in affected properties on a prioritised basis, and, subject to the devolution of power, introducing legislation for a Scottish Building Safety Levy to raise funds for this effort.
• Through our Housing Bill, boost tenants’ rights and include provisions for long-term rent controls. We will bring forward amendments to the Bill that will clearly set out how rent increases will be capped in areas where rent controls apply, in a way that provides certainty for tenants while also encouraging investment. The Bill will place stronger duties on local authorities and other partners to prevent homelessness – including an emphasis on prevention through holistic support, with relevant bodies working together to provide assistance earlier to help people avoid the crisis of homelessness.

Eradicating Child Poverty: our action in numbers

• Nearly £600 million in affordable housing including £40 million to bring existing homes into affordable use
• £2 million to support local authorities facing sustained temporary accommodation pressures
• 5 new fairer futures partnerships providing services that improve family wellbeing, maximise incomes and support people into work
• £16 million to create new local childcare offers over the next two years – supporting parents to work
• Almost £1 billion invested each year to deliver funded early learning and childcare
• Social security investment of over £6 billion, supporting over 1.2 million people
• £1.5 million this year to expand advice in accessible settings, including 8 new projects
• Ensuring around 100,000 eligible carers receive the increased Carer Support Payment

2 Growing the Economy

Boosting fair, green economic growth is central to our priorities. Economic success drives our ability to deliver public services and reduce child poverty. Businesses, large and small, sustain communities and provide valuable employment. Innovators, scientists, and entrepreneurs deliver the solutions that can transform productivity and tackle the climate emergency. Investment, public and private, lays the foundations for future growth.

We are making good progress. Since 2007, GDP per person in Scotland has grown by 11%, compared to 6% in the UK, productivity has grown at an average rate of 1.0% per year, compared to the UK average of 0.4%, and proportionally more people earn the real living wage than in the rest of the UK. Building on this, we will ensure a stronger, inclusive economy – tackling inequalities faced by women and marginalised groups, attracting investment, increasing exports, promoting home‑grown entrepreneurs and innovators, helping people into work, and supporting diverse businesses.

The path to net zero presents enormous economic opportunities which we can grasp by providing the right enabling environment – supporting a just transition that creates jobs and brings communities and businesses with us. To deliver on that, we will shortly publish our Green Industrial Strategy. Along with our Just Transition Plans, this will set out plans to build internationally competitive clusters in five key opportunity areas. These are onshore and offshore wind, carbon capture utilisation and storage, professional and financial services, hydrogen, and clean industries. The Green Industrial Strategy also addresses how action will be taken across Government to ensure an attractive enabling environment and deliver the economic benefits of the transition to net zero.

Securing those opportunities relies on investment. Scotland already performs strongly on foreign direct investment (FDI) – a success story of our international connections, including through our network of Trade and Investment Envoys and Global Scots – being the top destination in the UK, outside London, for FDI for the past nine years. However, there is more to do to boost infrastructure investment and create the right conditions for businesses. We will make Scotland more attractive for investment by:

• Creating jobs, supporting innovation, and attracting investment through the work of the Scottish National Investment Bank. In 2023, the Bank supported 1,850 jobs, invested in companies with over £92 million of supply chain spend in Scotland, and avoided, reduced, or removed 52,841 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent across its portfolio.
• Delivering a co‑ordinated programme to attract investment in priority areas of net zero, housing, and infrastructure by implementing recommendations from the Investor Panel and aligning government and public bodies behind this approach. An early focus will be improving engagement with investors, strengthening our capacity and capability in delivery, and exploring new funding mechanisms such as blended finance and guarantees.
• Developing a national project pipeline of investment opportunities of the scale and impact of recent investments such as those by Sumitomo and at Ardersier, and launching an online investment portal in 2025.
• Accelerating investment to support the offshore wind sector, with our commitment of up to £500 million over five years, aiming to leverage at least £1.5 billion of private investment. This year we will set out our priorities for investment in supply chains and enabling infrastructure, such as ports and harbours, and take further action to improve the planning and consenting regime for renewable energy generation.
• Reviewing Crown Estate Scotland’s governance and operating model to ensure it optimises its unique role in value creation and growing sustainable wealth for Scotland through helping deliver the supply chain side of the offshore renewable energy expansion. This will benefit communities and mitigate against climate change and biodiversity loss.
• Developing two Green Freeports, in Inverness and Cromarty Firth and the Forth estuary, and establishing two new Investment Zones, in Glasgow and the North East of Scotland.

Scotland’s international reputation for home‑grown innovation is growing and we are well on our way to becoming a start‑up nation. Our focus on promoting entrepreneurs and innovators will play a key role in ensuring our economic future, defined by a blend of international capital, science and technology, and Scottish invention. This year we will:

• Maximise the impact of our £42 million Techscaler programme, Scotland’s national network of startup support – extending access for Scottish entrepreneurs to some of the world’s best start‑up development programmes. We will integrate the Techscalers with other centres of innovation, creating opportunities for Scottish companies to raise capital, learn from world leading peers, and access new markets.
• Increase the number of women starting and scaling businesses by implementing key recommendations of Ana Stewart and Mark Logan’s review of gender equality in entrepreneurship. This will include a regional programme in partnership with South of Scotland Enterprise to create new, best‑in‑class, environments for women to create and scale businesses, and a competitive Pathways Fund to widen participation in entrepreneurship from people in groups that are currently under‑represented.
• Work with Scottish Enterprise, the National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland, and the National Robotarium to create new opportunities for our most promising ‘deep tech’ companies to support promising businesses with prototypes and manufacturing.
• Support our universities to continue world leading research and innovation through our core research and innovation grants, investing more than £315 million over the 2024‑25 academic year to help develop early career researchers, promote knowledge exchange, and enable universities to drive local economic growth.
• Support the development of business clusters in areas where Scotland has a competitive advantage such as data, digital and AI, health and life sciences, advanced manufacturing, and the energy transition.

