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: S5W-32507

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has carried of the (a) frequency and (b) quantity of litter in each year since 2014.

The Local Environmental Audit and Management System (LEAMS) methodology is currently used to assess litter levels on annual basis, this is used by local authorities and validated by Keep Scotland Beautiful. Results are published annually in the Local Government Benchmarking Framework Report .

A new monitoring system is being developed by Zero Waste Scotland and various partners on behalf of Scottish Government that will provide a spatial tool for monitoring litter and flytipping levels in Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-32910

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 30 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-32549 by Michael Matheson on 29 October 2020, whether it will provide the information requested regarding what date it last met representatives of the aviation industry.

Question reference: S5W-32499

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government when the Waste Data Strategy Board’s detailed monitoring and reporting timeline will be published.

The Waste Data Strategy Board’s action plan includes key components of waste data monitoring and reporting. The plan includes the development of a national food waste monitoring and measuring plan to align with Food Waste Reduction Action Plan, and an update of the national food waste estimates.

We remain committed to consulting on proposals for enhancing food waste monitoring and measurement, as set out in the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan, in due course. As part of this future work, the Waste Data Strategy Board will work closely with the Scottish Government and Zero Waste Scotland to develop a detailed monitoring and reporting timeline. A full review of the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan progress is scheduled for 2021.

Question reference: S5W-32506

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much (a) it and (b) its agencies have spent on tackling litter in each of the last five years.

Responsibility for dealing with litter primarily rests with local councils as part of their role in delivering waste services.

Zero Waste Scotland have spent the following amount of money on tackling litter from 2015 to 2020:

Year	Spend on tackling litter
2019-20	£92,397
2018-19	£119,081
2017-18	£379,465
2016-17	£480,786
2015-16	£658,647

The Scottish Government and Crown Estates Scotland have funded Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB), for their ‘Upstream Battle’ marine litter campaign. The details are as follows:

	Financial Year	Funding
Scottish Government	2018-2019	£30,000
Crown Estates Scotland	2018-2019	£25,000
Crown Estates Scotland	2020-2021	£20,000

The Scottish Government does not separately account for staff time dedicated to work on tackling litter.

Question reference: S5W-32497

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government which hospitality sub-sectors it has prioritised for support to reduce food waste; what best practice guidance has been developed for them, and what proportion of businesses in each of these sub-sectors has received such guidance in the last 12 months.

Certain subsectors have been identified and prioritised but planned work has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Zero Waste Scotland and partners have developed a specific toolkit for the hospitality and food service sector which has been promoted and shared with key stakeholders, including through a regional workshop (which 40 businesses attended), webinars (235 sign-ups) and round table events (12 operators with multiple businesses). The toolkit includes an e-module, a quick start guide and posters for kitchens to reinforce best practice and behaviours. Further sector specific guidance is planned for the next year, and will take into account the impacts of COVID-19 for certain sectors.

Question reference: S5W-32512

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many incidents of fly-tipping have been recorded in each year since 2014.

There is no single dataset of all flytipping incidents in Scotland, as there is no legal requirement for duty bodies or landowners to report on flytipping externally. The figures provided below represent incidents reported via the voluntary reporting options Flymapper, Dumb Dumpers and Flytipping & Litter Monitoring System (F&LMS).

It is clear that the data varies significantly from year to year but it is not possible to deduce whether this relates to variations in incidents or variations in reporting by relevant bodies.

Year	Flytipping incidents recorded by Flymapper and Litter Management System
2014	3,096
2015	7,295
2016	10,447
2017	10,329
2018	6,579
2019	1,007

Question reference: S5W-32948

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 November 2020
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been allocated to Scottish Enterprise’s research and development budget in the current fiscal year; on what date this budget was approved, and how it compares with the equivalent budget in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S5W-32636

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 12 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the progress of the Scottish Youth Guarantee and when young people will begin to be supported by this scheme; how much money has been spent on the scheme since it was announced; how many (a) young people have received assistance from the scheme, (b) young people have been consulted about the scheme since it was announced, (c) jobs have been created by the scheme and (d) civil servants are working on the scheme, including what this represents as a percentage of the staffing capacity of its economy directorate.

The Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Fair Work and Culture set out further details on how the Young Person's Guarantee would be delivered, including details on the £60m of additional funding and how young people would be supported, in her statement to Parliament on 5 November.

