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-00202

Asked by: Margaret McCulloch, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 22 September 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what recent discussions the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth has had with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning on improving the flexibility and responsiveness of Partnership Action for Continuing Employment.

Scottish ministers meet regularly to discuss all aspects of Scottish Government policy.

In June 2009, we established the PACE Partnership which brings together 18 organisations with the Scottish Government to oversee a continuous improvement programme to enhance the operation of PACE. The continuous improvement programme addresses the PACE offer and its delivery, marketing, data capture and evaluation, early intervention and staff development.

The Minister for Learning and Skills will chair the next meeting of the PACE Partnership on 16 November.

We have made considerable improvements to increase the accessibility of PACE support, especially in the current economic conditions and since January 2009, PACE has supported over 34,000 individuals and over 700 employers.

Question reference: S4W-02358

Asked by: Margaret McCulloch, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 26 August 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 20 September 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what the level of (a) numeracy and (b) literacy among school leavers was in each year since 2007, broken down by local authority.

Information on the level of literacy and numeracy of school leavers is not collected. However, information on the percentage of school leavers achieving qualifications at SCQF level 3 or higher (includes Access 3, standard grades and higher level qualifications) in English and Mathematics is given in the following table:

English at SCQF level 3 or higher

Mathematics at SCQF level 3 or higher

	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
Aberdeen City	94.9	94.3	94.6	94.5	95.3	94.9
Aberdeenshire	95.6	95.6	96.2	96.1	96.8	96.7
Angus	94.7	94.1	94.6	94.4	93.5	93.7
Argyll and Bute	96.6	95.5	95.8	95.6	94.9	94.1
Clackmannanshire	92.5	93.4	94.0	89.1	91.1	93.5
Dumfries and Galloway	93.8	94.0	94.5	95.2	95.9	96.4
Dundee City	86.6	89.0	89.8	87.6	91.1	92.8
East Ayrshire	92.9	92.1	92.9	91.1	93.2	93.2
East Dunbartonshire	98.3	98.4	98.5	97.9	98.7	98.1
East Lothian	97.9	95.9	96.2	96.7	95.4	95.3
East Renfrewshire	97.0	96.4	96.6	95.4	94.7	94.8
Edinburgh City	92.4	92.7	94.3	91.9	93.1	94.0
Eilean Siar	93.7	97.7	93.3	94.3	97.7	92.4
Falkirk	95.0	96.1	96.3	94.7	95.6	96.3
Fife	93.1	93.4	93.6	93.3	93.7	94.6
Glasgow City	87.2	88.4	90.0	87.4	88.3	90.4
Highland	94.4	95.4	94.9	95.3	95.4	95.3
Inverclyde	97.1	97.8	97.5	96.1	97.3	97.0
Midlothian	96.8	95.7	96.7	97.5	96.2	96.0
Moray	93.4	94.0	94.9	93.1	94.7	94.8
North Ayrshire	93.5	95.0	97.3	93.9	95.3	97.1
North Lanarkshire	94.7	94.9	96.1	94.4	95.0	95.2
Orkney Islands	96.5	97.1	97.4	95.0	98.0	96.5
Perth and Kinross	93.1	95.1	96.2	94.1	96.1	96.8
Renfrewshire	95.2	94.8	95.6	95.1	95.0	96.4
Scottish Borders	93.2	94.4	94.5	93.6	93.9	94.1
Shetland Islands	96.3	97.4	95.0	96.3	96.0	96.0
South Ayrshire	95.1	94.3	96.8	93.3	94.8	96.5
South Lanarkshire	94.3	94.1	94.9	93.9	94.4	95.1
Stirling	93.7	94.6	94.9	93.7	94.9	94.3
West Dunbartonshire	95.7	93.8	95.3	94.0	94.1	96.3
West Lothian	96.4	97.1	97.1	96.6	97.4	96.4

Question reference: S4O-00211

Asked by: Margaret McCulloch, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 September 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what the career destinations are of mechanical engineering graduates from Scottish universities.

Question reference: S4W-02357

Asked by: Margaret McCulloch, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 26 August 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 15 September 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how food standards in NHS hospitals are monitored and how complaints regarding these are (a) processed and (b) dealt with.

The review process has two key parts: local self-assessment and external peer review. Each NHS board assesses its own performance against the NHS QIS Food, Fluid and Nutrition Standards and external peer review teams further assess performance both by considering self assessment data and visiting the NHS board to validate this information. The findings of the external reviews are publicly available and can be accessed on the following link:

http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/default.aspx?page=11926.

