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-25799

Asked by: Cara Hilton, MSP for Dunfermline, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 May 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 8 June 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has invested in mental health treatment for under-18s in each year since 2007-08.

The information is not held centrally. The majority of spend on mental health treatment for under-18s will be made by NHS boards and local authorities from the overall resources they receive from the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government has invested £16.3 million since 2009 increasing the number of psychologists working in specialist child and adolescent mental health services by over 70%. We also recently announced an additional £85 million over five years for improving mental health services which will include further investment to improve access to child and adolescent mental health services and bring down waiting times. This is in addition to the £15 million over three years announced in November 2014 for the mental health innovation fund.

Question reference: S4W-25801

Asked by: Cara Hilton, MSP for Dunfermline, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 May 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 3 June 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what effect delays in treatment for mental health issues for under-18s have had on educational attainment.

Information on what effect delays in treatment for mental health issues for under 18s have had on educational attainment is not held centrally.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) is a priority of the Scottish Government and is one of the four key change areas in the mental health strategy.

Children and young people who are referred to CAMHS are assessed on their clinical needs. At assessment they will be seen by a multidisciplinary team which includes a number of professionals, including psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and occupational therapists.

We have made available to NHS boards £16.9 million since 2009 to increase the number of psychologists working in specialist CAMHS, and we have further committed another £3.5 million this year. As a result of this investment we have seen a 41.1% growth in child psychology posts since 2008.

We also continue to invest £2 million per year in tier 3 and tier 4 (intensive) community CAMHS services. This investment is allowing NHS boards to grow their intensive outreach services, thus reducing the length of time children and young people need to be in hospital. As a result of this investment, we have seen a 28.2% growth in the overall specialist CAMHS workforce.

On 20 November 2014 an additional investment of £15 million was announced for mental health services. The funding which will be over a three year period is targeted towards two main areas: a mental health innovation fund, and to boost staff numbers to address the mental health needs of children and adolescents and the rising demand for CAMHS.

Furthermore on 24 May 2015 we announced a further £85 million will be invested in improving mental health services over the next five years. The fund will partly be used to further improve CAMHS services, and bring down waiting times.

Question reference: S4O-04415

Asked by: Cara Hilton, MSP for Dunfermline, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 May 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 June 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether all treatments approved for use by the Scottish Medicines Consortium are made available by the NHS.

Question reference: S4W-25519

Asked by: Cara Hilton, MSP for Dunfermline, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 May 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 21 May 2015

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has not been able to provide substantive answers to questions S4W-24696, S4W-24697, S4W-24698 and S4W-24699 regarding its position on underground coal gasification, which received holding answers on 13 March and 29 April 2015, and when it expects to provide substantive answers.

Question reference: S4W-25391

Asked by: Cara Hilton, MSP for Dunfermline, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 April 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 12 May 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what plans there are in the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme to provide superfast broadband to households where fibre optic cabinets are too distant to deliver sufficiently fast internet speeds.

The Scottish Government continues to encourage broadband suppliers to design their networks in a way that allows their customers to access superfast speeds. The £412.3 million investment that the Scottish Government and our partners are making through the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme is extending fibre infrastructure to non-commercial areas and will increase fibre broadband coverage to 95% of Scottish premises by the end of 2017. The programme is deploying a range of technologies to maximise the broadband speeds available. This includes creating new cabinets as well as rolling out fibre to the premise and fibre to the remote node connections.

We are currently considering options for an additional £41.98 million of public funding for broadband that will further extend coverage and enhance speeds in non-commercial areas. We have also established Community Broadband Scotland to advise and support communities that will not have a superfast connection delivered commercially or through the DSSB programme.

Question reference: S4W-25393

Asked by: Cara Hilton, MSP for Dunfermline, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 April 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 12 May 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how it will help those households that are connected to fibre optic broadband but continue to have very slow internet speeds.

Question reference: S4W-25281

Asked by: Cara Hilton, MSP for Dunfermline, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fiona McLeod on 12 May 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether the First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning have met the Fair Funding for Kids campaign, as indicated in the First Minister’s letter to the member of 4 March 2015, and what action it has taken to address the concerns raised by the campaign.

The First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning have arranged to meet Fair Funding for our Kids campaign representatives on 28 May 2015. Following the First Minister’s letter to Jenny Gorevan of Fair Funding for Our Kids, the chief statistician has confirmed that his statisticians are considering ways in which the collection and communication of data could be improved; and, officials have met with COSLA to consider how best to further improve data and information on the implementation of early learning and childcare.

Question reference: S4W-25284

Asked by: Cara Hilton, MSP for Dunfermline, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fiona McLeod on 12 May 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) three and (b) four-year-olds eligible for the 600 hours of free early education and childcare are not in receipt of it.

The Scottish Government Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) Census collects information on the number of registrations within centres only and not on the number of individual children. However, a registration level of 98.5% of three and four-year-olds is a strong indicator of high uptake.

Some children can be registered at more than one setting so this additional flexibility can lead to some children being counted more than once. Also, figures are not adjusted for those three-year-olds who start earlier than the term after their third birthday.

The chief statistician has indicated to the First Minister that statisticians will consider ways in which the collection and communication of data could be improved; and, this will include consideration of any double counting.

Question reference: S4W-25283

Asked by: Cara Hilton, MSP for Dunfermline, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fiona McLeod on 12 May 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will establish a formal mechanism for reciprocal funding arrangements across local authority boundaries to ensure that parents who work in a different council area from where they live have accessible access to the 600 hours of free early education and childcare.

Question reference: S4W-25282

Asked by: Cara Hilton, MSP for Dunfermline, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fiona McLeod on 12 May 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it will take to ensure effective and independent national oversight of the 600 hours of free early education and childcare.

As set out in the First Minister’s letter to Fair Funding for Our Kids, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Angela Constance MSP, is responsible for overseeing the delivery of this policy.

In addition, the chief statistician acts independently of government in assuring the quality of statistics. We are also exploring with COSLA how best we can work in partnership to consider further improvements to data and information.