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-04785

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 19 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how it defines disadvantaged backgrounds in the context of its recent announcement of £1.5 million for Skills Development Scotland to tackle youth unemployment.

Question reference: S4W-04757

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 19 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Minister for Youth Employment will guarantee that jobs created from her £30 million budget will pay the living wage.

Question reference: S4W-04791

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 18 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how much of its £30 million youth employment budget will be spent creating job opportunities in small and medium-sized enterprises.

It is for employers, not government, to create permanent jobs. This government will continue to work with employers from businesses of all sizes and across all sectors to encourage them to employ more young people.

As part of the continuing work to better align employability services in Scotland work is going on to provide a coherent national offer for employers across public funded agencies to support people looking for work. This should make it easier for all employers including SMEs, to make better use of public funded resources that help young people find work.

Question reference: S4W-04786

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 18 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what criteria will be attached to its offer of £2,000 for employers who take on a young person from a disadvantaged background.

I presume this question refers to my announcement on 22 December of £1.5 million to support young people, including care leavers and young carers, access employment. Skills Development Scotland (SDS) will work between now and the end of this financial year to determine the fine details of how this funding will be used. SDS will publish eligibility criteria in due course and I will ensure you are sent a link to this when it is published.

Question reference: S4W-04792

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 18 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how much of its £30 million youth employment budget will be spent creating jobs in the (a) public, (b) private and (c) third sector.

The Scottish Government is convening a special session of the National Economic Forum on 1 February to explore with a wide range of partners and stakeholders how to maximise the effectiveness of this new resource. This builds on a strategic roundtable discussion with representatives of local authorities, the third sector, college sector and private sector employers on 15 December to consider this same issue.

Question reference: S4W-04781

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 18 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how the Minister for Youth Employment will use the £30 million youth employment budget to create and sustain opportunities for young people from minority ethnic backgrounds.

Question reference: S4W-04793

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 18 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how much of its £30 million youth employment budget will be spent equipping young people with the skills to become self-employed.

Question reference: S4W-04784

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 18 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers underemployment to be a major barrier to tackling youth unemployment.

Question reference: S4W-04783

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 18 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people under the age of 24 it considers to be underemployed.

Based on the latest available Labour Force Survey (LFS) quarterly data (July to September 2011), it is estimated that 82,000 people aged 16 to 24 in Scotland were underemployed. This was comprised of:

58,000 people who were looking for additional hours within their existing job at the same rate of pay.

24,000³ people who were looking for either an additional or new job with longer hours than their current job.

Source: Office for National Statistics

Notes

1 - Data is rounded to the nearest thousand.

2 - Data is not seasonally adjusted.

3 - A proportion of the people looking for new job with longer hours will not have cited longer hours as being the reason for looking for a new job, but will have stated that they would prefer to find a job with longer hours.

Question reference: S4W-04789

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 18 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what meetings the Minister for Youth Employment has had with large-scale employers.

The Scottish Government is convening a special session of the National Economic Forum on 1 February to explore with a wide range of partners and stakeholders what more we need to do to support young people into employment. I will also be meeting with a wide range of employers throughout January and beyond.

This builds on a strategic roundtable discussion on 15 December, at which a number of business organisations made a valuable contribution.