Scottish National Investment Bank

Since its launch in November 2020, the Scottish National Investment Bank has committed over £645 million of investment alongside more than £1 billion of third‑party capital. As an impact investor, the Bank is driving long‑term societal and economic benefit for the people of Scotland. Its missions are focused on helping address the climate emergency, to help transform communities, and drive innovation, helping develop a fairer and more sustainable economy.

The Bank has made investments into both Trojan Energy and FOR:EV to help drive forward the rollout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The £28 million investment into Trojan Energy will support the scale up of the company’s patented flat‑and‑flush vehicle charge points removing the requirement for any obstructive roadside infrastructure and leave the pavement clear of clutter. The Bank’s £22 million investment in electric vehicle charging network owner & operator, FOR:EV, will enable it to roll‑out its charge points across Scotland.

The Bank’s £60 million investment into Thriving Investments Mid‑Market Rent Fund will help deliver affordable, quality rental homes, meaning that tenants pay a lower price than they would typically find in the private rental market allowing more individuals and families on modest incomes to access affordable rental properties.

As well as taking steps to build our economic future, we will support the businesses that create jobs and wealth today, ensuring the conditions are right for them to thrive and grow sustainably. Our economy is built on the successes of small and medium‑sized businesses which boost local economies and deliver national success. This year we will:

• Improve how businesses and government work together by delivering the commitments set out in the New Deal for Business. We have heard from business and regulators on the cumulative impact of regulations and recognise the need for certainty, phasing, and effective implementation of regulations.
• Deliver our programme of support through our enterprise agencies to help businesses to start and scale, be more productive, access finance and attract investment, develop new products and services, enter new markets, and positively impact on their communities.
• Sign the Falkirk (including Grangemouth) and Argyll & Bute Regional Growth Deals, joining ten other deals as part of our £1.9 billion commitment to regional economic development across Scotland.
• Empower decision making and investment through Regional Economic Partnerships, including pilot work on regional funding as part of wider public service reform to support Glasgow City’s ambitions to create a metropolitan region, and Edinburgh’s Regional Economic Prosperity Framework.
• Establish Scotland’s first Planning Hub to build capacity and resilience, and to improve consistency and efficiency in decision‑making. The Hub’s initial priority will be to help planning authorities make quicker decisions on hydrogen planning applications, with a plan to support wider developments including good quality homes and onshore wind.
• Support early adopters to deliver Masterplan Consent Areas – these will frontload some consents including planning permission in defined areas, making them more attractive to investors and supporting the delivery of major projects, including national developments, Green Freeports, and green data centres.
• Launch a planning apprenticeship programme to invest in new talent to create a pipeline of skilled future planners.
• Support the negotiation of a new UK‑EU Food and Drink / Veterinary Agreement which would ensure Scottish exporters can access EU markets, reducing frictions and costs, as well as cutting red tape on food imports for supermarkets.
• Advance the use of the Community Wealth Building model – an approach to local economic development that aims to create new employment opportunities and help local businesses to expand – by bringing forward a Community Wealth Building Bill and developing a local authority led practice network to aid consistency and practice sharing.
• Improve the consenting process for fish farming in Scotland. We will build on our consenting pilot projects in the Highlands and Shetland Islands to deliver improvements across Scotland that give businesses confidence, ensure environmental limits are respected, and protect and improve the ability for communities to contribute.
• Review government’s landholdings to explore opportunities to create openings for new entrants into farming – maintaining momentum of the successes we have seen from the Farming Opportunities for New Entrants programme – and encourage public bodies with considerable land holdings to also look at what opportunities they can offer.
• Lay the draft Good Food Nation Plan before Parliament by the end of the parliamentary year and establish the Scottish Food Commission along the same timeframe.

We have hugely talented people who are critical to our economic success. Despite a near record high of payrolled employees, challenges remain – in economic inactivity, an ageing population, and skills shortages. To grow our economy, we must make full use of our potential workforce and remove barriers to employment. We must tackle inequalities and recognise the gendered impacts that caring responsibilities have on participation in the labour market. Alongside actions set out elsewhere, this year we will:

• Lead a new, national approach to skills planning and work with partners to strengthen regional approaches – bringing employers, colleges, universities, and other partners together to ensure the system is responsive to regional and national skills needs.
• Reform the education and skills funding system so it is easier to navigate and responsive to learners and skills priorities – breaking down silos and reducing bureaucracy – introducing a Bill to simplify the post‑school funding body landscape.
• Support those already in work, help more people back into work, and address long‑term economic inactivity. Alongside our national employability offer, this includes improving access to health services by April 2025, and introducing enhanced specialist support for disabled people across all 32 local authorities by Summer 2025.
• Expand Scotland’s Migration Service to provide more support for users – while making the case to the UK Government for humane, principled, and needs‑based migration.
• Recognising Scotland’s distinct demographic challenges, make the urgent case for tailored migration routes – including a Rural Visa Pilot which could support rural employers across the public and private sectors to recruit the people they need.
• Work with local authorities and Registered Social Landlords to acquire suitable homes for key workers, where they are required, in rural and island communities by making available up to £25 million from the Affordable Housing Supply Programme to support the five‑year Rural Affordable Homes for Key Workers Fund.

