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-19266

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 05 October 2018
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 8 November 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with bereaved parents under the age of 25 regarding policy development in relation to the provision of support to them.

Scottish Government expects all bereaved parents to receive the same high quality, appropriate bereavement care regardless of age,race, faith, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability. The Scottish government funded National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP), currently being developed in Scotland, will along with Best Start recommendations improve the quality of bereavement care across Scotland.

Parents are directly involved in the development of the NBCP by providing input through the Parent Advisory Group Scotland (PAGS) and attended an initial workshop on 2 October 2018. Young parents are welcome and encouraged to join this group as is any bereaved parent who wishes to be involved.

Question reference: S5W-19260

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 05 October 2018
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 8 November 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether support for bereaved parents can only commence after the age of 25 and, if so, what support is available for those under 25.

Question reference: S5W-19262

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 05 October 2018
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 8 November 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what support is available to NHS staff so that they can best direct bereaved parents under the age of 25 to appropriate support.

The NHS Education for Scotland (NES) website ‘Support Around Death’, provides health professionals across Scotland with a range of resources on bereavement care after pregnancy loss, stillbirth or neonatal death, including short animated educational films. An e-learning resource on bereavement following pregnancy loss and the death of a baby is available on the Knowledge Network and provides in-depth education for maternity care professionals.

Question reference: S5O-02520

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 October 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 November 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how the UK Budget will affect Scotland's equalities budget.

Question reference: S5W-19263

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 05 October 2018
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 26 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether it records the maternal age following a still birth or miscarriage, and, if so, how many mothers under 25 have had a (a) stillbirth and (b) miscarriage since 2014.

Information on the number of hospital inpatient miscarriages to mothers aged under 25 was last published in Births in Scottish Hospitals for year ending March 2016, see: Table 12 - Miscarriages by NHS Board of residence and maternal age .

Accurate assessment of the number of miscarriages that occur is not possible from hospital based data as only miscarriages that require hospital inpatient or daycase treatment are recorded.

Miscarriage data are therefore no longer published by ISD because the lack of completeness means that these data are considered to be of low clinical value.

Maternal age for stillbirths in Scotland is published by the National Records of Scotland under Vital Events Reference Tables, Table 3.11 along with data on live births and can be found at the following links:

Vital Events Reference Tables 2017

Vital Events Reference Tables 2016

Vital Events Reference Tables 2015

Vital Events Reference Tables 2014

Question reference: S5W-18437

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 25 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government which local authorities have waiting lists for funded nursery places, broken down by average length of wait.

Question reference: S5W-18436

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 25 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what the average cost per hour of (a) local authority and (b) private childcare has been in each of the last 10 years, broken down by age.

Local Authority settings Data collected from local authorities and published as part of the Financial Review in 2016 implies a unit cost estimate for provision of ELC in local authority settings of £5.45 per hour for three and four year olds and £7.74 for two year olds.

The Financial Review is available here: https://www.gov.scot/Resource/0050/00506148.pdf

Partner provider rates and costs Also as part of the Financial Review, Ipsos MORI Scotland was commissioned by the Scottish Government to survey private and not-for-profit childcare providers of the funded entitlement across Scotland about their hourly unit costs for delivering ELC. The average cost for one hour of ELC for 0-5 year olds at partner providers was estimated at £3.70 (£3.69 in private settings, £3.72 in voluntary settings).

The Ipsos MORI report for Scottish Government is available here:

https://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/09/4116/downloads

Scottish Government does not hold cost data for earlier years.

Question reference: S5O-02328

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 6 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how it supports childcare for newborns to two-year-olds, and whether it plans to extend free childcare provision to this age range.

We are working closely with local authorities to extend the current entitlement to funded early learning and childcare to 1140 hours per year for all three and four year olds and for eligible two year olds from August 2020. We have no plans to extend the eligible age range.

Local authorities have discretion to offer funded or subsidised early learning and childcare over and above the funded entitlement, and we are aware that some authorities do offer places for newborn to 2 year olds.

We are currently trialling a deposit guarantee scheme to help support families with the upfront costs associated with accessing childcare for younger children. The trial scheme remains open to eligible families in Dumfries and Galloway, Glasgow and Edinburgh until 31 December 2018.

Early learning and childcare is just one part of a wider package of support for working families, which includes support for family friendly workplaces and initiatives to support parents returning to employment.

Question reference: S5W-18106

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 4 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what additional financial support parents can apply for when deferring their child's entry to primary school.

The Education (Scotland) Act 1980 (section 31) states that children must start school by the August following their 5th birthday, so parents with children born from September to December are able to defer their child’s start date to the following year if they so wish.

For all children whose 5th birthday falls in September to December, the education authority has discretionary power to provide additional early learning and childcare to any child. Therefore where a parent chooses to defer their child, the education authority can use their discretion to provide additional early learning and childcare. This would be based on an assessment of wellbeing informed by appropriate professional assessment which could include educational psychologists, early years staff or teachers. This could be due to complex learning needs or social care issues.

Parents can contact their Local Authority for further information on this.

In terms of additional financial support for childcare parents can check on Gov.Uk to ascertain if they would qualify for Tax Credits/Universal Credit or Tax Free Childcare. Parents can also ask their employers if they participate in the Childcare Voucher Scheme. The Student Awards Agency Scotland also have a Childcare Fund that eligible lone parents can apply to.

Question reference: S5W-17772

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 July 2018
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 16 August 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) council, (b) private and (c) social enterprise nurseries and childcare centres there were at the beginning of each school year in the last 10 years, broken down by local authority area.

The following table shows the requested information for 2007 to 2010 from the SG Pre-school Education and Childcare census as at January of each year, as data is not available for the start of the school year. The figures provided are for the whole of the childcare sector, not only funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC). A breakdown for social enterprise nurseries and childcare centres is not available, but figures have been provided for voluntary sector settings. As well as nurseries and childcare centres, the data includes playgroups, out of school clubs, breakfast clubs, creches, children/family centres, sitter services, holiday play-schemes and centres with no single main service.

Table 1, lodged with SPiCE BIB number 59966 shows the number of childcare centres in each management sector by local authority (excluding childminders), January 2007 to January 2010.

From September 2010 onwards, Scottish Government only collects information on funded ELC. Care Inspectorate is now responsible for collecting information on the whole of the childcare sector in Scotland. They have published data on the requested information at national level as at December each year at the following link:

http://www.careinspectorate.com/index.php/statistics-and-analysis

For a breakdown by local authority, Care Inspectorate data for 2014 is published in Table 10 of the Financial review of early learning and childcare in Scotland:

https://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/09/8729/downloads

Information at setting level, which can be aggregated to local authority, is available for 2017 and 2018 from the Care Inspectorate datastore:

http://www.careinspectorate.com/index.php/publications-statistics/93-public/datastore

For other years this is a matter for Care Inspectorate as the information requested is not in the public domain or held centrally for the whole period.