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: S5W-34330

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 08 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 11 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether identity checks using credit agencies of people seeking to access COVID-19 tests are routinely carried out by health and social care partnerships and, if so, for what reason.

Health and Social Care Partnerships have a limited role in the provision of testing for the general public. They have formal responsibility for Covid-19 Community Assessment centres, and for decisions on where to station Mobile Testing Units. Community Assessment Centres operate in some Board areas, and may, if appropriate, advise people to book a test.

Identity checks using credit agencies of people seeking to access Covid-19 tests are not routinely carried out by health and social care partnerships. They are however carried out by DHSC. DHSC undertakes a basic identity check when people order a kit, to prevent fraud. A TransUnion check is a necessary element of the COVID home testing service to provide an identity verification process as an effective means of stopping fraudulent orders and is based on international evidence.

TransUnion only verifies identity, it does not in any way conduct a credit check. If a user fails the TransUnion check, they are advised to call the Contact Centre 119.

TransUnion does not collect or retain data on individuals that book tests, other than a record of processing in order to meet regulatory obligations. The rights for TransUnion to use the data in any of its other products or service were removed from the contract. All the data is processed and stored within the UK in line with their privacy policy. Further details can be found at:

https://www.transunion.co.uk/legal/privacy%20centre .

Question reference: S5F-04791

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 08 February 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 February 2021

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S5W-34771

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 8 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether student loans will be topped up beyond the current academic year for social work students whose course placements have been postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Students studying a course of Higher Education (HE) who require to repeat a full year of study are able to access an additional year of funding known as a ‘+1’. Care Experienced students studying in HE are able to access two additional years of funding. HE students who have exhausted their funding options and require to repeat a year of studies due to Covid-19 will have their requests considered under compassionate grounds by the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS). This includes undergraduate social work students.

We are actively considering the issue of part-year repeat or extended study as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic for all Further and Higher education students and the associated financial support to students.

The Scottish Government is also working with the Social Work Education Partnership to ensure that there are sufficient social work student placements for our future workforce. The Social Work Education Partnership comprises HEIs’, employers, Cosla and stakeholder organisations and works to ensure the quality and consistency of practice learning. It has been working closely with all HEIs to find solutions to the placement issues caused by Covid-19 and a number of measures are already in place including the prioritisation of the provision of final placements, the piloting of a simulated placement module for first placements and the roll out of national Link Worker training.

We have also provided £430k at a national level for a resumption of placement fee to HEIs which will help employers with the costs that may be incurred in providing a placements which now involves increased homeworking (to assist with IT costs or additional training for practice educators).

Question reference: S5W-34776

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government who it engaged to provide training for civil servants in preparation for their appearance at the Committee on the Scottish Government’s Handling of Harassment Complaints; how much the training cost, and what the content of the training was.

Question reference: S5W-34772

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 3 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many of the deaths related to COVID-19 that occurred in hospitals were care home residents who had been admitted to hospital, broken down by NHS board area.

NRS published one-off analysis in June 2020 regarding deaths of care home residents involving COVID-19 which included deaths in hospital at a Scotland level. In week 20 (week ending 17 th May 2020) there were 154 COVID-19 deaths of people whose usual residence was a care home and who died in hospital. The represents 9.3% of COVID-19 hospital deaths involving people resident in care homes.

The analysis is available here:

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/covid19/covid-deaths-care-home-residents.xlsx .

Question reference: S5W-34389

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 08 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 3 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether state aid limits will apply to (a) recent and (b) future grants awarded to businesses under its Strategic Framework Business Fund in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Question reference: S5F-04772

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 01 February 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 February 2021

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S5W-34359

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 08 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 29 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many registered COVID-19 vaccinators there are in each NHS board area.

Registered Vaccinators (Headcount), Vaccination Management Tool (VMT)
Health Board	22-Jan-21
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	237
NHS Borders	189
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	412
NHS Education for Scotland	2
NHS Fife	206
NHS Forth Valley	372
NHS Grampian	1514
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	1527
NHS Highland	607
NHS Lanarkshire	922
NHS Lothian	946
NHS Orkney	57
NHS Shetland	52
NHS Tayside	912
NHS Western Isles	86
Scottish Ambulance Service	269
The Golden Jubilee Hospital	22
The State Hospital	7
Territorial Boards Total	8039
Special Boards* Total	300
Grand Total	8339

This figure represents the number of staff that have completed all mandatory training components, and are registered on the vaccination management tool, by Health Board Area. It does not, however, include all GPs participating in the programme, many of whom are using local systems to record vaccinations.

Data from the VMT is management information, and is subject to change.

Question reference: S5W-34360

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 08 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 29 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has encouraged former NHS staff that can give COVID-19 vaccinations to return to the workforce and, if so, how many have been recruited.

The Scottish Government has welcomed support from former NHS staff who have offered to assist in the delivery of the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme. Individuals can offer their support at: Coronavirus (COVID-19): guidance on offering support - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

In October we shared information with Health Boards from nurses, registered on our Accelerated Recruitment Portal, who expressed an interest in supporting the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme. We have provided 188 prospective vaccinators to Health Boards through this route.

We have also written to regulatory bodies (HCPC, GPhC, GMC and NMC), to help connect temporary registrants with their local Health Boards in order that they may register an interest in returning to support the delivery of healthcare services.

Question reference: S5W-34770

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 29 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to introduce repeated routine testing for COVID-19 for teachers in (a) mainstream and (b) special needs schools.

The Scottish Government is operating a number of pathfinder testing programmes with the aim of delivering a sustainable system of regular asymptomatic testing for staff in a school environment. The pilots are primarily intended to help us rapidly identify and understand any logistical and implementation challenges involved in the different models of testing.

Consideration of options to scale up testing of school staff in all schools in Scotland is ongoing, and will be informed by early learning from these pilots. Regular staff testing is just one potential COVID-19 mitigation in addition to the robust package of measures already in place in schools.