- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the use of aluminium chemistry in municipal waste water treatment.
Answer
Under its standard regulatory guidance (WAT-SG-13, available on its website), SEPA discourages the use of aluminium dosing due to its toxicity. Aluminium dosing at wastewater treatment works should only be used in situations where ferric dosing is impracticable. The operator also needs to provide full justification for the use of aluminium. If aluminium is proposed, the standards to be followed are those set out in SEPA's regulatory method (WAT-RM-12), which will determine discharge limits. However, to limit discharge levels in high dilution situations, a backstop discharge limit of 10mg/l dissolved aluminium may need to be used.
Where an aluminium-based product is proposed for use in municipal wastewater treatment, SEPA uses a tiered approach to assess the level of risk that the substance's use may pose the environment. This requires the operator in the first instance to share details of the process, the chemicals used and their properties (through for example a safety datasheet). If this information is not sufficient to demonstrate safe use, SEPA would require further information on the process and specific details like discharge and receiving water flow rates, for example. This information could then be used to assess the risk a chemical’s use poses to the environment, as the result of the environmental exposure versus the intrinsic chemical hazard (e.g. the risk quotient as defined by predicted environmental concentration divided by predicted no-effect concentration). SEPA may ask the operator to derive this, but may do so itself if necessary. Further information may then be required if a risk is indicated in an iterative process to refine the risk assessment. If safe use cannot be demonstrated, restrictions may be placed on the use of the substance.
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether quantitative chemical risk assessments should be used to justify the use of chemical aids in the (a) municipal and (b) construction waste water sector.
Answer
SEPA uses consistent risk assessment principles across all business sectors, using the approach as described in the answer to question S5W-27671 on 12 March 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 February 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 10 March 2020
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the implementation of the 33 recommendations of the LGBTI Inclusive Education Working Group.
Answer
The LGBT Inclusive Education Implementation Group was established in January 2019 to oversee the implementation of the LGBT inclusive education recommendations.
Significant progress has been achieved by the Group since its formation with targeted work completed including an intermediate guidance note to all schools, training for school inspectors and the beginning of a pilot year of the new approach to recording an monitoring bullying incidents.
The implementation group is continuing to work collegiately on the delivery of the remaining actions. Significant progress has been made in relation to the recommendations for initial teacher education provision, curricular inclusion and SQA course specifications. The Group has also recently commenced work on the development of professional learning on LGBT awareness.
Further updates on the implementation of the recommendations will be published on the Scottish Government’s website: https://www.gov.scot/groups/lgbt-inclusive-education-implementation-group/ .
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 10 March 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has carried out of the environmental impact of, and the risks arising from, the use of waste water treatment by Scottish Water in comparison with other companies.
Answer
SEPA is responsible for assessing the environmental impacts and risks arising from wastewater discharging from any company to the water environment.
Generally wastewater treatment processes use few chemicals and SEPA applies its standard regulatory methods to assess the risks arising from wastewater discharges which implement current Scottish regulations on effluent and water quality standards (for example WAT-RM-03 "Regulation of sewage discharges to surface waters", WAT-RM-05 "Regulation of Trade Effluent Discharges to Surface Waters" available from SEPA’s website). Specific guidance is available for certain activities and certain substances (for example WAT-SG-13 “Municipal sewage treatment works” and WAT-RM-12 “Regulation of discharges from Water Treatment Works" which includes guidance on discharges containing aluminium).
To assess impact, SEPA requires certain operators to monitor their effluent and SEPA also carries out monitoring of effluents and the receiving water environment. The ecological status of Scotland's water bodies is reported annually and actions to address any impacts identified are included in the River Basin Management Plans, available on SEPA's website ( https://www.sepa.org.uk/environment/water/river-basin-management-planning/ ). These include actions to address pollution impacts from Scottish Water and other companies' wastewater discharges in order to achieve Good Ecological Status where possible.
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 March 2020
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 11 March 2020
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its response to SEPA's consultation on the matter, for what reason it did not object to the application by the MoD to discharge more radioactive waste into Gareloch.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 11 March 2020
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 26 February 2020
To ask the Scottish Government how many people have come to Scotland under the Erasmus+ programme in each of the last five years.
Answer
The Erasmus+ UK National Agency reports on the total number of individuals coming to the UK as a whole and does not provide a breakdown of the number of individuals undertaking ERASMUS+ related activities for the devolved nations separately. The available statistics for Scotland in the following table are provided from Higher Education Statistics Agency data and include those reported as being ERASMUS+ incoming students to Scottish Higher Education institutions only. Therefore, these statistics do not include individuals studying on ERASMUS+ programmes at Scottish colleges, nor those who come to Scotland to work or volunteer on ERASMUS+.
ERASMUS+ incoming students to Scottish HEIs |
Year | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | |
Number of students | 2,035 | 2,920 | 3,040 | 2,935 | |
Source: HESA student data, SG Analysis |
Excludes dormant and writing-up students |
Numbers have been rounded to nearest 5 and include students of all domiciles reported as studying in Scotland under an ERASMUS+ placement. |
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 February 2020
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 26 February 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that all school staff have access to mental health first aid training.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 26 February 2020
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 27 January 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 14 February 2020
To ask the Scottish Government how many counsellors are employed in schools on a (a) permanent and (b) temporary contract, also broken down by local authority.
Answer
We are continuing to have ongoing conversations with COSLA regarding the delivery of this programme. At present neither the Scottish Government nor COSLA collect data on the number of counselling posts currently funded by education authorities.
We are working with local authorities and their data systems providers to consider how best to capture this information going forward.
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 27 January 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 14 February 2020
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-19849 by John Swinney on 20 November 2018, how many local authority staff have been trained under the funding it provides for mental health first aid training, broken down by local authority.
Answer
The information requested is not held centrally.
Education Scotland produce annual reports on the funding we provide. As part of this, local authorities are asked to provide a summary of the implementation and a brief evaluation of the initial impact of the project, but the reports do not ask for specific numbers or staff positions.
The reports will be published on the Scottish Government website by the end of March 2020.
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 6 February 2020
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answers to questions S5F-02258 by Nicola Sturgeon on 26 April 2018 (Official Report, c. 20) and S5W-26884 by Jamie Hepburn on 16 January 2020, what the nature is of the support provided by Scottish Enterprise to Leonardo regarding the development of the radar system used by the Norwegian search and rescue, including whether this has been for research and development, production or marketing purposes.
Answer
Information regarding account management support provided by Scottish Enterprise is an operational matter for that agency and is not held by the Scottish Government. I have asked the agency’s Chief Executive to respond to you directly.