Robotical: Growing global with Techscaler

Techscaler is the Scottish Government’s national programme for creating, developing, and scaling tech start‑ups through education programmes, expert mentoring, and a network of physical hubs. As of June, it has supported over 700 businesses. From pre‑startup to scaleup, Techscaler education courses help people at every stage of starting and scaling a tech business.

With a PhD in walking robotics, Edinburgh‑based Robotical founder Dr Alexander Enoch (Sandy) created “Marty” the coding robot. Designed to encourage a fun and creative way for children to learn coding, Marty moves and dances to programming languages taught alongside curriculum‑linked lessons. Robotical has now sold over 10k robots in over 65 countries and employs 10 people including their first team member in the USA.

Robotical’s journey through our Tech Ecosystem highlights how support is available end to end. With Robotical starting with an enterprise fellowship with Royal Academy of Engineering to winning the Converge Challenge award for design and creativity then winning round 8 of Scottish Edge.

At a Prewired event at Codebase, Techscaler’s service provider, Sandy met his next lead investor and mentor. Sandy said

“When Techscaler launched, I saw their offering of Reforge seats for scale up employees and saw this as the perfect match.”

We can only build a more productive and innovative economy if we invest in infrastructure critical to the economy, such as transport and digital network – ensuring our communities and businesses are connected, and the benefits of growth are shared. This year we will:

• Progress dualling the A9 – commencing construction of the Tomatin to Moy contract, and continuing procurement for the Tay Crossing to Ballinluig project. This will improve access to and from Highland communities, boost road safety, journey times and reliability, and generate economic growth.
• Commence the final stage of the process for acquisition of land required for the A96 dualling between Inverness and Nairn, and progress work to determine the most suitable procurement option.
• Continue construction of the medium‑term works for the A83 Rest and Be Thankful and publish the draft Orders for the long‑term solution.
• Deliver three of the six new major ferries currently under construction, providing services for Arran and Islay, and progress the procurement of seven new electric ferries through Phase 1 of the Small Vessels Replacement Programme.
• Progress the Scotrail fleet replacement programme through the further development of specifications for life expiring rolling stock.
• Upgrade and reconfigure rail power supplies to support existing and future electrification of our railway – with a further four ‘feeder stations’ to enter service by 2027.
• Connect over 20,000 premises to gigabit capable broadband in areas of market failure by March 2025, through delivery of three regional, multi‑year contracts with Openreach.

Scotland’s unique and leading sectors such as the creative industries and rural and visitor economies are vital contributors to our national economic growth – but also sustain many of our rural and island communities, ensuring economic benefits are felt the length and breadth of Scotland. This year we will:

• Review the way the culture sector is supported, including a review of Creative Scotland as part of our commitment to ensuring excellence in Scotland’s public services. This will also help to ensure the distribution of additional funding in the most effective way possible.
• Invite Scotland’s culture sector to join a partnership on Scottish festivals to focus on how best to support Scotland’s festivals and uphold their vital role within the sector.
• Maintain our commitment to increase funding for culture and the arts so that it is at least £100 million more a year by 2028‑29.
• Work alongside key partners in all sectors to ensure all our upcoming events, such as the Orkney 2025 Island Games, deliver economic and social benefit to communities across Scotland.
• Support Screen Scotland to deliver on its Strategy to 2030, ensuring the screen sector can reach our goal of £1 billion Gross Value Added to the Scottish economy by 2030.
• Press the public service broadcasters to increase production from Scotland.
• Support local authorities to implement the Visitor Levy – helping enhance the tourist experience and benefit local communities and their economies.
• Continue to implement the Strategy for Sustainable Growth of the agritourism sector and support Scottish Agritourism as they prepare for the World Agritourism Conference in Scotland in 2026.
• Intensify work on designing a cruise ship levy and undertake the necessary public consultation.
• Advocate for rejoining further EU programmes such as Erasmus+ and Creative Europe.
• Through our Scottish Languages Bill, we will give official recognition to Gaelic and Scots and build on the measures that are already in place in education, arts, media, and community and public life. The Bill will enable us to make further progress in creating a secure future for Gaelic and Scots by ensuring more people can learn, speak, and use these languages.
• Support our land‑based and aquaculture industries by continuing work in response to the 22 recommendations of the Land Based Learning Review, all of which the Scottish Government either accepted or accepted in principle, and aim to publish the associated implementation plan by the end of 2024.
• Continue to support crofting and croft businesses. Further to the consultation on proposals for crofting law reform, we will now analyse and publish responses and bring forward legislation.
• Progress the Land Reform Bill which will further improve transparency of land ownership, help ensure large scale land holdings deliver in the public interest, and empower communities by providing more opportunities to own land and have more say in how land in their area is used.
• Conduct a review of all the community rights to buy – which give communities more options than ever before to take ownership of land and assets – reporting in December 2025.

Scotland is open for business and investment. By working together with businesses, we will make Scotland a more prosperous, dynamic, innovative, and inclusive country.

