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: S6W-17025

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been allocated through the (a) Scottish Empty Homes Partnership and (b) Empty Homes Loan Fund in each year since it was launched, broken down by local authority.

Local authority	Scottish Empty Homes Partnership*	Empty Homes Loan Fund **
Aberdeen City Council	£49,400	Nil
Aberdeenshire Council	Nil	Nil
Angus Council	Nil	£120,000
Argyll & Bute Council	£56,217	Nil
The City of Edinburgh Council	£57,000	Nil
Clackmannanshire Council	Nil	£75,000
Comhairle Eilean Sair	£38,403	£155,000
Dumfries & Galloway Council	Nil	Nil
Dundee City Council	£30,000	Nil
East Ayrshire Council	Nil	£250,000
East Dunbartonshire Council	Nil	Nil
East Lothian Council	Nil	£150,000
East Renfrewshire Council	Nil	Nil
Falkirk Council	Nil	£100,000
Fife Council	Nil	£150,000
Glasgow City Council	Nil	£700,000
Highland Council	£50,715	£400,000
Inverclyde Council	Nil	£370,000
Midlothian Council	Nil	£125,000
Moray Council	Nil	£150,000
North Ayrshire Council	Nil	£200,000
North Lanarkshire Council	Nil	Nil
Orkney Islands Council	£36,900	Nil
Perth & Kinross Council	Nil	£350,000
Renfrewshire Council	Nil	Nil
Scottish Borders Council	£41,646	£150,000
Shetland Islands Council	Nil	Nil
South Ayrshire Council	Nil	Nil
South Lanarkshire Council	£58,040	Nil
Stirling Council	Nil	Nil
West Dunbartonshire Council	Nil	£300,000
West Lothian Council	Nil	£150,000

*it has not been possible to break this down by financial year.

**Angus, Glasgow, West Lothian, Falkirk, Clackmannanshire were paid in 12-13, Moray & Perth and Kinross were paid in 14/15 and all of the remaining loan payments were made in 13-14.

Question reference: S6W-18662

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to develop a palliative care strategy for prisoners requiring end of life care.

The Scottish Government’s Palliative and End of Life Care Strategy is being developed with an overarching aim that everyone in Scotland receives well-coordinated, timely and high-quality palliative care, care around death and bereavement support, based on their needs and preferences.

We will develop a strategy that reflects what matters to people experiencing serious illness or who are near the end of life. We are reviewing the information and evidence we have about people’s experiences of palliative and end of life care to inform our strategy going forward. This will include the values, preferences, and priorities of people facing additional risks and challenges, including prisoners.

Question reference: S6W-18666

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 19 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made towards adopting the Daffodil Standards for delivering end of life care.

The Scottish Government recognises the important role of primary care teams in delivering care to patients living with advanced, serious illness or at the end of life, and their loved ones.

The Daffodil Standards are one initiative to support general practice teams to improve the care that they provide to people near the end of life. The Scottish Government does not collect data centrally on participation in the Standards. Further information about the Standards and the GP practices working with them is available on the RCGP website.

Question reference: S6W-19058

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 16 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made in implementing its conclusions in Priority Area 7 of the Report of the City Centre Recovery Task Force 2021-22.

The delivery of the actions in the Report of the City Centre Recovery Task Force 2021-22 is being carried out under the auspices of the Scottish Cities Alliance, in agreement with our local authority partners. As a member of the Alliance, the Scottish Government will work with the cities to progress the strategic objectives in the report as part of the Alliance’s Operational Programme 2022-2026.

In addition, the Scottish Government has also adopted the National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) in February 2023, which references the ambitions of the Report and directly influences all planning decisions. NPF4 recognises that our cities and towns are a national asset and their centres bring together a wide range of functions and land uses. Its policies help centres adapt and be vibrant, healthier, creative, accessible and resilient places for people to live, learn, work and enjoy. In March 2023 we also introduced new permitted development rights that provide greater flexibility to change the use of buildings and place furniture outside specified hospitality premises.

Question reference: S6W-18670

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 16 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any costs associated with local authorities reporting on statutory duties placed on them by the Scottish Ministers.

Question reference: S6W-18663

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 16 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many damp surveys have been undertaken by local authorities in each year since 2019.

Question reference: S6W-18665

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 16 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many households with medical equipment have been identified as vulnerable to power outages in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-18664

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 16 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how much has been spent on maintenance of social housing in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-18667

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 16 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many local resilience and emergency plans have been developed by local authorities in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-17030

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 16 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the average (a) private sector and (b) local authority rent was in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

As set out in the answer to S6W-13149 on 10 January 2023, which can be found at Written question and answer: S6W-13149 | Scottish Parliament Website , the available information on average rents across the private rented and social rented sectors is as follows.

The latest Scottish Government Private Sector Rent Statistics, Scotland, 2010 to 2022 , published on 29 November 2022, presents average private rents by property size and Broad Rental Market Areas between 2010 and 2022 (years to end September), based predominantly on advertised rent data. This is the lowest level of granularity available for the Scottish Government Private Rent Statistics, as the data collection method used has not been designed for the purpose of providing local authority level results. In addition, data is not held for the years prior to 2010. The next publication covering the period 2010 to 2023 (years to end September) is planned for November 2023.

Information on average local authority rents is included in the Scottish Government Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Statistics publication, which contains a time series from 1997-98 onwards of average weekly rent by local authority area (Table 8), with the average rent figures presented being based on each Council’s total standard rental income being divided by total HRA stock.

Separate information on average social sector rents is published by the Scottish Housing Regulator, based on average rent figures collected from individual social landlords as part of the Charter Data collection. Results are available in the Scottish Housing Regulator Statistical Information webpages , with social landlord level average rent figures available from 2013-14 onwards, and local authority area level average rent figures published as part of the stock dataset for the most recent two years 2020-21 and 2021-22.

In addition, summary figures on average housing association rents by local authority area across the earlier years 2005-06 to 2012-13 are available in an archived Scottish Government Housing Statistics publication table .