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-34179

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 24 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis each emergency service takes into the reason for calls being recorded as hung up or terminated early, including the potential impact on response times and outcomes.

Question reference: S6W-34178

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 24 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps each emergency service is taking to reduce the number of emergency calls that are recorded as being hung up or terminated prematurely, and what information it has regarding the outcome of this action.

Question reference: S6W-34176

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 24 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what protocols each emergency service has in place to follow up on calls that are recorded as having been hung up or terminated before completion.

Question reference: S6W-34177

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 24 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many calls to each emergency service that have been recorded as being (a) hung up and (b) terminated before completion in each year since 2018 have resulted in a response being dispatched.

Question reference: S6W-34171

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many pupil support assistants are employed in schools, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S6W-34173

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many teachers who qualified in each of the last five years have secured permanent positions, broken down by (a) subject and (b) local authority.

Question reference: S6W-34168

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many teachers are employed on a (a) permanent, (b) temporary and (c) supply contract, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S6W-34169

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to increase the availability of permanent teaching posts.

The Scottish Government is committed to increasing teacher numbers to deliver improved outcomes for children and young people.

The number of teachers in permanent posts has remained stable at more than 80% over the past 10 years. In addition, the number of teachers in Scotland's classrooms has increased by more than 2,500 over the past decade, as a result of investment by the Scottish Government. While we cannot direct teachers where to work, it is important to note that teacher vacancies arise across Scotland throughout the year.

We recently agreed with local government a commitment to working together to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels in 2025-2026, freeze learning hours and make meaningful progress towards reducing class contact time for teachers.

In order to support each of these measures, the Scottish Government is increasing the funding available to local government to £186.5 million in 2025-2026, and will issue £145.5 million to local government in full this financial year.

Local government will also receive additional funding of £28 million from 2025-2026 to develop the Additional Support for Learning (ASL) education workforce with further funding of £1 million being made available to support national initiatives which will help to recruit and train more ASL teachers.

Question reference: S6W-34170

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many teachers have been signed off work due to stress in each year since 2018, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S6W-34612

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the expected lifespan is of any solar panels installed on government-owned buildings, and what the estimated cost is of their (a) maintenance and (b) eventual replacement.

The solar panels installed on core Scottish Government buildings have an output warranty of 25 years. The panels will continue to operate past 25 years, however their output will be lower than new panels. Maintenance costs are included in the overall building maintenance costs and cannot be disaggregated. The cost of replacing the panels at the end of their life cannot be estimated due to the timescales involved.