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-14041

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 25 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what savings the Strategic Forum made in 2012-13, also broken down by (a) organisation and (b) measure taken.

Question reference: S4W-14064

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 22 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the Help to Buy equity loan scheme announced by the UK Government; whether it plans to introduce a similar scheme in Scotland, and when it will announce how it will use the Barnett consequentials arising from the scheme.

The majority of the consequentials funding has come to the Scottish Government in the form of loans, without any details about the terms and conditions of their use having thus far been provided by the Treasury. Decisions will be taken about how these consequentials are deployed in due course, taking into account the overall financial position.

The Scottish Government is already supporting the housebuilding industry in Scotland through a range of measures, sustaining and creating jobs and helping people into home-ownership where it is sensible and sustainable. Those measures include an investment of £20 million this financial year to support shared equity schemes, which forms part of an overall three year housing supply investment of £860 million.

Question reference: S4W-14050

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 19 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what the total running costs have been for public sector data centres in each of the last 10 years.

Question reference: S4W-14046

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 19 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many public sector data centres there are and how many have been (a) established and (b) closed in each of the last 10 years.

John McClelland’s Review of ICT Infrastructure in the Public Sector in Scotland published in June 2011 estimated that within the public sector in Scotland there were more than 120 data centres and cost circa £275 million to build and maintain. These figures were based upon evidence obtained through two surveys which were undertaken in 2010 by Scottish Government Procurement and Grant Thornton on behalf of the local authorities. The survey rates were 48% and the results extrapolated to give the figures used in the report.

Scotland’s Digital Future: Delivery of Public Services published in September 2012 included an action to develop a strategy for consolidation and reuse of world-class data centres available in the public and private sectors across Scotland. The Scottish Government is currently engaging with interested parties and collecting information to inform this strategy which we expect to be published later this year.

Question reference: S4W-14048

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 19 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what the cost has been of establishing public sector data centres in each of the last 10 years.

Question reference: S4O-01870

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what savings the Strategic Forum will achieve in 2012-13.

Question reference: S4O-01843

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 February 2013

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met Universities Scotland.

Question reference: S4F-01163

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 January 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 31 January 2013

To ask the First Minister what projects, and at what value, have been delivered through the non-profit distributing model pipeline in 2012-13.

Question reference: S4W-12181

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 January 2013
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 25 January 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether the £2.9 million funding for Scotland’s national parks announced on 10 January 2013 is additional to the £2.9 million announced on 19 December 2012.

Scotland’s National Parks were allocated a total of £2.9 million of additional capital funding from the total of £394 million secured by the Scottish Government as part of the UK Chancellors Autumn Statement.

This additional funding was announced to the Scottish Parliament on 19 December 2012. Further details about the £2.9 million funding package to the National Parks were provided in a Scottish Government news release on 10 January 2013.

Question reference: S4O-01658

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 9 January 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what the value has been in 2012-13 of non-profit distribution-financed capital investment.

The total value of those non-profit distributing projects (NPD) which have entered procurement or have entered development through the hub programme in 2012-13 to date, is approximately £442 million. Further projects expected to enter procurement between now and the end of 2012-13 have an estimated capital value of £691 million, taking the total to over £1 billion for the year.

Our £2.5 billion NPD project pipeline is one of the largest investment programmes of its kind in Europe. There are already around £1 billion of NPD projects in procurement, and the additional projects that I have referred to which are coming forward between now and the end of 2012-13 will take this figure to well over £1.5 billion.