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: S4F-03162

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 11 January 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 January 2016

To ask the First Minister what criteria the Scottish Government is using to allocate funding and teacher support for schools in deprived communities.

Question reference: S4W-28945

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Aileen McLeod on 7 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has allocated to flooding schemes for 2016, broken down by local authority area.

The Scottish Government provides funding of £42 million a year through the local government settlement until 2015-16, for local authorities to continue to invest in major new flood protection schemes. Local authorities were able to apply for this funding on the basis of criteria agreed by the Scottish Government and COSLA. After the last round of applications, all of the available funding in the spending review period to 2015-16 was allocated. The following table shows the four flood protection schemes, which were allocated funding from the flooding component of the general capital grant to local authorities, following the last round of applications.

Flood Protection Scheme	Local Authority	Total Grant Funding
Selkirk	Scottish Borders	£25,478,658
Brechin	Angus	£13,106,400
Greenock Area A	Inverclyde	£1,760,000
Almondbank	Perth and Kinross	£11,796,702
	Total	£52,141,760

From April 2016 onwards the flooding component of the general capital grant will be allocated in line with the priorities set out in the flood risk management strategies which will be published by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency by 22 December 2015.

Question reference: S4W-28940

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 7 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what funding it has provided to support tennis projects in each year since 1999.

sportscotland capital funding into tennis projects in each year since 1999 (key capital programmes: Sports Facilities Fund and Legacy 2014 Active Places Fund).

This funding comprises of Scottish Government and lottery funding. Additionally, this funding is for specific tennis facilities and does not include investment into multi-sport facilities where tennis may be played.

Year	Sports Facilities Fund	Active Places Fund (administered by sportscotland)	Total sportscotland award per annum	Total project cost per annum (with partner contribution)
2015-16	£579,334	£0	£579,334	£3,658,212
2014-15	£429,862	£485,600	£915,462	£2,203,781
2013-14	£242,975	£771,735	£1,014,710	£2,174,452
2012-13	£293,269	£0	£293,269	£703,387
2011-12	£467,257	£0	£467,257	£1,570,922
2010-11	£80,192	£0	£80,192	£248,003
2009-10	£143,144	£0	£143,144	£397,736
2008-09	£70,000	£0	£70,000	£235,350
2007-08	£66,000	£0	£66,000	£147,625
2006-07	£410,000	£0	£410,000	£1,869,463
2005-06	£55,465	£0	£55,465	£168,219
2004-05	£581,200	£0	£581,200	£1,560,200
2003-04	£188,247	£0	£188,247	£346,113
2002-03	£0	£0	£0	£0
2001-02	£496,725	£0	£496,725	£1,663,425
2000-01	£315,447	£0	£315,447	£1,190,912
1999-00	£37,850	£0	£37,850	£0
			*£5,714,302	£18,137,800

*sportscotland capital funding represents 31.5% of the overall investment into tennis facilities since 1999-2000.

sportscotland investment into Tennis Scotland (sports governing body):

sportscotland investment into Tennis Scotland for 2015-16 represents 27.5% of the governing body’s overall annual turnover, an increase of 5.5% since 2011-12. It is important to highlight here that, while sportscotland’s provides investment to sports governing bodies, greater emphasis should be placed on the bodies (majority of which are private limited companies) to explain how they are generating income and how this income is being utilised to develop the sport, rather than simply focussing on sportscotland investment.

Financial Year	Total sportscotland Investment
2015-16	£438,000
2014-15	£438,000
2013-14	£224,000
2012-13	£362,100
2011-12	£353,350
2010-11	£81,070
2009-10	£60,300
2008-09	£34,188
2007-08	£303,000
2006-07	£306,094
2005-06	£296,500
2004-05	£63,000
2003-04	£82,088
2002-03	£62,000
2001-02	£228,812
2000-01	£62,000
1999-00	£64,000

Question reference: S4O-05234

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 January 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made in encouraging young people to try golf.

Question reference: S4O-05221

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making in processing applications for rural payments, and how many payments have yet to be made.

Question reference: S4W-28941

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 5 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many attacks there have been on (a) ambulance, (b) fire and rescue and (c) accident and emergency personnel in each year since 1999, and how many led to a (i) prosecution and (ii) conviction.

Data on attacks against ambulance, fire and rescue and accident and emergency personnel is not held in the format requested. Since 2009-10, and following the introduction of the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005, all of Scotland’s legacy police forces (now Police Scotland) have used a separate code for recording common assault in cases where the victim was an emergency worker. The number of cases for this code are shown in the following table.

It should be noted that the table will not include police recorded attacks on emergency workers which did not result in a common assault (for example a serious assault) as a recorded crime code will be used which doesn’t identify the occupation of the victim.

Common assault of an emergency worker, Scotland, 2005-06 to 2014-15

2009-10

2010-11

2011-12

2012-13

2013-14

2014-15

Common assault of an emergency worker

5,320

6,456

7,107

6,514

6,813

6,480

In terms of prosecutions and convictions, the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 has provisions for a person who assaults, resists, obstructs, molests or hinders emergency workers when they are responding to emergency circumstances.

Assaults that happen outside of emergency circumstances, as specified in the Act, will not result in prosecutions under the Act, and these and those assaults on emergency workers which may result in other charges, such as serious assault or attempted murder, cannot be identified separately in the available statistics and so are not included. These numbers also relate only to those attacks which proceeded to court.

It is not possible to provide the detail requested regarding the breakdown of the type of emergency workers involved (under Section 1(3) of the Act), as this information is not held by the Scottish Government.

The question specifically relates to sections 1(1), 2(1), and 5(1) of the Act:

Section 1(1): Assaulting or impeding certain providers of emergency services.

Section 2(1): Assaulting or impeding certain emergency workers responding to emergency circumstances.

Section 5(1): Assaulting or impeding health workers in hospital premises.

The number of people prosecuted and convicted¹ in Scottish Courts for offences under the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 Sections 1(1), 2(1) and 5(1) is given in the table below.

Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 1(1), 2(1), 5(1)

2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

2008-09

2009-10

2010-11

2011-12

2012-13

2013-14

Total	Prosecuted	57	209	285	305	288	331	371	352	306
Total	Convicted	54	197	273	297	279	319	355	332	288

1. Where main charge.

Source: Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings Database.

Prior to the 2005 Act, offences against emergency workers, apart from the police, were not recorded separately, and so we are only able to provide data going back to 2005-06.

Question reference: S4W-28944

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 5 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many cleaners have been employed by each NHS board in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S4W-28799

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 17 December 2015

To ask the Scottish Government which ministers have met representatives of Linlithgow’s Party at the Palace and on what dates.

Question reference: S4W-28800

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 17 December 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what grants it has provided to Linlithgow’s Party at the Palace event and its organisers.

Question reference: S4W-28680

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 10 December 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how much (a) it has and (b) each of its agencies have spent on commissioning (i) opinion polls and (ii) research by focus groups in each year since 1999.

Opinion polls:

(a) (i) The Scottish Government has not commissioned opinion polls during this period and therefore does not hold the cost information requested.

(b) (i) We are unable to provide information on opinion polls commissioned by Scottish Government agencies. This information is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

Focus groups:

(a)(b) (ii) It is not possible to provide cost information on the use of focus groups for either the Scottish Government or its agencies. Where focus groups are used in research they normally form one element of a programme of work and costs are not separately available.