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: S5O-00072

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 June 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what impact reductions in local government budgets are having on communities.

Question reference: S5W-00336

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 June 2016
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 21 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has asked the Home Secretary (a) how many and (b) which Scottish social justice and environmental campaigns were targeted by the Special Demonstration Squad and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

Question reference: S5W-00604

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 June 2016
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 21 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has asked the UK Government or Sir Christopher Pitchford how many undercover officers were working for the Special Demonstration Squad and National Public Order Intelligence Unit, given that Police Scotland officers and secondees may have been employed and, if so, whether it will publish the details.

Question reference: S5W-00603

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 June 2016
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 21 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has asked the UK Government or Sir Christopher Pitchford to provide the list of over 100 Police officers who are alleged to have worked for the Special Demonstration Squad, given that Police Scotland officers and secondees may have been employed and, if so, whether it will publish the names listed.

Question reference: S5W-00496

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 June 2016
Current Status: Answered by Mark McDonald on 16 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what regulatory controls there are there for child contact centres.

Child contact centres are not a regulated service. However, all of Relationships Scotland’s child contact centres operate within agreed national standards and are subject to quality assurance inspections.

The Relationships Scotland Child Contact Centre Committee oversees the workings of its child contact centres. Its Practitioners’ Forum considers issues from centres and learns from those experiences in order to shape and update policies and procedures. Full risk assessments, in line with Relationships Scotland national policies and procedures, are carried out in all cases prior to any contact taking place, and continual monitoring of risk is carried out at all times in each case.

Relationships Scotland also undertakes regular quality assurance inspections of all of its member services, which fully incorporates its child contact centres. All member services have to pass quality assurance assessment visits to remain in membership.

Question reference: S5W-00492

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 June 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 16 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many times it has met the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency since October 2015.

Question reference: S5W-00494

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 June 2016
Current Status: Answered by Mark McDonald on 16 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment or reviews of the running of child contact centres it has (a) carried out and (b) plans.

The then Scottish Executive published three research publications focused on child contact centres on 24 March 2004. The publications were:

Scottish Child Contact Centres: Characteristics of Centre Users and Centre Staff. This report described the characteristics of families using Scottish child contact centres and the role of staff working in the centre.

Building Bridges? Expectations and Experiences of Child Contact Centres in Scotland. This report examined users’ and workers’ expectations and experiences of child contact centres.

Child Contact Centres in Scotland – Research Findings. This report drew together the key findings from the two studies described above.

The reports can be found here:

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Justice/law/17867/familylawresearch

In 2010 the Scottish Government published research on Understanding Child Contact Cases in Scottish Sheriff Courts. This research included child contact centres and noted that “all the sheriffs we spoke to had found contact centres to be an important resource, particularly where they had had concerns about the non-resident parent’s ability to care for the child.” The relevant section of the research can be found here:

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2010/12/08145916/8 (paragraphs 5.19 to 5.22).

Since then, the Scottish Government has worked closely with Relationships Scotland in relation to child contact centres. The Relationships Scotland Network is the largest provider of child contact centres in the country, supporting the running of 46 child contact centres across Scotland, helping around 2,000 children each year to remain in contact with their non-resident parent.

Relationships Scotland and its 22 member services receive financial support from the Scottish Government which is broadly equivalent to around 40% of total annual running costs. Relationships Scotland therefore reports to the Scottish Government on how this investment has been spent, including full details of finance, statistics, outcomes, training, continuing professional development, national standards, policies and procedures and the role that the network plays in responding to issues such as domestic abuse and child protection.

Question reference: S5W-00498

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 June 2016
Current Status: Answered by Mark McDonald on 16 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what risk assessments are carried out at child contact centres prior to children seeing their parents.

In all Relationships Scotland contact centres full risk assessments are carried out in all cases prior to any contact taking place, and continual monitoring of risk is carried out at all times in each case. This is in line with Relationships Scotland’s national policies and procedures.

The risk assessment process involves the following steps:

Risks are identified during the referral or intake process;

The head of service appoints a risk assessor for each case, who makes an assessment when a potential risk is identified;

When potential risks are identified and forwarded to the risk assessor, the risk assessor will meet the head of the service and any relevant staff to: discuss the risk and its potential impact, consider actions (including gathering information); prepare a statement of the risk in terms of the nature, seriousness, likelihood of it occurring, possible outcomes and manageability; make a final decision on the most appropriate course of action; and develop manageability procedures if a decision is made to accept the referral or continue the contact; and if a decision is made to accept the referral or continue the contact, the staff member who has direct responsibility for organising and monitoring the contact is told of the nature, seriousness and likelihood of the risk; and the specific actions to be taken before, during and after the contact, and by whom.

Question reference: S5W-00497

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 June 2016
Current Status: Answered by Mark McDonald on 16 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what minimum training is expected for people who work in child contact centres.

Question reference: S5W-00486

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 June 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 16 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action NHS boards have taken previously to deal with surplus to requirement obturator mesh devices, and whether there are plans for the current surplus devices to be (a) destroyed or (b) sent (i) to hospitals in the rest of the UK and (i) overseas, broken down by country.