Growing the Economy: our action in numbers

• £1.9 billion commitment to regional economic development across Scotland
• 5-year £25 million Rural Affordable Homes for Key Workers Fund
• Up to £500 million Scottish Government funding to leverage private investment in the offshore wind sector
• Support the screen sector to reach goal of £1 billion GVA by 2030
• £315 million for university research and innovation grants
• Connecting more than 20,000 premises to gigabit capable broadband
• 2 new Green Freeports in Inverness & the Cromarty Firth and the Forth Estuary and 2 new Investment Zones in Glasgow City Region and the North East

3 Tackling the Climate Emergency

The twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss represent the existential threat of our times, underlined by recent confirmation that the global temperature has pushed past the internationally agreed 1.5 degrees Celsius warming threshold for a 12‑month period. We must reduce emissions and our vulnerability to the future impacts of climate change and restore our natural environment.

While a moral imperative, the journey to net zero brings opportunities. Scotland’s economy grew by 67 per cent in real terms between 1990 and 2022 at the same time as we cut our greenhouse gas emissions in half, showing how tackling climate change and growing a thriving, green economy go hand in hand. We will invest in tackling the climate emergency in a way that creates jobs and opportunities for businesses and communities.

Our potential for renewable energy generation is one of our greatest environmental and economic opportunities. We have seen a rapid increase in Scotland’s capacity for renewable electricity generation from 6.7 GW in 2013 to 15.4 GW in 2024, with an estimated capacity of 25.5 GW in the planning pipeline.

To support a just transition to a green economy we will shortly publish our Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan. As well as doubling our ambitions for renewable energy generation, this will set out actions to deliver our clean energy pipeline and its economic benefits.

To progress a renewables revolution, in the coming year we will:

• Improve the planning and consenting regime for renewable energy generation and electricity transmission to provide certainty to the market and stimulate the private investment needed, including:
  • Developing the second National Marine Plan and publishing an updated Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy – updating the marine planning framework and supporting ScotWind and Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas leasing and consenting.
  • Improving the consistency and pace of the consenting process for proposals over 50 MW, ensuring we are resourced and able to meet demand, and reducing timescales for section 36 and 37 determinations.
  • Introducing pre‑application community and stakeholder engagement guidance for transmission developments, improving public engagement and confidence in consenting processes.
  • Collaborating with the UK Government on a review of Scottish consenting.
• Take forward the focused work of our 10‑year, £500 million Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray and set out the next steps for future deployment.
• Support Scotland’s manufacturing industries to invest in energy efficiency and decarbonisation projects – with investment of up to £9m in 2024‑25 through the Scottish Industrial Energy Transformation Fund – and work with industry stakeholders to develop our future industrial decarbonisation programme.
• Collaborate with the UK Government to deliver the markets and infrastructure required for a net zero emissions energy system, including:
  • Continuing to support the Acorn carbon transport and storage project as it progresses towards Track 2 status including by providing £2 million to support the repurposing of existing oil and gas infrastructure to transport carbon dioxide for permanent storage in the North Sea.
  • Securing a positive future for Grangemouth, beginning to implement our site‑specific Just Transition Plan, to be published in December 2024.
  • Fully engaging with the UK Government on its plans for renewable energy, such as GB Energy, Clean Power 2030, and any plans to explore mandating community benefits, to ensure they deliver for Scotland, prioritise delivery of our clean energy pipeline, and reduce consumer costs and fuel poverty.

Alongside sectoral decarbonisation, achieving net zero means supporting households and communities with reducing their emissions – in a way that can save households, businesses, and the public sector money. Nearly half of the population already can benefit from free bus travel, we provide grants and loans to support households and businesses move to clean heating, and we have ensured the public electric vehicle charging network will reach 6,000 charging points in 2024, two years ahead of schedule. This year we will:

• Bring forward a Heat in Buildings Bill that is deliverable and affordable for households and businesses, setting the long‑term direction of travel and, in turn, providing certainty to building owners and the supply chain.
• Conclude the review of our New Build Heat Standard in response to concerns raised regarding the use of woodburning stoves and bioenergy. We expect to conclude the review and make any agreed legislative amendments by December 2024.
• Set a route map for enabling the delivery of approximately 24,000 additional public electric vehicle charge points by 2030 to support the ongoing move to electric vehicles.
• Progress our ambition of a 20% reduction in car use by 2030, with a route map including a timeline for implementing ‘demand management’.
• Make it easier for people to walk, wheel, or cycle on everyday journeys through our Active Travel Infrastructure Fund, the National Cycle Network, and People and Place Programme.
• As part of our Agriculture Reform Programme, support farmers and crofters to reduce emissions and deliver biodiversity improvements, through greater uptake of key baselining activities such as carbon and biodiversity audits and soil analysis.
• Launch the final four Community Climate Hubs by Autumn 2024 – ensuring every area in Scotland has access to one, helping empower people to act in their neighbourhoods.
• Develop financing strategies for our six Carbon Neutral Islands and collaborate with other islands to help them plan for their own net zero journeys – supporting Scotland’s islands to become exemplars of carbon neutral communities.

Warmer Homes Scotland, heating homes and improving energy efficiency

Ms D got in touch with Home Energy Scotland in February to enquire about the Warmer Homes Scotland scheme as the heating system in her Thurso home was broken. This was a concern as she has young children, and they were struggling to keep warm.

She underwent a home assessment by Warmworks. An air source heat pump was recommended to replace the broken electric storage heaters, alongside solar PV.

“Everything was explained right from the first appointment. I was expecting to be on the phone chasing things up and finding out more information, but I didn't need to.”

