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-22151

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has undertaken on improving resilience plans to enable the strategic coordination of door-to-door welfare checks.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with categorised responders, who are responsible under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 for assessing the risk of an emergency occurring, maintaining plans to ensure they can continue to perform their functions in case of an emergency, and considering whether an assessment makes it necessary or expedient to add or modify plans. Scottish Government are not however responsible for, or the owners of, any of these plans.

In relation to door-to-door welfare checks specifically, our follow-up report on Storm Arwen in October 2022 confirmed that “The capability to deliver this type of large-scale response relies on a number of the issues, for example swift activation of resilience arrangements, the ability to quickly assess the impact on the ground, strong mutual aid arrangements and links to community and voluntary groups, and agile public communications plans. Resilience partnerships are however also aware that deploying a large number of people to travel on foot to carry out door-to-door checks could itself create a risk for those involved, for example if the weather conditions remain challenging. As such, these checks should always be considered as part of a range of ‘care for people’ considerations and measures which are rolled out in response to any major incident, which might also for example include the provision of rest centres.”

The Scottish Government is also supporting partners in the development of the Persons at Risk Distribution (PARD) resource which enables the swift identification of, and support to, those most at risk during an incident.

Question reference: S6W-22159

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what review it has undertaken of any arrangements for an emergency that involves the loss of both power and telecoms, and engagement with utilities companies and local planning where required to ensure linkage with national developments.

The Scottish Government’s Storm Arwen Review provided a detailed review of such a situation, and our two follow-up reports made clear that the organisations who are responsible for emergency planning and response in Scotland had formally incorporated those recommendations into their workplans.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with UK Government Departments and the utilities operators in Scotland, as well as our own emergency responders, to ensure that information relevant to emergency planning is shared between the two.

Question reference: S6W-22155

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the work that it has done to review and expand the materials and training available to support the establishment and operation of local Community Resilience Groups during times of severe weather.

Our emergency planning portal; ready.scot, was updated in June 2022 to include a new ‘Learn’ section to support the public, community groups and Voluntary Sector partners, by raising awareness of emergency resilience structures and processes, and to strengthen understanding of how they might participate in an effective and joined-up response to an emergency. Between March and April 2023 a series of four online community resilience workshops took place, joined by approximately 240 participants. We will continue to work with the sector, and in particular Local Authorities who have the lead role on engaging with local communities, to understand their training needs and to provide any additional resources required.

Question reference: S6W-22161

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what improvements it will make in relation to increasing the amount of weather-related advice and information that it shares.

The Scottish Government, via its Ready Scotland digital channels, runs a year-long communications campaign with a specific focus on severe weather.

The aims of the campaign are: to highlight risks associated with particular severe weather conditions and recommend actions people can take to minimise the negative knock-on effects; to promote responsible behaviours; and to raise awareness of information, advice and guidance about what to do in advance to prepare for, respond to and recover from severe weather emergencies.

Since 2022 each campaign burst has been complemented with a bespoke digital toolkit. They contain pre-made social media content providing the most important and relevant weather-related practical advice, signposting users to the Ready Scotland and partner websites where they may find further guidance. The toolkits are shared with partner organisations, who we understand regularly promote this Scottish Government-branded content from their official social media accounts, therefore assisting in maximising the reach of this key messaging.

Question reference: S6W-22156

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the development of the Community Asset Register to better assist local response arrangements and enhance prioritisation and mutual aid across the country.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) has responsibility for the development of the Community Asset Register (CAR) and confirmed in October 2023 that a CAR ‘Action Plan’ has been developed to monitor progress of the actions required towards its improvement. SFRS also reiterated its intention to continue to develop the digital platform currently being used for the CAR with the necessary improvements being tabled for discussion as a priority for inclusion in its ICT workplan for 2024-2025.

Question reference: S6W-22152

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 27 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the joint work that it has done with the Scottish Resilience Partnership, COSLA, the Improvement Service and local authorities to implement the Persons at Risk Distribution (PARD) system.

Scottish Government and the Improvement Service continues to support Local Authorities with their local implementations of PARD. Support ranges from guidance on data preparation, through to examples on when PARD can be used.

Scottish Government and the Improvement Service are also drafting a ‘quick start guide’ that will be distributed to Local Authorities by the end of October 2023. The guide answers frequently asked questions.

Scottish Government Digital Directorate has engaged with the Society of Local Authority Lawyers & Administrators in Scotland (SOLAR) FOI, Data Protection & Human Rights Group working group to brief them on the Data Protection requirements around PARD. The working group will provide support to Local Authorities when preparing Data Protection documentation relating to PARD.

Additionally, Scottish Government Digital Directorate presented PARD to a Public Engagement Panel that was looking at public acceptance and Data Ethics around the use of personal data by the Public Sector. The panel was very supportive of the use of personal data in PARD and in general for incidents and emergencies.

Question reference: S6W-22153

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 27 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government which local authorities and health and social care partnerships are participating in the Persons at Risk Distribution (PARD) system.

It is a matter for Local Authorities to decide whether they want to adopt PARD or use a different system. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places a duty on Category 1 and 2 responders to share and access information to support decision making.

To date, Scottish Government and the Improvement Service have held workshops with colleagues from Social Work and Emergency Planning in all Scottish Local Authorities. These workshops have focused on how PARD data can be used to identify people at risk during and to support decision making during incidents.

Question reference: S6W-22264

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 October 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 26 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the work of (a) its Bee Health Team and (b) the Bee Health Improvement Partnership (BHIP), and on how the public can engage with each.

The Bee Health Team’s bee heath inspectors have been conducting a programme of apiary visits across Scotland during this year’s beekeeping season, inspecting colonies for signs of notifiable pests and diseases as well as monitoring for incursion of exotic pests. Our diagnostics and science team at SASA continues to provide a free diagnostic service to beekeepers in Scotland to identify and confirm the presence of bee diseases and pests. The Scottish Government also provides funding for a Bee Health Advisor post at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) who provides education and practical advice to beekeepers on honey bee health and good management with the aim of improving bee health in Scotland.

The Bee Health Improvement Partnership (BHIP) has developed a 10 year Honey Bee Health Strategy which aims to achieve a healthy and sustainable population of honey bees in Scotland, supported by an Implementation Plan detailing specific actions to deliver the Strategy’s outcomes. The Plan is updated and published after each quarterly BHIP meeting. Links to both the Strategy and the Implementation Plan are below:

Strategy: The Honey Bee Health Strategy 2022 - 2032 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Implementation Plan: Scotland’s Honey Bee Health Strategy: implementation plan - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Scottish beekeepers and members of the public can contact the Bee Health Team direct by emailing [email protected] to discuss any issues, seek advice, and request items to be raised at the BHIP meetings.

Question reference: S6O-02649

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 October 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of onshore wind farms approved in the past year had majority support from the local community.

Question reference: S6W-21841

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 25 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-20887 by Richard Lochhead on 19 September 2023, whether there are any contractually provided consequences for non-performance regarding the delivery of the R100 programme.

The R100 programme comprises of three strands of activity – the R100 contracts, R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (R100 SBVS) and continued commercial build.

The R100 contracts are gap funded meaning that the Scottish Government subsidises Openreach to deliver connections to premises which would not otherwise be commercially viable. Subsidy is only paid to Openreach once premises have been delivered and delivery milestones have been achieved.

Suppliers to the R100 SBVS can only claim their evidenced costs, up to a maximum of the voucher value, once the installation work is completed and the voucher beneficiary is able to receive, as a minimum, a superfast broadband service.

The Scottish Government does not have a remit to intervene should a broadband provider choose not to proceed with their commercial build plans.