The Scottish Government is supporting the commitment set out by Sandy Begbie, that within 2 years every 16-24 year old in Scotland will either be in paid employment for a period of between 12 and 24 months, enrolled in education, actively involved on an apprenticeship or training programme, or engaged on a formal volunteering or supported activity programme. As the Guarantee includes a range of existing interventions and will include new offers it is not yet possible to aggregate the total number of young people who have received support.

The Scottish Government has engaged young people and the organisations who represent them on an ongoing basis. We published the reports from the work Young Scot and Intercultural Youth Scotland took forward alongside our implementation plan.

A range of employers have already signalled their willingness to support the Young Person’s Guarantee such as Cap Gemini, SSE, Lothian Health Board and the Scottish Government. We will continue to build broad support by engaging with a range of stakeholders including employers, young people, Unions and third sector organisations.

In order to support the delivery of the Young Person's Guarantee a new Division has been created in the Economy Directorate. The division currently has 24 members of staff who are coordinating the work to support the Guarantee across the Scottish Government and its agencies as well as supporting other related areas of policy, including Developing the Young Workforce, Apprenticeships and Careers Information Advice and Guidance.

Question reference: S5W-32946

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 November 2020
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 12 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many training courses to develop the skills required for energy efficiency and low-carbon heat have been available across colleges in Scotland in each of the last five years, and what targeted funding has been made available to support each course in each year.

The latest data available are from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and go up to and including the academic year 2018-19 and pre-date the establishment of new funding streams designed to support the green recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic. The data cover training relating to energy or low carbon sectors.

	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19
No of courses (colleges only)	76	71	77	86	90
No of students (FE and HE)	1,447	1,363	1,693	1,759	2,038
Funding*	£3,130,052	£3,013,065	£2,395,131	£2,194,101	£2,352,639

*From SFC and based on credit delivery to these students and note this includes HE and FE.

The data in the table therefore do not include spend in 2019-20 or our recent commitments in 2020-21 to:

• An initial £25 million National Training Transition Fund to provide retraining opportunities for people who have lost their jobs or are at risk of doing so;

• A £60 million Youth Guarantee , so every young person aged between 16 and 24 will be guaranteed an opportunity at university or college, an apprenticeship programme, employment including work experience, or participating in a formal volunteering programme. This will be backed by additional funding for apprenticeships and the new Job Start Grant ;

• Our £100 million Green Jobs fund , investing alongside a range of sectors - such as manufacturing, tech, and land based organisations - to support new and increased opportunities for green job creation across Scotland; and

• Doubling of the Flexible Workforce Development Fund to £20m - enabling employers to access up to £15,000 each to address skills gaps in their workforce

Question reference: S5W-32944

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 November 2020
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 11 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the loans issued under the SME Loan Scheme to aid energy efficiency measures, (a) how many loans have been issued and (b) what the total value of (i) issued and (ii) repaid loans has been in each year since it launched.

Since the launch of the SME Loan Scheme in its current form in 2013, 594 loans have been paid to aid businesses to implement energy efficiency measures.

SME Energy Efficiency loan paid number and value by FY budgets as at 30 th September 2020

Financial year	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21 - to 30 Sep 20
Number of loans paid	35	63	55	53	79	153	139	17
Value of loans paid	£1,063,128	£1,177,773	£1,289,009	£910,486	£1,850,520	£2,662,054	£2,286,498	£248,278

SME Energy Efficiency loan repayment values received by FY as at 30 th September 2020

Financial year	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21 year to 30 Sep 20
Value of loan repayments	£1,697,797	£1,869,548	£2,077,224	£2,069,221	£2,147,396	£2,101,442	£1,999,249	£658,943

These figures represent energy efficiency loans only and do not include loans which have been legally committed in 2020-21 but have yet to be drawn down.

This scheme builds on earlier support, as set out in our Energy Efficient Scotland Route map published in 2018, where at that point - including previous incarnations since 2008 - the SME Loan Scheme had financed over 800 projects resulting in financial savings of over £36 million.

Year	Total (£m)
2020-21	£37.8
2019-20	£35.8
2018-19	£36.2
2017-18	£24.5
2016-17	£21.0