The new heating system has considerably increased the energy efficiency of Ms D’s home, with a 23‑point increase in her energy efficiency rating (rising from 55 to 78 after the installation). This should mean her home will be warmer and more affordable to heat.

Ms D says she has noticed the difference the new heating system is having on her home and her family.

“I've got a young family, and this has been life changing. My house was cold and damp, but now I can afford to keep it warm without it putting a huge strain on my finances. I would recommend it to those who need it.”

While we are determined to ensure a net zero future, we are already dealing with the damaging effects of climate change – 10 of our hottest years have all come in the last 20 years, and the increased frequency of storms, droughts, wildfires, and floods is having a devastating impact on nature, communities, essential water services, and key sectors like agriculture. Scotland is already leading the way – including creating around 75% of all new UK woodlands last year. In accelerating action on adaptation, we will:

• Take forward a range of action to bolster climate adaptation through our forthcoming National Adaptation Plan – including establishing new local partnerships, tailoring approaches to adaptation to the needs of local areas, providing new sector‑specific support for businesses on climate resilience, and providing practical support for the development of climate‑resilient local development plans.
• Support Scottish Water to invest in improvements to drinking water supplies and sewerage systems, and work with the water industry to improve the resilience of our water and sewerage systems to intense rainfall and drought.
• Support the transition to a more circular economy by reforming Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging, increasing reuse and recycling through a new co‑designed Household Recycling Code of Practice with local authorities, and consulting on a charge on single use beverage cups.
• Consult on further protection measures for our Marine Protected Areas and Priority Marine Features to meet conservation objectives.

The world faces a twin nature and climate crisis. The 2023 State of Nature Scotland report found that monitored species have declined, on average, by 15% over the last 30 years. Halting and reversing the biodiversity decline in our landscapes and seas is critical to our future environment. We will continue making progress on protecting 30% of our land and seas for nature by 2030. This year we will:

• Bring forward a Natural Environment Bill to establish the framework for statutory targets to restore and protect nature. It will also include provisions to modernise the way in which national parks and deer are managed, and provide powers to update environmental impact assessment and habitats legislation to support delivery of our net zero and biodiversity goals.
• Restore at least 10,000 hectares of degraded peatland and create at least 10,000 hectares of woodlands, which will include over 4,000 hectares of native woodland.
• Deploy nature restoration funding through over 50 projects across Scotland – including work to restore our temperate rainforests and to protect sea bird colonies on our islands.

A Climate Hub in action

The Highlands & Islands (Orkney and Shetland) Climate Hub supports communities to develop and deliver initiatives that can help tackle and adapt to the changing climate. In 2023 the Hub delivered training, celebrated community climate action through a month‑long climate festival with 120 events reaching over 9,500 people and offered seed funding and guidance to groups.

The Hub has supported a diverse range of projects including providing small grants to 50 projects through their Seed Funding Programme. This included providing advice, support, and a £500 grant to Nature 4 Health. This was used to develop ‘Positive Climate Futures’, a workshop focusing on the positive action students can take individually and collectively to address climate change, helping tackle the increasingly common issue of climate anxiety. Materials were developed and two pilot sessions held at Nairn Academy and Dochgarroch Primary School.

The support from the Hub was the “catalyst to help make a difference”, and Nature 4 Health are now able to roll out the programme wider.

Complementing action at home, we will continue to lead on climate action internationally and support the Global South’s demand for climate justice. This will be delivered through our leadership roles in Regions 4 and Under 2 (as President and co‑chair for 2024‑26 respectively), bringing devolved governments together to agree ambitious actions, and our world‑first £36 million Climate Justice Fund.

Despite decarbonising faster than the UK average, the most difficult part of the journey is ahead. Taking on board the views of the Climate Change Committee, we will shortly bring forward legislation which will enable five-yearly carbon budgets to be set and delivered. Our next Climate Change Plan will then be finalised following advice on Carbon Budget levels from the Climate Change Committee.

Alongside the development and publication of sectoral Just Transition Plans – for energy, transport, built environment and construction, and land use and agriculture – this will chart a course to net zero by 2045 – one that is deliverable, fair, and just.

Tackling the Climate Emergency: our action in numbers

• £500 million over 10 years for a just transition in the North East and Moray
• Around 75% of new UK woodland was in Scotland last year
• World-first £36 million Climate Justice Fund
• Final 4 Community Climate Hubs to launch giving coverage across Scotland
• 8.7 GW growth in Scotland’s capacity for renewable electricity since 2013
• 6,000 electric vehicle public charge points before the end of this year
• Restoring 10,000 hectares of degraded peatland and creating 10,000 hectares of woodlands
• £2 million to support repurposing oil and gas infrastructure to transport carbon dioxide for permanent storage

4 Ensuring High Quality and Sustainable Public Services

Public services touch on every aspect of our day to day lives and are fundamental to delivering the action we will take to eradicate child poverty, grow the economy, and tackle the climate emergency. Investment in public services is not a cost, but a vital investment in our future health, equality, and prosperity.

Key to our ambitions for public services is ensuring that people have access to high-quality services when they need them. We will also ensure services are easier to navigate and understand, so people can get the help, support, and treatment they need.

