First Minister’s Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 9 October 2025.
Martin Whitfield
Labour
The report “Improving care experience: Delivering The Promise”, by the Accounts Commission and the Auditor General, which was published yesterday, concluded that, from the outset, there was no assessment of what resources and skills were needed to deliver the Promise by 2030, or of how success would be defined or measured. Who should take responsibility for that failure?
John Swinney
Scottish National Party
As Mr Whitfield knows, I take responsibility for everything here. I am the First Minister of Scotland—I do not dodge that for a moment. We gave a commitment as a Government to honour the Promise. As for the definition of success, I am a wee bit mystified by that point in the Audit Scotland report. It is pretty clear what the Promise has to achieve by 2030, and we are making progress in that respect.
I understand Mr Whitfield’s interest in the question, but substantive progress has been made. For example, we have taken action to ensure that no young people under 18 are admitted to young offenders institutes, and we have fewer children in Scotland growing up in care since 2020—a reduction of 18.1 per cent. Incidents of physical restraint and seclusion are declining in children’s residential accommodation, and more people with care experience are going on to positive destinations nine months after leaving school.
I acknowledge that there is more work to be done. The work has been taken forward very effectively by the minister responsible, Natalie Don-Innes, who has my full support. We have legislation on the issue, which Parliament can scrutinise, and that will be dealt with by Parliament before the close of the parliamentary session.
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