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: S4W-24863

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 March 2015
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 25 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how the Scottish Attainment Fund will improve the attainment of pupils with additional support needs irrespective of whether they live in the most deprived local authority areas.

The Attainment Scotland Fund is targeted at local authorities with the biggest concentration of primary school pupils living in households in our most deprived areas. It will focus on literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing in the primary sector to support children and young people in these communities to achieve their potential.

Our approach to raising attainment is for all children and young people including those with additional support needs, and has a firm foundation in all our key policies and programmes, the pillars of which are Curriculum for Excellence, Teaching Scotland’s Future, Getting it right for every child, the Early Years Framework and Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce. There are a range of activities already underway and planned, which are supporting authorities and schools across Scotland to raise attainment and reduce the attainment gap.

In addition, education authorities and other agencies have duties under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004 (as amended) to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils. An additional support need can arise for any reason and be of short or long term duration.

Scottish Ministers are required to report to Parliament annually on the implementation of the Act. The February 2014 report indicated that there has been increase of 2% in attendance for pupils with additional support needs, a pattern of better qualifications and higher grades for pupils with additional support needs since 2009-10, and that 82.3% of school leavers with additional support needs were in a positive destination, a rise of almost 8% on 2009-10.

Question reference: S4O-04173

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S4O-04137

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many non-teaching staff there are in schools and how this compares with 2013-14.

Question reference: S4O-03984

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 January 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to establish a future jobs fund for Scotland.

Question reference: S4O-03958

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fiona McLeod on 28 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to implement the recommendations of Jackie Brock's report on safeguarding vulnerable children.

In November 2014 when the Brock report was published the then Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning acted decisively accepting its recommendations in full. The report is one strand of a wider improvement programme to ensure Scotland’s approach to safeguarding children and young people is as robust as possible. We are already taking forward key recommendations in the report. For example, the first cross-sector National Strategic Leadership Summit on Child Wellbeing will take place in February 2015.

Question reference: S4F-02558

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 26 January 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 January 2015

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to reports that science lessons in schools are being underfunded by £8 million per year.

Question reference: S4O-03893

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 January 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers staffing levels in NHS Lanarkshire satisfactory.

Question reference: S4F-02402

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 November 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 November 2014

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government is doing to make roads safer for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.

Question reference: S4F-02240

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 04 August 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 August 2014

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to First ScotRail being fined more than £2 million since 2011 for running too few coaches in a practice known as “short-forming”.

Question reference: S4W-22092

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 11 July 2014
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 August 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been detained under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 in each year since 2007, also broken down by the number detained in (a) mental health, (b) NHS and (c) Scottish Prison Service facilities.