In the coming year, we will work with partners, to strengthen the performance of our National Health Service, including:

• Tackling waiting times and backlogs by:
  • Freeing up 210,000 planned care outpatient appointments through our Centre for Sustainable Delivery programmes – eliminating unnecessary hospital attendances.
  • Delivering around 20,000 extra orthopaedic, ophthalmology and general surgery procedures annually in our new National Treatment Centres.
  • Increasing Boards’ baselined funding and targeting further additional funding to reduce the longest waits – expected to deliver an additional 40,000 diagnostic procedures, 12,000 other procedures, and 12,000 new outpatient appointments.
  • Driving improvements in productivity through the delivery of a Theatre Scheduling System, which in pilot sites has improved efficiency by up to 20%, to all NHS Boards this year to enable more operations and more patients to be treated.
  • Improving timely access to cancer services by opening a further Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Service, bringing our national total to six. Over 2,500 patients have used these services since their launch, accessing a fast‑tracked diagnostic pathway for people with symptoms raising non‑specific suspicion of cancer, such as weight loss and fatigue.
  • Providing £120 million of additional funding for NHS Boards to support continued improvements across a range of mental health services and treatments, including meeting the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services waiting times standard nationally, with backlogs cleared by December 2025.
• Increasing capacity and access to Primary Care, shifting the balance of care to preventative and community‑based support, including:
  • Improving the use of multi‑disciplinary working to support better, patient‑centered care pathways and improve service capacity in GPs and frontline community services, including additional funding to support the Primary Care Phased Investment Programme.
  • Reviewing delivery across all services, including monitoring the impact of NHS dental payment reform as introduced in November 2023, to ensure that they maximise support and access for those patients with the greatest need.
  • Continuing to roll out new initiatives such as the Community Glaucoma Service which will redirect routine glaucoma care into the community for up to 20,000 patients, freeing up capacity in hospital eye services.
  • Contributing, through the Preventive and Proactive Care programme, to wider work across NHS Scotland to support and empower patients in self‑care and join up services to provide early intervention on known determinants of poor health.
• Substantially reducing delayed discharges, working with local health and social care partnerships to:
  • Reduce variation in practice across different parts of Scotland so that people are discharged from hospital as soon as they are ready to leave, making sure they can get the care they need at home or in the care setting they are living in.
  • Ensuring partners work together to support effective discharge that will enable the best recovery in the most appropriate place, with targeted improvement support in the areas with the highest delays.
  • Reducing hospital admissions by providing the right care in the right setting, including through Hospital at Home which prevented over 10,000 older people spending time in hospital during April to December 2023, relieving pressure from A&E and the Scottish Ambulance Service and improving patient outcomes.

Across our broader public services, we will also work to ensure we improve standards and access, including:

• Making it easier to use public transport – launching a new Traveline Scotland journey planning website and app in Autumn 2024.
• Improving outcomes for victims, survivors and witnesses of crime across Scotland – providing £16 million in the 2024 to 2025 period through the Victim Centred Approach Fund to support 23 organisations to provide practical and emotional support.
• Reform of the Victim Notification Scheme to ensure that it operates in a more trauma‑informed and person‑centred way.
• Supporting victims and witnesses to get the support they need, by introducing training on trauma for staff across the justice system.

We have seen significant successes in our public services – including the best performing core A&E departments anywhere in the UK, record highs of young people going on to positive destinations, police recorded crime at one of the lowest levels since 1974, and reform across our police and fire services which has provided us with capable organisations with national reach and the flexibility to adapt to local needs. But we also recognise the daily realities for people. To deliver improved access, we are committed to reform which ensures public services are efficient and resilient, building on the many positive examples we have already seen.

We will take forward the next steps of our 10‑year Public Service Reform programme. This includes work to ensure high quality, effective and efficient services for all, prioritising prevention and reducing future demand. To deliver on our ambitions – working in partnership across the public, third and private sectors, and reflecting our shared commitment through the Verity House Agreement to a joint programme of reform – in the coming year we will:

• Improve attendance, attainment, and the curriculum in schools to boost standards, including:
  • Supporting education authorities and schools to reduce absence and improve attendance, and monitoring data regularly and taking further targeted action where needed.
  • Implementing the new Relationships and Behaviour in Schools Joint Action Plan 2024‑27, reporting annually on progress.
  • Accelerating progress in closing the poverty‑related attainment gap, through the Scottish Attainment Challenge, and by intensifying action to deal with the ongoing impacts of the pandemic on children’s progress.
  • Implementing the Curriculum Improvement Cycle, with work underway on maths and numeracy, led by the National Mathematics Specialist Adviser.
  • Progressing qualifications reform, and improving and diversifying our approach to assessment, including removing written exams from some practical subjects in 2025‑26.
  • Reforming our national education bodies to drive improvement. This includes a redesigned Education Scotland with a primary focus on the curriculum, a Centre for Teaching Excellence, replacing the Scottish Qualifications Authority with Qualifications Scotland, and creating a new independent inspectorate – all tasked with raising standards.
• Continue to progress and deliver actions that support a sustainable reduction in the prison population, aiming to shift the balance between the use of custody and justice in the community, including:
  • Changing the eligibility criteria for home detention curfew (HDC) and deploying GPS technology for use with HDC.
  • Introduction of a Bill proposing changes to the release process for prisoners.
  • An independent review of sentencing and penal policy, looking at how both imprisonment and community interventions are used, to reduce reoffending through meaningful rehabilitation and keep our communities safe.
  • Strengthening alternatives to remand in collaboration with justice partners, through continued investment for bail services, improving operational processes and exploring options to provide more focused support for people on bail.
  • Commissioning a new national partnership of third sector organisations – commencing in April 2025 – which will provide consistent voluntary throughcare support to anyone leaving short‑term prison sentences and periods of remand.
• Take forward engagement and planning for the transformation required to deliver our vision of a Scotland where people live longer, healthier and fulfilling lives. Our reform will focus on improving population health, prevention and early intervention, backed by increased productivity, maximising access to quality health and social care services – including:
  • Deploying digital technologies to modernise services, including launching the first version of a personalised digital health and social care service which, over 5 years, will provide digital notifications, access to personal health information, and options for interacting online with health and social care services.
  • Transforming our approach to innovation across health and social care by building a new partnership between Government, the NHS, academic institutions, and industry. We will accelerate the ability to undertake commercial clinical trials, introducing new technologies through three Regional Innovation Hubs, providing new opportunities to grow Scotland’s cluster of life science businesses, and using our Accelerated National Innovation Adoption pathway to adopt research proven innovations.
  • Continue to work with COSLA to identify options for the removal of non‑residential care charges as part of wider work with partners on social care improvement.
  • Continue work to establish the National Care Service by the end of this Parliamentary term to reform how social work, social care and community health is delivered, improving standards, quality and fairness.
  • Deliver Anne’s Law by the end of this Parliamentary term to ensure that the rights of residents in care homes and their families are upheld and legislate to give carers a right to breaks.
• Engage with Police Scotland as they develop and implement a three‑year reform programme focused on developing police capacity and capability.
• Take the first steps to delivering meaningful and sustained change in the police standards, complaints, and misconduct systems through the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill.
• Make a full contribution to the ongoing inquiries into the Covid‑19 pandemic and respond to the UK Covid Inquiry’s recommendations on resilience and preparedness, and our progress to implement these changes, by January 2025.
• Continue to work on removing the barriers some people experience to voting independently and in secret, to ensure everyone has a say.

