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The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), whose functions will be replaced by Qualifications Scotland early next year, rightly offers a wide range of assessment arrangements to enable learners with additional support needs to demonstrate their knowledge and skills without compromising the integrity of the assessment.

It works with centres (schools, colleges or training providers) to ensure that all learners have the appropriate support they need for their assessments and exams.

Assessment arrangements are based on the candidate’s specific individual needs and reflect their way of producing work in class such as extra time, modified assessment formats, or the use of assistive technology.

The SQA does not require pupils to have a confirmed diagnosis of a disability for assessment arrangements to be put in place. However, there must be an identified need, and they rely on centres to submit requests and to consider the needs of individual learners. The SQA and centres have quality assurance processes in place to ensure that assessment arrangements are appropriate; guidance for centres setting out more detail is available on the SQA website.

Local authorities oversee the delivery of education and have a range statutory duties to provide for and to review the support they provide pupils with additional support needs.

Enquire is funded by the Scottish Government to help parents and carers to understand their child’s rights to additional support for learning and how to work in partnership with their school to make sure their child gets the support they need.

There are a range of dispute resolution mechanisms available under the Additional Support for Learning 2004 Act. These offer more formal ways to resolve concerns, if an agreement with the education authority cannot be met. Information about these mechanisms and what resolution they can offer, is available on the Enquire website.

Schools must arrange specialist anaphylaxis training for staff where a pupil within the school has been diagnosed as being at risk of anaphylaxis. Where this happens, schools should ensure there are a reasonable number of designated members of staff available to provide sufficient coverage, including times when staff are on leave. Furthermore, schools also have the authority to buy and hold spare Adrenaline Auto-injector (AAI) devices without the need for a prescription to use in emergency situations.

The Scottish Government believes there is currently sufficient legislation in place to require schools in Scotland to take appropriate action to safeguard children and young people with allergies. The Schools (Safety and Supervision of Pupils) (Scotland) Regulations 1990 provide that "without prejudice to any duties of education authorities arising under statute or any rule of law, every education authority shall take reasonable care for the safety of pupils when under their charge". This includes protecting pupils at risk of allergy from potential harm, therefore we have no plans to introduce further legislation relating to this matter.

The Scottish Government made a commitment in the Programme for Government 2025-26 to commission an independent review of the valuation of licensed hospitality properties, to be led by an independent chairperson and supported by persons with relevant knowledge and expertise, to report by the end of 2026 and consider any recommendations in advance of the 2029 revaluation cycle. It is not for the Scottish Government to pre-empt the review’s findings or recommendations but it will consider these in due course when the review group reports to Ministers. The Scottish Government confirmed the appointment of an independent chair for the Review and the chair is giving consideration to review group membership.

Decisions on non-domestic rates policy for 2026-27, including reliefs, are considered in the context of the Budget in line with other government priorities and will be set out in the Budget on 13 January 2026.

The Scottish Government confirmed the appointment of an independent chair for the Review and the chair is giving consideration to review group membership.

As I stated in my previous answer to Question S6W-41435 from Ariane Burgess MSP, initial meetings with stakeholders took place between 20 November 2024 and 16 January 2025 including with local authorities, farmer representatives, farm employers and regulatory bodies. This was to help better understand the situation during the scoping work.

Further meetings will be held with the wider sector when officials are in a position to begin consultation.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

The Scottish Government does not currently hold information about how many calls are made on average by a patient before securing access to medical care. The telephony systems currently used by most GP practices do not provide such data.

As part of our recent agreement with the BMA, the Scottish Government will invest in a national programme to ensure every GP practice has modern cloud-based telephony. By January 2027, every practice will need to have moved to cloud-based systems, in line with the national Public Switched Telephone Network switch-off. Work will begin with a full baseline assessment and agreed national standards, supported by training and change management. The main implementation phase for practices adopting digital cloud based telephony will take place in 2026-27, and we will be able to begin collecting data from practices once this work is complete.

Practices will be expected to use a core set of features such as automated call back, call flow, and real-time monitoring. These features are designed to reduce queues, improve safety, and provide the data needed for service planning. We will seek to establish a national programme to oversee this work.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-42626 on 22 December 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Decisions on non-domestic rates policy for 2026-27, including reliefs, are considered in the context of the Budget in line with other government priorities and will be set out on 13 January 2026.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-42504 on 22 December 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.