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: S4O-03555

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 September 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 October 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support traditional Scottish music and dance.

Question reference: S4O-03425

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 July 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 August 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support the 120 women who become unemployed each day into employment.

Question reference: S4W-21393

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 May 2014
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 27 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what job losses it estimates there would be at the Royal Mail Philatelic Bureau in the event of independence.

Question reference: S4W-21390

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 May 2014
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 27 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what estimate it has made of the cost of renationalising the Royal Mail in an independent Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-21391

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 May 2014
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 27 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what estimate it has made of the cost of running a mail service six days per week in an independent Scotland to include a universal service to remote and rural areas unsubsidised by other areas of the rest of the UK and what the cost would be of (a) first and second class stamps and (b) parcel delivery.

Question reference: S4W-21392

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 May 2014
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 27 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what advice it has sought on the subsidy needed to maintain a six day a week universal mail service in an independent Scotland without an increase in stamp charges.

Question reference: S4W-21405

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 23 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a list of all transfers of funds between NHS boards in 2012-13, including funds transferred to the Golden Jubilee Hospital.

In 2012-13, there was intra-NHS board trading of approximately £1.2 billion, the majority of which related to service level agreements agreed between NHS boards. The Scottish Government does not hold any details centrally on these agreements, although NHS boards do report the total income received from other NHS boards in their annual accounts return.

The National Waiting Times Centre NHS Board received £61.9 million from each NHS board broken down as:

Income Received from:	£000s
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	6,987
NHS Borders	(21)
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	2,584
NHS Fife	157
NHS Forth Valley	2,063
NHS Grampian	25
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	23,971
NHS Highland	1,886
NHS Lanarkshire	9,800
NHS Lothian	158
NHS Orkney	15
NHS Shetland	7
NHS Tayside	119
NHS Western Isles	566
NHS National Services Scotland	12,432
Scottish Ambulance Service	6
NHS Education for Scotland	494
The State Hospital	10
NHS 24	613
NHS Health Scotland	13
Healthcare Improvement Scotland	52
Total	61,937

Question reference: S4W-21404

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 06 June 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 18 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what savings have been delivered by the State Hospital (a) in each year and (b) cumulatively since 2006 in response to the recommendation at paragraph 6.5.54 of the Budget Review Group report, Choices for a Purpose: Review of Scottish Executive Budgets, and what the non-capital budget was in each year.

It is not possible to indicate how directly connected the savings generated by the State Hospital relate to the Choices for a Purpose report.

a) Total savings delivered in each of the years are as follows:

2006-07	£0.3 million
2007-08	£0.9 million
2008-09	£0.8 million
2009-10	£1.4 million
2010-11	£1.6 million
2011-12	£1.5 million
2012-13	£1.4 million
2013-14	£1.0 million

b) Cumulative ‘recurring’ savings delivered during the same period totalled £7.4 million.

The baseline budget for each year was:

2006-07	£30.8 million
2007-08	£32.7 million
2008-09	£33.7 million
2009-10	£34.8 million
2010-11	£35.5 million
2011-12	£33.2 million
2012-13	£33.2 million
2013-14	£33.6 million

Question reference: S4W-21402

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 06 June 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 18 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what savings were (a) planned and (b) achieved in response to the recommendation at paragraph 6.5.44 of the Budget Review Group report, Choices for a Purpose: Review of Scottish Executive Budgets, on Scottish Ambulance Service patient transport.

It is not possible to directly attribute either a) the planned savings or b) achieved savings to the recommendations in the Choices for a Purpose report.

It should however be noted that during 2009-10, the Scottish Ambulance Service completed a review of scheduled care using Lean methodology and involving frontline staff in the process. One of the outcomes of this review was the establishment of a business case for the redesign and reconfiguration of the Patient Transport Service (PTS) which detailed a five year improvement programme from 2011-12 through to 2015-16. Estimated baseline savings for the PTS following implementation of the plan are as follows:

Financial year	Baseline savings
2011-12	£1.7 million
2012-13	£2.9 million
2013-14	£4.5 million
2014-15	£5.9 million
2015-16	£7.3 million
2016-17	£8.1 million

The board is progressing with the improvement programme and is on track to deliver the baseline savings outlined in the plan with £4.4 million achieved by the end of
2013-14. The redesign and reconfiguration programme is anticipated to deliver
£8.1 million savings between 2011-12 and 2016-17.

Question reference: S4W-21620

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2014
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 18 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that women prisoners can have better access to modern technology to allow them to have more regular contact with their families.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

“The Scottish Prison Service is currently developing a strategy for the management of women in custody in parallel with the development of Scotland’s new national establishment for women offenders, HMP & YOI Inverclyde. This development is currently in design phase. A key aspect of this is the appropriate application of technology, including supporting improved family contact, alongside other offender outcomes.

HMP & YOIs Grampian and Cornton Vale already make use of their video conferencing facilities for virtual visits and all establishments utilise the email-a-prisoner service which enables prisoners to receive email correspondence.”