New partnership for pioneering kidney health research

Clinical trials to accelerate research into treating chronic kidney disease will be strengthened because of a new partnership between the Scottish Government, academia and industry.

NHS Scotland, AstraZeneca and the Universities of Dundee and Glasgow will work together on new medicines to slow the progression of chronic kidney disease, reducing the risk that patients might need dialysis or kidney transplantation. The partnership will allow for development of new treatments to treat chronic kidney disease, build infrastructure, and enhance expertise in renal clinical trial delivery in Scotland.

Preventing progression of the disease allows people to live longer, better lives, free from other consequences of the condition such as heart failure, cardiovascular disease and stroke. This allows people to work, contribute to their communities and economy, while reducing pressure on the NHS.

Our public services are only as strong as the people who dedicate their careers to them, and those professionals deserve their tireless efforts to be recognised. We will continue to do this by awarding fair pay settlements – guided by our recent Public Sector Pay Policy and with average public sector pay in Scotland around 6% more than the rest of the UK – and reducing workload and improving conditions. In the coming year, we will:

• Progress towards a 36‑hour working week for Agenda for Change staff, building on an initial 30‑minute reduction in working hours. We will ensure learning time is protected and progress the review of Band‑5 nursing roles across NHS Scotland.
• Review and reform the Junior Doctor and Dentist contract, bringing forward recommendations on a Pay Review mechanism.
• Provide local authorities with £145.5 million to protect teacher numbers, having delivered a 14.6% increase in teachers’ pay between 2022 and 2024.
• Implement the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences (Scotland) Act 2024 – to ensure sub‑postmasters who have been the victims of this miscarriage of justice know their conviction is quashed and how to access the UK redress scheme.

Alongside our people, we can also deliver better outcomes by investing in infrastructure across services and embracing innovation. Within an incredibly tight capital funding settlement, we will work to deliver modern environments for learning and working – maintaining existing infrastructure and delivering new facilities where needed – and utilise new technology to ensure modern and sustainable services. In the coming year, we will:

• Start construction of a further eight projects through the Learning Estate Investment Programme. By the end of 2027-28, this will have seen 47 modern, state of the art school building projects opened, contributing to increasing the proportion of pupils being educated in good or satisfactory buildings from 61% in April 2007 to 90.7% in April 2023.
• Expand the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability system to every police Division – meaning justice agencies can share evidence across one system, delivering efficiencies and supporting the quicker resolution of cases.
• Support the rollout of a judicially led approach to summary case management which will reduce the backlog in the courts system. Pilot areas are demonstrating significant early success in reducing the number of people who must attend court to give evidence, and unnecessary rescheduling of court cases.
• Invest in our prison estate, supporting replacement prisons in Inverness and Glasgow.
• Provide nearly £2.5 billion to support public transport in 2024‑25 – making our transport system available, affordable, and accessible for all – and £1 billion in ensuring our motorway and trunk road network is safe, resilient, and efficient.