Responsibility for the delivery of patient care lies with NHS boards. In the first instance, patients should make complaints regarding their care, including those particular to food standards, to their NHS board. Each NHS board will have an identifiable process to support individuals in making complaints.

The Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 was passed by Parliament on 24 February 2011, and aims to improve patients’ experiences of using health services and to support people to become more involved in their health and health care. It will help the Scottish Government’s aspiration for an NHS which respects the rights of both patients and staff.

Question reference: S4W-02360

Asked by: Margaret McCulloch, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 26 August 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 13 September 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether all (a) local authorities and (b) NHS boards are compliant with section 259 of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003.

Independent advocacy was one of several new rights around patient representation introduced by the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003.

Advocacy is provided, or its provision secured, at local level with most local authorities contracting out provision of the service. The independent Review Group appointed by ministers to carry out a limited review of the 2003 act, highlighted in its 2009 report to ministers that: there was very strong support for the provision of high quality independent advocacy services to all; that there was patchy availability of advocacy services in some areas, and that there were particular difficulties in the provision of advocacy services in relation to specific needs.

Ministers recognise that the provision of such advocacy to many diverse groups is a challenge, however all local authorities and health boards are fully aware of their responsibilities to comply with relevant legislation and ministers remain committed to supporting them in that. Since 2005-06, overall funding for local authorities has included £13 million per year to help them implement the 2003 act, of which advocacy is an important part. Similarly, £5 million per year has been made available to NHS boards to help them deliver the act.

Question reference: S4O-00161

Asked by: Margaret McCulloch, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 September 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 September 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how it promotes the teaching of first aid and life support skills in schools.

Question reference: S4O-00134

Asked by: Margaret McCulloch, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 September 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive when it plans to publish a new strategy for museums and galleries.

Question reference: S4W-01925

Asked by: Margaret McCulloch, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 July 2011
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 25 August 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many applications have been made to the Tourism Innovation Fund since the fund was established and how many of these have been successful.

Question reference: S4W-01930

Asked by: Margaret McCulloch, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 July 2011
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 25 August 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how it monitors the performance of Tourism Intelligence Scotland.

Scottish Enterprise project manages the Tourism Intelligence Scotland project, however it is important to note that it is a collaboration between SE, HIE and VS and as such all of the agencies are involved in monitoring its performance through a steering group which consists of representatives from the three agencies. There is also an advisory group made up of industry representatives which further assists with strategic direction and monitoring.

Additionally Tourism Intelligence Scotland has a project specific performance monitoring framework against which progress and performance are measured and this is examined on a quarterly basis by the steering group. Examples of the performance measures include:

Users registrations which enable analysis by types of users and geographical spread.

Web statistics which enable analysis of length of stay, pages and topics visited etc.

Case studies demonstrating how users have employed the market intelligence available in their business.

Cohort surveys which are carried out at regular intervals and survey a sample of users, analysing the results in order to inform improvements and developments.

Numbers of businesses attending workshops which support them to use market intelligence more effectively to develop their business.

Question reference: S4W-01931

Asked by: Margaret McCulloch, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 July 2011
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 25 August 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how it (a) promotes and (b) facilitates co-operation between the tourist accommodation sector and visitor attractions.

All VisitScotland marketing activity is focused on attracting more visitors to Scotland, and the methods with which tourism businesses can encourage visitors to stay longer and spend more while they are here. VisitScotland recognises the most effective of these methods is working in partnership - with fellow tourism businesses, with destination organisations and other industry bodies, and with the public sector.

VisitScotland therefore works closely with the main destination organisations throughout the country to support and encourage collaborative efforts and a joined-up approach to marketing Scotland as a tourist destination, including supporting joint marketing initiatives and providing business advice where appropriate.

VisitScotland’s business-to-business events outreach programme encourages businesses to come together on joint promotional activity, and VisitScotland chairman Dr. Mike Cantlay recently hosted a series of industry networking events held around the country for this purpose.

The highly-successful VisitScotland Growth Fund offers match-funding to groups of tourism operators to encourage collaboration on marketing and joint product development at a local level. These groups very often comprise of a mix of accommodation providers and visitor attractions.

All of VisitScotland’s major international and domestic marketing campaigns includes “offers” sections focused on adding value to the visitor experience locally, and this promotional opportunity is frequently used by cooperating accommodation providers and visitor attractions to encourage uptake across their businesses.