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-23032

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how it will incorporate reserved case law on disability benefits into regulation and guidance.

Question reference: S5W-23031

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will list the reserved case law on disability benefits that it considers relevant to disability assistance as currently proposed.

Question reference: S5W-23051

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding how many (a) complaints, (b) compliments and (c) suggestions have been received by Social Security Scotland, broken down by the main themes of this feedback.

Question reference: S5W-23030

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis of reserved disability benefit (a) legislation, (b) regulations, (c) guidance and (d) case law Parliamentary Counsel has conducted for the purposes of incorporating those rules into Scots law.

Question reference: S5W-23035

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how it will limit the use of guidance as the basis for processing and determining applications and redeterminations of disability assistance.

Question reference: S5O-03257

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will integrate the principle of non-regression into provisions on keeping pace with EU laws to ensure that no new measures inadvertently lead to a lowering of consumer and environmental standards.

Question reference: S5W-23069

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 15 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many Best Start Grant applications in the initial phase up to 28 February 2019 were from people with non-Scottish postcodes; what proportion of these were processed; for what reason they were processed, and how many staffing hours were spent carrying out this task.

Official statistics on the number of Best Start Grant applications received from people with non-Scottish postcodes to 28 February 2019, and the number of these applications that were processed, are available at: https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Social-Welfare/SocialSecurityforScotland/BSGFeb2019 . All applications received by Social Security Scotland are processed, to determine whether they will be authorised or denied. We do not hold information on the number of staffing hours spent processing applications with non-Scottish postcodes.

Question reference: S5W-22957

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 14 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many social security programme staff have recorded (a) short- and (b) long-term absences in the last year.

Question reference: S5W-22915

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 14 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding how much it will cost the Department of Health and Social Care to deliver welfare foods under agency arrangements in Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-22946

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 10 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, if the bidder selected to run the Scottish social security system also provides social security advice, how it will ensure that the advocacy services for the system are (a) delivered, (b) quality assured and (c) audited separately from such advice.