Martin Whitfield

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many Disclosure Scotland permanent job vacancies have remained unfilled for more than six months since May 2021.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:From January 2022 to September 2025, there have been four permanent vacancies at Disclosure Scotland that were unfilled for more than six months (from when…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many Disclosure Scotland employees have left their job, including through resignation, within their first year of employment since 2022.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:Since 2022, seven permanent Disclosure Scotland employees have left their job within their first year of employment.

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact that any delays in the processing of Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) certificates by Disclosure Scotland have had on recruitment in the (a) social care and (b) teaching sector in the last year.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:Disclosure Scotland have undertaken priority work to ensure future planning for high application volume periods is informed by internal reviews and stakeho…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on the number of complaints that have been received regarding dampness, mould or ventilation issues in council-run nurseries since 2021.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The Scottish Government does not hold this information. It is the role of the Care Inspectorate to investigate complaints about registered care services, and these can include concerns about the fitness of premises, such as damp, mould, and ventilation issues.

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how much Disclosure Scotland has spent on agency or temporary staff in each of the last five financial years.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows: Agency and temporary staff (£'000)Agency (£'000)IT Contractors (£'000)2024-259,8665639,3032023-248,8084128,3962022-239,1758808,2952…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many voluntary sector organisations have reported having to delay recruitment due to Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) processing times since 2021.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:Disclosure Scotland do not hold the information requested.The Scottish Government provides annual funding to Volunteer Scotland Disclosure Services (VSDS) …

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many funded childcare providers have deregistered since 2021, broken down by (a) voluntary sector, (b) private and (c) council-run settings.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The Scottish Government does not collect this information. However, the Care Inspectorate collects and publishes data on service cancellations and registrations, available on the Care Inspectorate’s website: Statistics and analysis.Figure 9 of the Care …

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on the proportion of early learning and childcare facilities that have no access to an outdoor play space.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The Scottish Government does not hold information on the proportion of early learning and childcare facilities that have no access to an outdoor play space.The Care Inspectorate assesses settings’ access to outdoor play space at the initial registration…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has allocated to ensure that The Promise's goals are fully embedded in Children’s Hearings Scotland's training programme.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: Children’s Hearings Scotland is responsible for the recruitment, training and retention of children’s hearings panel members and is assigned funding through the grant-in-aid process. It is a matter for the National Convener to allocate resource to…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many civil servants are currently assigned to The Promise team, and how many have been redeployed in the last 12 months.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: There are currently 12 civil servants assigned to the core Promise team. Work to keep The Promise is cross portfolio and officials across Scottish Government are actively engaged in work to support delivery of the recommendations set out in The Promise.

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many requests for respite care have been declined due to a lack of staff availability in the last year.

Answer · Tom Arthur: 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 o…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of Disclosure Scotland’s total workforce is currently made up of agency or temporary employees.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:15.8% of Disclosure Scotland’s total workforce is made up of agency or temporary employees. This is based on September full-time equivalent work figu…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of Disclosure Scotland's budget has been allocated to improve application processing times.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: 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 f…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many Protecting Vulnerable Group (PVG) certificate applications relating to people working with children are currently outstanding beyond the standard processing target.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: 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 …

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many official complaints have been submitted by care-experienced young people about their treatment in the care system in the last year.

Answer · Tom Arthur: The Scottish Government does not hold this data centrally. Complaints about care services are investigated by the Care Inspectorate, the independent body responsible for the scrutiny and improvement of care and social work services in Scotland.

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what mechanisms exist to evaluate complaints from children about their experience in public services.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The Scottish Public Service Ombudsman (SPSO) has a statutory function in relation to complaints handling for most public bodies. If children and/or their representatives are not content with the way a public service within SPSO’s jurisdiction has dealt …

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many children were waiting for adoption placements as of the latest date for which data is available, and what the longest waiting time currently is.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The Fostering_and_adoption_statistical_bulletin_2024-2025.pdf were published on 28 October 2025.At 31 December 2024, there were 133 children and young people who had been approved for adoption across 23 local authority services and were waiting to be matched …

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what the total spend on recruitment for adoption and support services has been in each year since 2020.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The Scottish Government values the commitment that adoptive families and practitioners make to providing safe, loving, nurturing homes for children and young people across Scotland.We have awarded the following total funding since 2020 to the Association for …

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of child protection concerns raised by health visitors have been escalated to formal investigation in each year since 2016.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: This information is not held by Scottish Government. The Scottish Government published updated national-guidance-child-protection-scotland-2021-updated-2023.pdf in 2023, which includes practitioner guidance on raising child protection concerns and outlines th…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many playparks have been closed due to safety concerns in each of the last five years.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on how many playparks have been closed due to safety concerns in the last five years. Responsibility for the safety, management and maintenance of play parks rests with individual Local Authorities.

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the average cost of private nursery fees for children aged under two, and what information it holds on the proportion of families that report going into debt to cover the cost of these fees.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The Scottish Government does not hold this information specifically, but information on the amount spent and affordability of childcare by age of child was collected as part of the Parent Survey: Supporting documents - Early learning and childcare - parents' …

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what the total spend on consultancy fees related to The Promise has been since 2020.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: 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…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many early learning and childcare workforce vacancies are currently unfilled.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The Scottish Social Services Council publishes data annually on vacancies in social care services. The latest report, published on 10 March 2025, showed that as of 31 December 2023, 32% of Day Care of Children services reported a vacancy.

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on the number of nurseries currently operating from temporary cabins or modular buildings rather than permanent structures.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government. 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 informat…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many children have been injured in play areas operated by local authorities in the last 12 months.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on how many children have been injured in play areas operated by local authorities in the last 12 months. Responsibility for the safety, management and maintenance of play parks rests with individual…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many local authorities currently have no ring-fenced capital budget for playpark maintenance or renewal.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: This information currently is not held by the Scottish Government.The £60 million play park renewal funding is allocated to local authorities to use across their whole play estate during the course of this Parliament term. It is the responsibility of th…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many recommendations from the Independent Care Review remain outstanding.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The Scottish Government remains fully committed to delivering all recommendations of the Independent Care Review, as part of its pledge to Keep The Promise by 2030.The Promise Implementation Plan, published in March 2022, set out the Government’s approa…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many nursery buildings currently contain reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), and how many children are impacted.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: It is the responsibility of building owners and managers to check their buildings for Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) and, if identified, to determine whether there is a risk.From information provided by local authorities and Scottish Futures Tr…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many early learning and childcare settings have been inspected by the Care Inspectorate from 2022 to 2025, and how many of these received “weak” or “unsatisfactory” grades.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: The Care Inspectorate has provided the following information:From 1 April 2022 until 31 March 2025 the Care Inspectorate conducted inspections in 3,831 Childminding and Day Care of Children services, undertaking 4,892 graded inspections. In total, 385 of thes…

9 Oct 2025 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many cases in the Children’s Hearings System were continued more than twice due to insufficient reporters or staff to review the case.

Answer · Natalie Don-Innes: 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 t…