Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-15302

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many current vacancies there are for full-time, permanent teaching positions in (a) physics, (b) chemistry, (c) mathematics, (d) computing science, (e) technical education and (f) home economics, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S6W-15296

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many STEM teacher education bursaries were available in each academic year since 2018-19.

Question reference: S6W-15298

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) students at Scotland’s universities in (a) physics, (b) chemistry, (c) mathematics, (d) computing science, (e) technical education, (f) home economics were STEM teacher education bursary recipients, in each academic year since 2018-19.

Bursary recipients by subject in 2018-19, as a percentage of all Scottish domiciled PDGE/PDCE enrolments that year
Chemistry (including one Biology/Chemistry dual entry)	1.63%
Computing science	0.89%
Home Economics – n/a	n/a
Mathematics (including one Maths/Physics dual entry)	3.17%
Physics	1.38%
Technical Education	1.63%
Total	8.7%

Bursary recipients by subject in 2019-20, as a percentage of all Scottish domiciled PDGE/PDCE enrolments that year
Chemistry	2.02%
Computing Science	1.05%
Home Economics	0.67%
Mathematics (including two Maths/Physics dual entries)	2.32%
Physics	0.1%
Technical Education	1.35%
Total	8.31%

Bursary recipients by subject in 2020-21, as a percentage of all Scottish domiciled PDGE/PDCE enrolments that year
Chemistry (including three Chemistry/Biology and one Chemistry/Physics dual entries)	2.37%
Computing Science	0.81%
Home Economics	1.22%
Mathematics (including five Maths/Physics dual entries)	2.44%
Physics	1.69%
Technical Education	1.63%
Total	10.17%

Bursary recipients by subject in 2021-22, as a percentage of all Scottish domiciled PDGE/PDCE enrolments that year
Chemistry (including one Chemistry/Biology dual entry)	2.26%
Computing Science	0.99%
Home Economics	0.78%
Mathematics (including three Maths/Physics dual entries)	2.9%
Physics	1.27%
Technical Education (including one Technical Education/Physics dual entry)	1.48%
Total	9.68%

Data for 2022-23 not yet available

Question reference: S6W-15301

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many recipients of a STEM teacher education bursary in each academic year since 2018-19 were still employed as a teacher in a local authority school in February 2023.

Question reference: S6W-15107

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 2 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how the personal data of people in Scotland involved in the Homes for Ukraine scheme was accessed and used to send fraudulent letters.

Question reference: S6W-15106

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 2 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government (a) how and (b) when it became aware that the personal data of people in Scotland involved in the Homes for Ukraine scheme had been used to send fraudulent letters.

The Scottish Government was alerted by the UK Government on 6 February about a fraudulent letter claiming to be from Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to sponsors of the Homes for Ukraine Scheme, asking for data for the Ukraine Embassy.

The alert from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) did not refer to the accessing of personal data. In a public statement released by DLUHC on twitter shortly afterwards DLUHC stated that, “we are aware of fraudulent letters to homes for Ukraine hosts circulating on social media ”. The statement made no reference to the accessing of personal data of hosts taking part in the Scheme and DLUHC has not reported any subsequent issues regarding any breaches of data security.

Scottish Government issued the following message on social media platforms on 7 February: “We are aware of fraudulent letters being sent to Homes for Ukraine hosts. These are not from @dluhc or Scottish Government.”

The Scottish Government has implemented high security standards for personal data for volunteer hosts and has had no reported issues with data security.

Question reference: S6O-01935

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 February 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to support the work of Sistema Scotland.

Question reference: S6O-01895

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 February 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when it will update the Parliament on the future of benefits devolution and development, including any proposals for industrial injuries benefits.

Question reference: S6O-01857

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what monitoring is undertaken to ensure that any commitments made to tertiary education are delivered.

Question reference: S6W-13579

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 25 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-12170 by Shirley Anne-Somerville on 20 December 2022, whether it will provide the current budget allocations for each of the groups and sub-groups named.

The groups and sub-groups named in response to question S6W-12170 that have an allocated budget are:

Scottish Science Advisory Council £32,000
Youth Work Strategy Review Group - £3,500
National Bairns’ Hoose Governance Group - £14,400
Race Equality & Anti-Racism in Education Programme Board - £350,000
Gender Equality Taskforce in Education & Learning - £50,000

The other groups and sub-groups named in the previous response do not have allocated budgets. Any incidental costs associated with the running of these groups are covered by the relevant departments’ budgets.

Year	Number of bursaries
2018	100
2019	100
2020	150
2021	150
2022	150