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: S6W-41687

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, since the ScotAccount scheme started, how many (a) unique accounts have been created, (b) sign-ins have been made, and (c) times each public service has been accessed via a Scot Account account.

Since ScotAccount’s launch in February 2023, over 540,000 unique accounts have been created with more than 2,200,000 total sign-ins to ScotAccount made.

ScotAccount has been used to access the following services online:

Public service	Number of times accessed
Disclosure Scotland	2,100,000
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service’s Witness Gateway	50,000
Accountant in Bankruptcy’s Debt Arrangement Scheme	25,000
Scottish Government Registers (Tobacco, Funeral Services etc)	2,600
Registers of Scotland – Moveable Transactions	<100

*Figures rounded and accurate as of 10 November 2025. Data does not add to total sign ins due to rounding and sign in to account management settings.

Question reference: S6W-41685

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding how many external telephone calls relating to their work were made by (a) its executive agencies and (b) other public bodies in the last calendar year, broken down by how much was spent on these, and what information it has regarding the number of calls from external sources relating to such work that were received.

Question reference: S6W-41683

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding how many externally issued hard-copy letters relating to their work were sent by (a) its executive agencies and (b) other public bodies, in the last calendar year, and also broken down by how much was spent on these.

Question reference: S6W-41681

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of (a) its executive agencies’ and (b) other public bodies’ services are (i) fully digitised, (ii) partially digitised, (iii) have a pathway to digitisation and (iv) not digitised.

Question reference: S6W-41815

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 November 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 25 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of technology used by Scottish public sector bodies, including non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), NHS boards and local authorities, can be defined as legacy systems, and which organisations consistently measure this.

Question reference: S6W-41701

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 November 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 19 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the planned refresh of its digital strategy, as proposed in the 2024 progress report.

Question reference: S6W-41541

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 5 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what guidance is provided to local authorities on parental eligibility for Neonatal Care Pay and Leave.

Neonatal Care pay and leave is currently a matter that is reserved to the UK Parliament and statutory guidance, including that on parental eligibility, is provided by the relevant UK department.

Local authorities are entirely separate entities from the Scottish Government. Their powers are set out in statute and, it is up to each local authority to manage its own day to day business. As such, the Scottish Government does not hold information on the provision of guidance on parental eligibility for Neonatal pay and leave.

The member may wish to contact local authorities directly for further information.

Question reference: S6W-41688

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 November 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 18 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a list all public bodies that have adopted the Cloud Platform Service to date.

Question reference: S6W-41540

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 4 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on which local authorities provide their staff with statutory paternity leave and pay and which local authorities provide their staff with enhanced paternity leave and pay, and what the level of uptake is for these across local authorities.

Local authorities are entirely separate entities from the Scottish Government. Their powers are set out in statute and, it is up to each local authority to manage its own day to day business, including their own parental leave policies. As such, the Scottish Government does not hold information on the provision or uptake of statutory or enhanced paternity leave and pay across local authorities.

The member may wish to contact local authorities directly for further information.

Question reference: S6W-40917

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 28 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it takes when its corporate devices, including laptops and mobile phones, reach the end of their business needs and are no longer required by it, and how they are routinely disposed of, including whether it allows any of these devices to be reused subsequently outside of its supervision and, if so, (a) under what circumstances, (b) what information it has regarding how many devices in each of the last five years, have been repurposed and (i) by whom and (ii) for what reason, broken down by type of device, and (c) what action it takes to ensure that these devices cannot be compromised and no longer hold confidential or sensitive information, and how it monitors the effectiveness of this.

When corporate devices are no longer required for operational use, we follow a structured and secure disposal process to ensure data protection and environmental compliance. This includes:

Assessment: Devices are reviewed to determine whether they are eligible for redeployment, reuse, or disposal.
Data Sanitisation: All devices are securely wiped using industry-leading data erasure software that complies with internationally recognised standards, and UK-specific requirements such as GDPR and NCSC (National Cyber Security Council) guidance. This process ensures that all data is permanently and irreversibly removed from the device, with tamper-proof erasure certificates generated for audit and compliance purposes.

Reused or Recycled: Devices not fit for redeployment are either reused or recycled. Reused devices may be sold through approved channels or donated to approved third-sector organisations. Devices offered for sale are sold at auction by a contracted supplier. The specifics of each purchaser are not tracked. Donated devices are provided to third-sector organisations for continued use where possible, although supply chain constrictions following COVID-19 have interrupted donations in some years.

Remaining devices are recycled through certified e-waste partners. As noted above, whether resold, donated, or recycled devices are only ever disposed of after being fully wiped of all data.

The following table gives a breakdown of laptop and desktop devices disposed of since 2020. The first column displays the year while the next two differentiate between laptop and desktop devices. The remaining columns show the total number of both device types either resold, recycled, or donated. The donated column also indicates the recipients of devices for that year.

All mobile phones returned for disposal are not eligible for reuse, therefore no data is available.

Year	Laptops	Desktops	Resold	Recycled	Donated
2020	1,097	2,638	2,638	118	979 Turing Trust
2021	161	0	161	0	0
2022	1,731	73	1,191	13	250 Edinburgh Remakery 250 Turing Trust 100 HP Hope Scheme
2023	2,705	275	2,934	46	0
2024	1,868	286	1,843	111	200 Turing Trust
2025	2,531	93	1,958	566	100 HP Hope Scheme