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: S4O-02061

Asked by: Drew Smith, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 May 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to prevent the backfilling of civilian staff posts by police officers.

Question reference: S4W-13588

Asked by: Drew Smith, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 08 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 19 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will reinstate the recording of crimes of violence against public-facing workers in its annual crime survey.

The content of the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) is regularly reviewed to ensure the survey continues to provide high quality evidence on a wide range of policy areas in a cost effective manner. Such questionnaire reviews also ensure that the survey is kept to a manageable length so that we do not place an excessive time burden on respondents. Fieldwork for the survey is now conducted every other year, rather than annually.

The SCJS questionnaire will be reviewed again prior to its 2014-15 run, when consideration may be given to including questions related to workplace violence. As part of the review process consideration will be given as to whether questions will remain or be removed from the survey and whether new questions will be added. Consequently, it cannot be guaranteed that any particular questions will be included in the future sweeps until the review process has been completed.

Question reference: S4W-13436

Asked by: Drew Smith, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 04 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 14 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-12540 by Margaret Burgess on 28 February 2013, whether it will break down the estimates provided by parliamentary (a) constituency and (b) region and what information it has on the estimates broken down by DWP districts in Scotland.

Impact assessments of the changes published by the Scottish Government and the Department for Work and Pensions provide analyses of numbers affected by local authority area within Scotland. The following table provides links to these published sources. Estimates are not available by constituency nor by DWP district.

Summary information on recipients of housing benefit analysed by UK Parliamentary constituency and by local authority area can be obtained using a tabulation tool on the DWP website at: http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/index.php?page=tabtool

Housing benefit change	Implementation date	Sources of information on numbers affected in local authority areas¹
Changes to local housing allowance rates for tenants in private rented sector. - Removing £15 excess. - Restriction to 4 bedroom rate. - Capping LHA rates by bedroom size. - Basing LHA rates on 30^th percentile rent.	Phased in from 1 April 2011	DWP Impact Assessment of the changes to Local Housing Allowance from April 2011 DWP impact assessment of LHA changes: Detailed tables
Local housing allowance rate for single people without dependants aged 25 – 34 restricted to the rate for a room with shared facilities.	Phased in from 1 April 2011	Impact of limiting LHA to shared accommodation rate for single people aged 25 to 34
Under occupation penalty for working age households in local authority or housing association housing. - penalty of 14% of rent for those assessed as under occupying by 1 room. - penalty of 25% of rent for those assessed as under occupying by 2 or more rooms.	From 1 April 2013	See note 2. Impact of under occupancy penalty
Overall cap on benefits, which will initially be implemented through a reduction in housing benefit.	To be phased in from 1 April 2013	The Benefit Cap - Assessment of impact in Scotland

Uprating local housing allowance rates by the lower of consumer price index or actual increase in the 30^th percentile rate.	April 2011
Restricting the uprating of local housing allowance rates to a maximum of 1% per year for two years from 2014-15.	April 2014

See note 3.Department for work & pensions tabulation tool

Notes:

1. Since some households may have been affected by more than one of the changes it is not possible to aggregate the estimates for the impact of each change to give the total number of households affected.

2. This analysis was based on the position in 2011 which gave an estimated 94,000 households affected in Scotland. We currently estimate that around 105,000 households in Scotland will be affected. Thus, the local authority estimates in the analysis may slightly understate the number of households affected in each local authority area.

3. This source, the DWP tabulation tool, provides information on numbers of housing benefit recipients by tenure by local authority and by parliamentary constituency. All recipients of local housing allowance (LHA) are potentially affected by these changes. The effect on households will depend on whether private landlords continue to rent to households on housing benefit at LHA rates restricted in this way.

Question reference: S4W-13275

Asked by: Drew Smith, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 12 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish multiagency guidelines for frontline professionals in relation to female genital mutilation.

Question reference: S4W-13276

Asked by: Drew Smith, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 12 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish guidance specifically for midwives in relation to female genital mutilation

Question reference: S4W-13117

Asked by: Drew Smith, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 18 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 5 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether and, if so, when it will issue guidance to local authorities on the definition of a bedroom in relation to the UK Government's changes to housing benefit in respect of under occupancy.

The Scottish Government is looking at all reasonable ways to mitigate the impact of the UK Government’s housing benefit cuts. Scottish legislation already provides flexibility for landlords to determine the number of bedrooms in their properties within certain parameters such as space standards. Guidance relating to the definition of a bedroom specifically for welfare benefit purposes is a matter reserved to the UK Government.

However, we are considering whether any additional guidance in respect of defining bedrooms would be helpful.

