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: S5O-00370

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 November 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to disband the board of the Scottish Funding Council.

Question reference: S5O-00312

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what support it will offer the new National Marine Centre being developed at North Berwick.

Question reference: S5O-00245

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 October 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what additional support from the Council Tax Reduction scheme it will provide from April 2017 for families in the Musselburgh Jobcentre area who have migrated to universal credit.

Question reference: S5W-03076

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 13 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what level of funding was provided to the Scottish Qualifications Authority in each year in (a) real and (b) cash terms since 2007.

The information requested is in the following table:

	Real terms £000	Cash terms £000
2007-08	£17.646m	£15.559m
2008-09	£15.153m	£13.724m
2009-10	£16.173m	£14.850m
2010-11	£18.587m	£17.378m
2011-12	£21.187m	£20.084m
2012-13	£18.805m	£18.200m
2013-14	£22.406m	£22.043m
2014-15	£19.839m	£19.823m
2015-16	£23.120m	£23.120m

Real terms figures are in 2015-16 prices and are calculated using the HM Treasury GDP deflator series.

Cash terms figures from 2009-10 onward taken from annual NDPB cash grant in aid returns. Figures for 2007-08 and 2008-09 taken from SQA Annual Accounts.

Question reference: S5W-03075

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 13 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what level of funding will be provided to the Scottish Qualifications Authority in each year of the current parliamentary session in (a) real and (b) cash terms.

Question reference: S5W-03081

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 5 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what level of funding will be provided to the review by HM Inspectors of Education into "the demands placed on schools by each local authority" as stated in the Programme for Government.

Question reference: S5W-03091

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 5 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much it will provide in (a) real and (b) cash terms in each of the next five years to increase the proportion of looked-after children moving on from school into (i) education, (ii) training and (iii) employment.

The Scottish Government will set out its spending plans for all areas including for looked after children in its 2017-18 Draft Budget. This will be in week commencing 12 December, after the UK Government’s Autumn Statement.

Proposals for 2018-19 and 2019-20 will follow later in the parliament following the conclusions of the joint working group that has been established to look at the budget timetable.

The Scottish Government continues to fund Developing the Young Workforce, Scotland’s Youth Employment Strategy implementation through a range of core budgets including those of Skills Development Scotland and Scottish Funding Council. This is in line with Sir Ian Wood’s Commission’s view which advised funding Developing the Young Workforce activity from mainstream budgets.

Looked after young people and care leavers are specific priority groups across the Scottish Government funded training and employment programmes, including Activity Agreements, Employability Fund, Community Jobs Scotland, Scotland’s Employer Recruitment Incentive and Modern Apprenticeships. Our Equalities Action Plan for Modern Apprenticeships (MA) published in November 2015 outlines the actions Skills Development Scotland will undertake with partners to improve the participation of under-represented groups, including care leavers, within the MA programme. An additional package of in-work support is also available to young care leavers through our funded Open Doors In Work support package.

The Scottish Government is working with stakeholders on the development of options to deliver a new fund, as outlined in the manifesto, for young people who have been in care, to support them into appropriate work, training or educational opportunities. We aim to announce further detail of the focus and the operation of the new fund by early 2017.

For 2016-17, the Scottish Funding Council has asked colleges to ensure looked after young people and care leaver students receive the maximum further education bursary award of £95.94 per week. This is supported by record levels of funding for all students at £106 million in 2016.

The Scottish Government will also deliver on our commitments to implement the Commission on Widening Access’s recommendation specifically to support care leavers including ensuring that young people who have experience of care, and who meet the minimum entry standards, will be offered a place at university and, in addition to ensuring they have free tuition like all students, we will support them with a full bursary, currently £7,625, from 2017-18.

Question reference: S5W-03098

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 5 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much it provided in (a) real and (b) cash terms to increase the proportion of looked-after children moving on from school into (i) education, (ii) training and (iii) employment in each year since 2007.

The Scottish Government does not provide ring-fenced funding for looked after children moving from school into education, training and employment. However, a wide range of provisions to support all young people’s post-16 transitions, including for looked after children and care leavers, have been delivered and funded by a number of partners including Scottish Government, Scottish Funding Council, Skills Development Scotland, Local Authorities and the Third Sector. All funding will have been set out in annual Budget and Spending Reviews and programmes will have contributed to the delivery of the national outcomes aimed at raising standards in schools and closing the attainment gap, and delivering opportunities to our young people regardless of their family background.

In addition, the Scottish Government block grant to local authorities also included allocations of funding in support of the Pathways process for looked after children. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities. I refer the member to the answer to question
S5W-01006 on 1 July 2016 that details expenditure on Children and Families social work by Scottish local authorities for financial years 2007-08 to 2014-15. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Question reference: S5W-03103

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 3 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government when it will announce details of the updated package of support for eligible postgraduate students for academic year 2017-18.

Question reference: S5W-03102

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 3 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much it will provide in the next five years to fund the higher education bursary available to students with an income of up to £19,000, and how much of this money is additional under the new threshold.