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-20895

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 29 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on rejoining international surveys on literacy and numeracy, and in what year it will be possible to make comparisons between Scotland and other European countries.

Officials have met with the International Association for the Evaluation of Education Achievement, who direct PIRLS and TIMSS, to begin the process of rejoining the studies.

The next cycles of PIRLS and TIMSS will be in 2026 and 2027 respectively. Results for PIRLS 2026 are expected in December 2027 and results for TIMSS 2027 are expected in December 2028. At this point, comparisons can be made with participating countries from across Europe and beyond.

Question reference: S6W-21354

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 28 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to make changes to the General Revenue Grant if its proposals to change the council tax multipliers for properties in bands E to H are implemented, and, if so, what effect this would have on the distribution of funding among different local authorities.

Question reference: S6O-02615

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 September 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 5 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will make a public apology, in light of reports that it did not deliver its policy of 100% coverage of superfast broadband by December 2021.

Question reference: S6W-20894

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 27 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many P1 children have taken (a) one part and (b) both parts of the National Standardised Assessments for Scotland since 20 September 2018, broken down by (i) school year and (ii) local authority area.

The following table provides an overview of P1 learners who have undertaken (a) one or (b) both parts of the Scottish National Standardised Assessments since 20 September 2018, broken down by (i) school year and (ii) local authority.

The row "n/a" denotes publicly-funded schools outwith local authority control.

Table 1 - Number of P1 Children undertaking SNSA since 20 September 2018 - by year and local authority

Year	2018-19		2019-20		2020-21		2021-22		2022-23*
Local Authority	one of	both	one of	both	one of	both	one of	both	one of	both
Aberdeen City	13	1940	301	457	301	1941	19	2034	7	2033
Aberdeenshire	28	2821	27	71	27	2563	42	2709	0	2852
Angus	10	1205	**	**	**	863	16	908	**	1116
Argyll and Bute	5	752	28	49	28	585	8	597	**	646
Clackmannanshire	10	499	46	445	46	555	**	484	4	515
Dumfries and Galloway	7	1321	12	113	12	1252	11	1284	3	1350
Dundee City	5	1389	61	360	61	1216	27	1339	16	1373
East Ayrshire	38	1223	61	59	61	818	9	937	9	1065
East Dunbartonshire		1251	154	403	154	704	7	1154	14	1193
East Lothian	18	1146	23	64	23	977	37	1049	43	979
East Renfrewshire	**	1233				1174	6	1149	**	1246
Edinburgh	45	4340	240	258	240	3790	42	4026	24	3806
Eileanan Siar	**	128		13		97		127	**	95
Falkirk	14	1647				1536	12	1488	**	1576
Fife	16	1855					**	13	14	65
Glasgow City	566	3948	190	235	190	3263	330	3682	171	3856
Highland	35	2077	42	394	42	1926	44	1919	7	1996
Inverclyde	**	698	92	185	92	604	8	702	**	662
Midlothian	14	1090	91	221	91	1112	12	1170	**	1141
Moray	**	942				903	15	895	0	861
North Ayrshire	31	1279	7	37	7	1071	12	1104	**	1119
North Lanarkshire	50	3545	82	193	82	3563	60	3376	25	3525
Orkney Islands	**	220	**	102	**	216	**	190	0	188
Perth and Kinross	21	1357	**	21	**	1267	33	1344	**	1339
Renfrewshire	14	1797		77		1742	12	1775	5	1816
Scottish Borders	**	1081	17	123	17	917	13	922	30	956
Shetland Islands		229	**	29	**	102	**	186	6	151
South Ayrshire	5	1002	60	93	60	1031	5	1015	**	983
South Lanarkshire	45	3282	35	24	35	2758	123	2947	28	3107
Stirling	10	851	103	299	103	820	6	863	**	836
West Dunbartonshire	12	897	91	67	91	864	14	836	**	839
West Lothian	13	2160				2020	85	840	6	1960
n/a		66				65		64	0	66

*Please note figures for 2022-23 are subject to minor changes, pending the completion of the annual assessment closure process, which is currently ongoing.

** Please note that figures less than five have been suppressed to prevent the potential identification of individuals.

Question reference: S6W-20900

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 27 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many pupils at Scottish schools currently speak English as a second language.

Question reference: S6W-20899

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 27 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what it has done to support schools in teaching about the climate emergency.

In Scotland, the climate emergency is taught through the cross curricular entitlement of Learning for Sustainability (LfS). LfS has been a feature of Curriculum for Excellence since 2012 and has gained international interest and recognition, with other countries looking at our concept of LfS as a model.

The Scottish Government published a refreshed LfS action plan in June 2023, which sets a new ambitious aim for all learning settings to become Sustainable Learning Settings by 2030, and clearly teaching children and young people about the climate emergency is an important aspect of this.

The plan contains a significant number of new actions to further support the teaching and learning of LfS. These include the development of a new accessible LfS portal where teachers and educators will be able to find online practical advice, tools and support in one place; the creation of new LfS qualifications and pathways; and the development of a single national approach to LfS within Initial Teacher Education.

This builds on a significant amount of work already underway. For example Education Scotland provides a wide range of advice, resources and support to schools in relation to climate and sustainability education, through their National Improvement Hub, including the Learning for Sustainability Self-Evaluation Framework, Countdown to COP26 resources, Weather and Climate Change video series and a Climate Change Wakelet, a tool for sharing resources.

The Scottish Government also funds Keep Scotland Beautiful to deliver the Climate Action Schools programme. In 2022-23 a total of 1,694 schools took part in the programme which aims to increase climate change awareness, enable young people to have a voice and take action on issues that matter to them, and embed LfS across Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-20902

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 27 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has fully implemented the recommendations of the LGBTI Inclusive Education Working Group, and what its latest statutory guidance is on the conduct of relationships, sexual health and parenthood education for schools.

27 of the 33 recommendations of the LGBTI Inclusive Education Working Group have been delivered. The LGBT Inclusive Education Implementation Group is continuing to work on the outstanding recommendations, with further delivery expected by the end of the current academic year.

A public consultation on the revised statutory guidance for relationships, sexual health and parenthood education was published on 3 August 2023 and closes on 23 November 2023. The consultation can be access through the Scottish Government's consultation portal at https://consult.gov.scot/learning-directorate/teaching-guidance-for-relationships-sexual-health . The guidance published in 2014 remains in force until the revised guidance is finalised and formally published.

Question reference: S6W-21355

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 26 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether local authorities would retain all of the additional council tax revenue raised from properties within their local area under its proposals to change the council tax multipliers for properties in bands E to H.

Question reference: S6W-20898

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 26 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many pupils have had musical instrument lessons at school in each year since 2016.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. The Improvement Service’s annual Instrumental Music Survey of local authorities, does, however contain data on number of pupils that participated in instrumental music lessons from academic year 2012-13 to 2021-22 and can be found at the following hyperlink: Improvement Service Survey 2022 . The report highlights that not all local authorities were able to provide responses for all sections of the survey, so care should also be taken when comparing results between different years. We understand that results from the 2022-2023 survey will be published before the end of 2023.

Question reference: S6W-20897

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 26 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many classrooms in Scotland are inaccessible to wheelchair users.

The Scottish Government do not hold this information.

All local authorities in Scotland have a statutory responsibility to manage and maintain their school estate and the Scottish Government expect them to provide an accessible environment for all school users.

The Scottish Government’s Learning Estate Strategy is clear that learning environments should support the wellbeing of all learners, meet varying needs to support inclusion and support transitions for all learners.

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