Question reference: S4W-12601

Asked by: Drew Smith, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 28 January 2013
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 19 February 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what criteria are used when determining the countries that will receive support through its International Development Fund.

Scotland’s International Development Fund has been designed to reflect our historic relationship with countries such as Malawi as well as our contemporary links with South Asia through our diasporan communities. The Scottish Government also takes a country’s ranking on the Human Development Index (HDI) into account when considering which areas to support. The HDI is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living, and quality of life for countries worldwide. To support those in greatest need and the most vulnerable Scottish Government funding is awarded to countries with a low HDI rating. More details are available on our website:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/International/int-dev.

Question reference: S4W-12600

Asked by: Drew Smith, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 28 January 2013
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 19 February 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been allocated by its International Development Fund in each year since 2004-05.

The Scottish Government International Development Fund began in the 2005-6 financial year. Spend for each complete financial year since then is outlined in the following table.

Year	Amount
2005-6	£1,845,385
2006-7	£2,749,041
2007-8	£4,481,211
2008-9	£5,999,999
2009-10	£5,298,376
2010-11	£9,000,000
2011-12	£9,000,000

It should be noted that in 2007-08 the baseline International Development Fund budget was £3,000,000. This was supplemented by an additional £1,481,211 which was not baselined at that stage into the International Development Fund budget.

Question reference: S4W-12599

Asked by: Drew Smith, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 28 January 2013
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 19 February 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what countries are in receipt of support through its International Development Fund.

Question reference: S4W-12605

Asked by: Drew Smith, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 28 January 2013
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 19 February 2013

To ask the Scottish Government which non-governmental organisations (NGOs) it is working in partnership with regard to its International Development Fund and what criteria are used to determine these.

The full list of organisations that have received funding through the Scottish Government International Development Programme is set out in the following table.

The International Development Fund also provides core funding to the Network of International Development Organisations Scotland (NIDOS), the Scotland Malawi Partnership (SMP) and the Scottish Fair Trade Forum.

All of our funding is awarded following an independent assessment process. Applications are assessed against the criteria set out in the call for funding which are published online alongside the application papers for each funding round, details of which are set out on the Scottish Government website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/International/int-dev

Active Learning Centre	International Network of Street Papers	Sanday School
Adam Smith College	Inverclyde Council	Save the Children
Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics	Islamic Centre Glasgow	SCIAF
Balfron High School	Islamic Relief Worldwide	SCOTDEC
Bell College	ITCHES World Care	Scotland Malawi Business Group
Books Abroad	IRPS	Scotland's Buddhist Vihara
CONGOMA - SCVO	James Hutton Institute (Macaulay Land Use Research Institute)	Scotland-Malawi Mental Health Education Project
Challenges Worldwide	Jubilee Scotland	Scotland Malawi Partnership (SMP)
Child First	Leonard Cheshire Disability Scotland	Scottish Agricultural College
Child Support Project	Leprosy Mission Scotland	Scottish Churches World Exchange
Christian Aid	Link Community Development Scotland	Scottish Crop Research Institute
Christian Blind Mission	Lothian Zambia Partnership	Scottish International Relief
Christian Engineers in Development	Maime Martin Fund	Sense Scotland
Church of Scotland	Making Wonders	SKIP
Civic Computing	Malawi at St Magnus	Scottish Police College
Commonwealth Local Government Forum	Malawi Institute of Tourism	Stenhouse Primary School
Concern Worldwide	Malawi Tomorrow	Tearfund
Deaf Action	Malawi Trade School	Ucare Foundation
Development Education Centres	Mary's Meals (Scottish International Relief)	UNICEF
Dundee School of Medicine	Medical Aid for Palestinians	University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh Direct Aid	Mercy Corps Scotland	University of Glasgow
EMMS International	Mission Aviation Fellowship	Glasgow Caledonian University
Enterprising Global Citizen Consortium	Moffat Centre	The Open University
Equalexchange	National Library of Scotland	University of St Andrews
Eurotalk Interactive	NHS Tayside	University of Stirling
The Fair Trading Partnership	NIDOS	University of Strathclyde
Friends of African Nursing	North Lanarkshire Council	University of the West of Scotland
Glasgow City Council and The Raven Trust	Opportunity International	Venture Trust Malawi
Glasgow the Caring City	Oxfam	VSO
Global Concerns Trust	Queen Margaret University	Waverly Care
Healing Wounds	Red Cross Society	Westgate Medical Centre
IDEAS	Rosewell High School	WWF
Imani Development	Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
Interact Worldwide	Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind (Sightsavers)