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: S4W-07173

Asked by: Maureen Watt, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 May 2012
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 25 May 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to monitor the accuracy of the information recorded by bus companies regarding the distances travelled by passengers using the concessionary travel scheme.

Bus Operators within the concessionary travel scheme must use ticketing equipment approved by Scottish Ministers. This requires use of ITSO approved electronic ticketing machines which record and transmit the detail of each transaction. These transactions form the basis of bus operators’ claims for reimbursement.

All claims for reimbursement are subject to comprehensive validation checks by Transport Scotland staff. Any discrepancies are investigated and subject to further detailed analysis and audit. This is supported by a programme of “on bus” surveys where journey information obtained from the surveys is compared to the claims submitted by bus operators.

National Entitlement Cardholders also participate in the completion of “travel diaries” which are then passed to Transport Scotland for analysis. Any discrepancies between the journey information recorded by the cardholder and the claim submitted by the bus operator are then investigated.

Question reference: S4W-07174

Asked by: Maureen Watt, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 May 2012
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 25 May 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how many instances of bus companies inaccurately recording the distances travelled by passengers using the concessionary travel scheme have been recorded in each year since 2007, also broken down by local authority area.

Transport Scotland staff actively use a range of techniques in order to analyse reimbursement claims from bus operators. On average, around 400,000 concessionary journeys are undertaken daily. Due to the volume of journey transactions, it is not possible to identify individual instances of overstaging, although trends are identified.

We do record instances reported by members of the public and since 2010, there has been 1,267 instances reported to Transport Scotland. Of these instances,
654 were confirmed as being inaccurate.

These are broken down as follows –

Year	Number of instances reported by cardholders	Number confirmed following analysis
2010	219	156
2011	847	382
2012 (to 16 May )	201	116

These cannot be broken down by local authority area as bus operators run services which pass through more than one local authority area.

Prior to 2010, smart ticketing and the current intelligence reporting system were not in place and as such, this level of detail cannot be reported on for that period.

Question reference: S4O-01086

Asked by: Maureen Watt, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 31 May 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how it will encourage the use of tablet computers and other new technologies in classrooms.

Question reference: S4O-01035

Asked by: Maureen Watt, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 May 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions the Minister for Local Government and Planning has had with Aberdeen City Council regarding its plans to improve public buildings.

Question reference: S4O-00985

Asked by: Maureen Watt, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 May 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 May 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what measures it is taking to involve local communities in preventing the entry of contraband into the prison estate.

Question reference: S4O-00890

Asked by: Maureen Watt, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 April 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide an update on the Year of Creative Scotland.

Question reference: S4O-00819

Asked by: Maureen Watt, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 March 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what impact the UK budget of 21 March 2012 will have on devolved matters.

Question reference: S4O-00812

Asked by: Maureen Watt, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 March 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress local authorities have made in developing new local development plans.

Question reference: S4F-00496

Asked by: Maureen Watt, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 February 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 March 2012

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to improve childcare provision.

Question reference: S4O-00721

Asked by: Maureen Watt, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to provide more children with the opportunity to learn to swim.

This Government is keen to ensure that every child is given the opportunity to learn to swim and to also have access to the right facilities so that they can keep swimming.

In the last two years we have invested over £3.2 million in Scottish Swimming including investment of £1.2 million for the Top Up swimming programme, £420,000 of which will be used to extend this initiative in 2012-13. Last year the “Top Up” programme was supported by all 32 local authority swimming partners across Scotland and helped to increase the number of children who can swim giving them new skills for safety, fitness, health and fun.

Our commitment to delivering our aim is also demonstrated through our investment in quality facilities including 12 new and upgraded swimming pools including the Royal Commonwealth Pool and a 50m pool in Aberdeen.