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-24268

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 24 April 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what employment agencies it has contracted and what job types each provides.

The Scottish Government uses the following contracted suppliers:

Pertemps, Global Highland, Manpower, ASA and The Recruitment Agency Network (RAN) for the supply of administrative and executive officer roles.

Pertemps, Global Highland, Advantage Resourcing UK, Harvey Nash, Harvey Nash Consortium, Head Resourcing, Parity, Recruitment Zone and The Recruitment Agency Network (RAN) for the supply of interims and specialists.

Certes, Harvey Nash, Harvey Nash Consortium, Hays, Hudson, Parity, Pertemps, Recruitment Zone for the supply of IT experts.

The suppliers named are those who have won the contract to supply the Scottish Government (and other Scottish public sector bodies) with temporary agency and interim workers under the following Scottish Government Collaborative Procurement Frameworks:

Temporary administrative agency workers

Interim specialists

Interim managers

Temporary IT staff

In addition to these frameworks there are other frameworks where workers may be on site to deliver a service (e.g. IT services).

Question reference: S4W-24271

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 24 April 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has used the so-called Swedish derogation as an opt-out clause for (a) temporary and (b) agency workers under the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 and what its position is on the use of this opt-out.

Question reference: S4W-24275

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 24 April 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has discussed the use of the so-called Swedish derogation with recruitment agencies that it contracts for temporary and agency workers.

Question reference: S4W-24265

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 24 April 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) permanent, (b) temporary and (c) agency staff it employs and how many it employed in (i) 2012-13 and (ii) 2013-14.

The following table shows the number of people directly employed by the Scottish Government on permanent or fixed term contracts, plus agency workers who are not directly employed. These figures are extracts from the HR database taken at the end of each of the periods requested.

As At

31 March 2013

31 March 2014

31 December 2014

Permanent Employees	4956	5063	5173
Fixed Term Appointments	171	231	243
Agency Staff	246	348	298

Source: Scottish Government eHR database

The latest publication relates to staffing at 31 December 2014 and was published on 18 March 2015: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pse/public-sector-employment/q4-2014/index.html

Please note that these figures are provisional because we are in the process of reviewing our workforce data including undertaking a data cleanse exercise.

Question reference: S4W-24267

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 24 April 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the agency staff that it employs by (a) the type of the work, (b) their grade and (c) agency.

<>Data on grades for agency staff is not held because the frameworks the Scottish Government uses to procure agency/interim workers are not based on Scottish Government pay grades but rather the job description or the market rate for the role on offer. The collaborative procurement frameworks are used by a range of public sector bodies with different grading structures. Therefore managers are not required to record a pay grade on the system. The following table below shows the agency staff provided in answer to S4W-24265 on 24 April 2015, split by supplier organisation and type of work where known. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Supplier	31 December 2014	Type of Work
Certes Computing Ltd	5	IT experts
Global Highland	3	Administrative and Executive Officer, Interim Specialist
Harvey Nash	20	Interim Managers, and IT expert
Hays	16	IT expert
Head Resourcing	19	Interim Managers
Parity Resources	61	Interim Managers, specialist and IT expert
Pertemps	123	Administrative and Executive Officer, Interim Specialist, IT expert
Recruitment Zone	17	Interim Managers and IT expert

Source: The Scottish Government eHR database, supplier returns

We only record information centrally on those suppliers that are attached to the Scottish Government collaborative frameworks. Business areas may use other frameworks where the central Scottish Government frameworks do not meet operational needs. At 31 December 2014 our HR database showed 34 individuals uncategorised against a central supplier. These figures are provisional because we are in the process of reviewing our workforce data including undertaking a data cleanse exercise which will remove records that are out of date. A new framework for the supply of agency workers will come into force on 24 April 2015.

Question reference: S4W-24270

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 24 April 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many of its (a) temporary and (b) agency staff were or have been employed on so-called zero-hours contracts in (i) 2012-13, (ii) 2013-14 and (iii) 2014-15.

Question reference: S4W-25199

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 31 March 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 April 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to improving the transparency and accuracy of medical notes on patients by the medical profession.

The Scottish Government considers increased transparency as an important way of improving the accuracy of patient records. There are already some condition-specific NHS Scotland services that give patients an opportunity to access particular information online and then feed-back potential errors for the healthcare team to correct. As part of the 2020 Vision it is planned to extend this, so that all patients in Scotland can access a set of services that includes online access to specific medical information that is of value to them.

Question reference: S4W-25202

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 31 March 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 April 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the adoption of new technology to ensure that transparent and accurate medical notes on patients and a fair record of meetings with them are taken by the medical profession.

GPs already routinely input relevant patient information gathered during consultations straight onto nationally approved digital applications in the practice; clinicians in a community or hospital context input data gathered from patient meetings in a structured manner onto either digital or paper-based recording systems. All staff need to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 and ensure that data is accurate and up-to-date regardless of whether they are using ICT or paper. The Scottish Government, via its eHealth Strategy, is ensuring that paper-based processes are being replaced with digital applications with suitable audit trails and increased uptake of mobile devices so that data is more able to be kept accurate and up-to-date.

Question reference: S4W-25200

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 31 March 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 April 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how NHS boards ensure that medical notes put on patients files are approved by the patient prior to appearing on computerised or manual systems.

An important part of the eHealth Strategy is ensuring that patients have maximum opportunity to contribute information to the health care team and are able to access as much of their own information as possible. But ultimately it is down to the clinician – trained as a professional to record data in a manner that enables quality care to be delivered and patient safety to be maintained – to carry out this function on behalf of and in consultation with the patient. Where a factual error is identified, this needs to be corrected in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Question reference: S4W-25198

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 31 March 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 21 April 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding how many (a) prosecutions and (b) convictions there have been in Scotland for landfill tax evasion in each year since 2007.