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-38371

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 12 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish an update on the progress of the actions undertaken by Planning Aid Scotland and Heads of Planning Scotland to work towards ending the housing emergency.

We are working with Planning Aid Scotland (PAS) to strengthen local elected member training, addressing the housing emergency by building capacity and improve decision-making within the planning system. The Scottish Government supported PAS in producing a high-level training route map for elected member training. The recommendations have been considered and we expect the next stage to involve formulating and testing pilot training.

The Scottish Government supported Heads of Planning Scotland (HOPS) to take forward work on a set of standard templates for common planning conditions, good practice on Section 75 agreements and aligning consents. HOPS will share outputs with authorities once complete.

Our work with partners on stalled housing sites to overcome barriers and accelerate delivery of new homes continues at pace, and our blog of 9 June provides further details on progress. A progress report has been prepared and is available by contacting [email protected].

The Scottish Government provides regular progress updates on all workstreams via it’s e-alerts, on X @ScotGovPlanning and on LinkedIn.

Question reference: S6W-38369

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 12 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has considered any potential long-term impact on new housing supply of the proposed increase to planning appeal fees, including for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in light of reports that they could be disproportionately impacted.

The Scottish Government recognises the important contribution of the SME sector to the delivery of the right homes in the right places and their role in tackling the Housing Emergency.

The planning appeal and local review fee structure is designed to correspond with the different scales of planning applications. The fees operate under the same general principle i.e. the smaller the development, the lower the fee. The appeal fees are approximately 60% lower than those which are payable for planning applications.

It is important to note that in recent years, over 92% of planning applications have been approved and so the number of appeals arising is relatively low.

A business and regulatory impact assessment was carried out in relation to the new fees regulations. This considered the potential impacts of the regulations on businesses of all sizes.

We will monitor the implementation of the fees regulations and their impact, including on the performance of the appeals system. This will help us to identify, and in the future address, if necessary, any unintended consequences.

Question reference: S6W-37230

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 02 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 15 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many property factors have applied to join the Scottish Property Factor Register in each year since 2011.

Due to a change in the system used to record applications to the Scottish Property Factor Register, information on the number of property factors who have applied to join the Register in each year since 2011 is not available.

However, the number of registered property factors at 31 December each year is provided in the following table.

Whilst the number of applications submitted in each year is likely to be higher than the number of registered property factors, due to applications being withdrawn before they are fully assessed, these figures should provide an approximation of the number of applications submitted to the Scottish Property Factor Register.

Year	Number of Registered Property Factors
2011	0 (the register opened in 2012)
2012	248
2013	330
2014	366
2015	382
2016	385
2017	404
2018	406
2019	389
2020	394
2021	397
2022	358
2023	367
2024	371
2025 (at 6th May 2025)	368

Question reference: S6W-37231

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 02 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 15 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many property factors in total are currently on the Scottish Property Factor Register.

Question reference: S6W-37292

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 14 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many full-time equivalent staff it has employed in its More Homes division in each of the last five financial years.

Question reference: S6W-37246

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 13 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many property factors have been removed from the property factor register as a result of contraventions of the Code of Conduct for Property Factors in each year since 2011.

Question reference: S6F-04032

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 28 April 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 May 2025

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to reports of local authorities suspending council housing allocations.

Question reference: S6W-36195

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has provided to the Scottish Assembly, which supports people with learning difficulties to access services, in each of the last five years.

Details of funding provided to the Scottish Assembly from the Scottish Government’s Mental Health budget over the last five years are as follows:

2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25
£0	£132,836	£184,736	£209,600	£214,313

In addition, the Assembly is receiving £107,152 in the first six months of 2025-26, with bids for three year funding from the Learning Disability Support Fund currently being considered. We expect successful bids to be confirmed in May 2025, with funding starting in October 2025.

Question reference: S6W-36197

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it anticipates will be made available from the Learning Disability Support Fund to the Scottish Assembly over the next three years.

Question reference: S6W-36248

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 31 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when the out-turn report for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme between 2022 and 2024 will be published.

The Out-turn report for the 2022-23 Affordable Housing Supply Programme was published on 17 January 2025.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/affordable-housing-supply-programme-out-turn-report/

As stated in the answer to question S6W-32145 on 18 December 2024, the 2023-24 out-turn report is still in progress and we do not, at present, have an identified publication date . All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

FTE number of Directly employed staff in More Homes Division
	fte
	31-Mar-20	31-Mar-21	31-Mar-22	31-Mar-23	31-Mar-24	31-Dec-24
All	92	81	71	70	65	65