High quality public services improve people’s lives here and now, but also play an important role as the first line of defence against longer‑term impacts that inequalities have on people, the economy, and our public services. Prioritising prevention and tackling health inequalities unlocks benefits for people and public services. This year we will:

• Reduce deaths and the level of harm caused by alcohol and drug deaths by delivering the National Mission, including:
  • Implementing Medication Assisted Treatment standards to ensure people have quicker access to treatments aligned with physical and mental health support.
  • Widening access to Residential Rehabilitation, increasing capacity by 50% to 650 beds, with 1000 people to access public funding for their rehab placement every year by 2026.
  • Going further than our previously planned treatment targets by launching a National Specification, to raise awareness on the full range of treatments required in all areas to ensure improved recovery outcomes.
• Support families affected by drug and alcohol use – including early intervention for young people at risk, reducing stigma, integrating mental health support, and funding specialist residential rehabilitation services for families and perinatal women.
• Ensure that people who are in crisis or distress can connect with services that meet their needs, strengthening collaboration between Police Scotland, Mental Health Services, and other partners to better manage demand.
• Work with COSLA and Health & Social Care Partnerships to increase access to the care and support people living with dementia receive following a diagnosis. This includes an expansion of community‑based approaches, reducing demand for more intensive health and social care support and enabling a greater proportion of the 90,000 people in Scotland with dementia to live well for longer, in a setting of their choice.
• Test our approach to Bairns’ Hoose across ten areas – providing safe, trauma‑informed environments for child victims and witnesses to access multi‑agency support and recovery services – ahead of a national rollout, incrementally, from 2027.
• Continue work to Keep the Promise by consulting on the next stages of reform of the children’s hearing system, future of foster care, and the support available to those moving on from care.
• Prioritise crime prevention initiatives, implementing our Violence Prevention Framework, and maximising the impact of our £7 million Cashback for Communities programme.
• Act on the recommendations of our independent expert working group on antisocial behaviour, who will report at the end of 2024.
• Support action to prevent and reduce retail crime, including the Scottish Partnership Against Acquisitive Crime (SPAACE).
• Work with Police Scotland and Crimestoppers/Fearless to fund and develop a targeted sextortion awareness campaign to be launched this year.
• Continue to make progress towards concluding the joint review of local governance by the end of this Parliamentary session – this includes developing single authority models with local government and health partners to strengthen and streamline local decision‑making, and support a shift towards more preventative public services.
• Work with communities to take forward the findings of the Democracy Matters national engagement exercise on the future of community decision‑making, responding in detail to the national consultation on the future of community decision‑making.
• Work with partners and COSLA to strengthen Community Planning Partnerships to shift the balance in how public services are designed and delivered towards prevention.
• Collaborate across the four nations on banning the sale of single use vapes and the UK Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which will progressively increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes and restrict the promotion of vapes – working to ensure that Scotland is tobacco free by 2034.
• Through regulations which came into force in August, end the detention of under 18s in young offenders’ institutions. Under 18s will now be detained in alternative settings, such as secure accommodation. Those under 18s who were detained in a young offenders’ institution before 28 August have now safely transitioned to new settings.

The circumstances that give rise to increasing demand on public services are a clear symptom of inequality in our society. For many people, particularly minority groups, multiple inequalities can intersect to pull them into poverty and make its impacts even more significant – while the recent disorder seen in other parts of the UK has reemphasised the vital need to support our diverse communities. We will protect and promote equality and human rights through our work and support all of Scotland’s people by:

• Seeking to strengthen implementation of human rights and advancing proposals around extended rights protections. We remain committed to legislation to incorporate international treaties into Scots law, developing proposals and engaging with stakeholders.
• Delivering on the recommendation made by the First Minister’s National Advisory Council for Women and Girls (NACWG) to produce the first Annual Statement on Gender Policy Coherence.
• Working with NACWG to identify the improvements we can take to ensure a whole‑government commitment to tackling inequality. We will use a Parliamentary debate in Spring 2025 to challenge and strengthen our approach.
• Implementing our Equally Safe Delivery Plan that focuses actions to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls. This includes ensuring our response to violence against Minority Ethnic women and girls meets their needs.
• Progressing our commitment to ending conversion practices in Scotland and work towards complementary approaches across the UK. We will prepare legislation for introduction to the Scottish Parliament should a UK‑wide approach not be achievable. By strengthening the support and services available to victims and survivors of conversion practices, we will ensure inclusivity is at the heart of everything we do.
• Delivering our Disability Equality Plan – ensuring the voices of disabled people are at the centre of policy and decision making, including an annual Cabinet meeting ‘takeover’ to facilitate meaningful and credible engagement with disabled people.
• Working with partners across the public and third sectors to embed anti‑racism and advance the Race Equality Framework, including delivery of the Anti‑Racism Observatory.
• Delivering the New Scots Delivery Plan (2024‑2026), working with COSLA and the Scottish Refugee Council to ensure Scotland maintains its international reputation as a welcoming nation for refugees and those seeking asylum.
• Accelerating action to ensure that Human Rights and Equality remains forefront in all the government and public sector does. We will consult on and publish a framework to embed equality and human rights across the Scottish Government and the wider public sector. This framework will include an action plan and toolkit, setting out practical steps to progress this ambition. This will be complemented by action to enhance the effectiveness of the Public Sector Equality Duty.
• Continuing to develop and embed social justice, rights, and equalities across education, through implementation of both our Learning for Sustainability Action Plan to 2030 and the recommendations of the Anti‑Racism in Education Programme.

While focussing on inequality at home, we will not forget our commitment to the global Sustainable Development Goals. We will protect our commitments on climate justice, international development, and humanitarian assistance, launching new programmes to support good global citizenship, connecting Scotland to the Global South.

Ensuring High Quality and Sustainable Public Services: our action in numbers

• Deliver 20,000 procedures annually in our new National Treatment Centres
• Opening our sixth Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Service
• £16 million Victim Centred Approach Fund in 2024-25
• 14.6% increase in teachers’ pay between 2022 and 2024
• 8 new schools entering construction this year
• £120 million for continued mental health services improvements
• £2.5 billion this year to support public transport services
• 50% increase in residential rehabilitation beds by 2026