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-16813

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what action it can take to remove any charges for the completion of the Debt and Mental Health Evidence Form in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-16815

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to remove the threshold for full administration bankruptcy.

Question reference: S6W-16817

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to introduce legislation to give creditors greater flexibility to reduce the amount of money taken in an earnings arrestment.

Question reference: S6W-16814

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to remove the application fee for Minimal Asset Process bankruptcy.

Question reference: S6W-16854

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what key performance indicators it uses to measure the performance of VoiceAbility in assisting with Scottish Social Security claims.

The Key Performance Indicators (KPI) used in monitoring the performance of VoiceAbility are provided below:

No	Key Performance Indicator
1	All requests for support received must be processed and allocated to appropriate advocacy representation within 2 working days.
2	Initial appointments with individuals should be arranged within 3 working days of the referral to the advocacy worker or service partner.
3	Acknowledge receipt of complaint/concern within 2 working days of receipt and provide a formal response within 5 working days of receipt (copied to the Scottish Government contract manager for information).
4	Any complaints which cannot be resolved by Service Provider regarding the system or services must be sent to Scottish Government contract manager within 6 working days of receipt.
5	Serious issues to be escalated to the Scottish Government within 24 hours.
6	Service Provider must issue satisfaction survey to 100% of individuals within two days of their service requirements ending.
7	Service Provider must make payment to any sub-contractors within 30 days of receipt of a valid invoice

VoiceAbility are also contractually obliged to adhere to the Social Security Advocacy Service Standards – set by the Scottish Ministers in regulations as required by section 11 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018. These standards set out the following six core principles framing delivery of the Social Security Independent Advocacy Service: Definition of Advocacy, Independence, Person Centred, Accessible, Trained and Quality Assurance.

We will also assess performance of the service through an evaluation exercise, which will consider both KPIs and wider quantitative and qualitative measures.

Question reference: S6W-16596

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 31 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 21 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to address any regional disparities in the success of welfare applications.

Social Security Scotland’s Local Delivery service has teams based in every Scottish Local Authority, and in many cases are co-located with existing services to make sure that they bring support to places that people currently go. This localised approach to support also means that visibility of the service is tailored to meet the demands and demographics of each Local Authority area.

Through analysis of their data, Social Security Scotland are able to identify areas with low take-up or high rates of unsuccessful applications. This evidence can then be used to target engagement with local stakeholders to raise awareness of Scottish benefits and effectively support people to take up their entitlements.

Question reference: S6W-16609

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 21 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to introduce trauma-informed practice training for all public sector staff who work with people in relation to debt issues.

The Scottish Government’s ambition, shared with COSLA, is for a trauma-informed workforce and services across Scotland. Since 2018, we have invested over £6 million in a National Trauma Training Programme, which provides freely available, evidence-based trauma training resources developed by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and informed by experts by experience.

A trauma-informed approach has been incorporated into all learning plans for Social Security Scotland colleagues including recoveries officers. In addition to this, all recoveries officers undertake bespoke learning on understanding the potential impact of bereavement and having sensitive conversations. Specialist training in relation to vulnerability and debt collection has also been commissioned from Money Advice Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-16855

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 21 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what actions it is taking in response to reported statistics stating that 86% of redeterminations for the Child Disability Payment have been made in favour of the client.

Social Security Scotland’s priority is to get decisions right first time and an extremely low number of re-determinations are carried out. The re-determination request rate for Child Disability Payment decisions made by Social Security Scotland is 4.6%, which indicates that the vast majority of clients are happy with the initial decision.

Re-determinations are an important part of the decision-making process as they give clients the opportunity to ask Social Security Scotland to look at their application afresh before lodging an appeal.

Child Disability Payment decisions are usually changed at re-determination stage because the client provides additional information that was not available when the initial decision was made. Social Security Scotland staff now make additional contact with clients at the initial decision stage. While this may add to overall processing times, it will help ensure that such information is available first time round.

Question reference: S6W-16858

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 21 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many Social Security Scotland staff are currently employed on (a) fixed-term and (b) permanent contracts.

Social Security Scotland directly employed 3,976 staff (headcount) as at December 2022. Of this amount, 69 were fixed term, fixed term student placements and modern apprentices. The remaining 3,907 staff were permanent.

Information on Social Security Scotland’s workforce are published quarterly with the most recent statistics from December 2022 published 14 March 2023, published workforce statistics .

Question reference: S6W-16852

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 21 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many applications for the Scottish Child Payment that have been submitted since it expanded to children under 16 in Nov 2022 are currently yet to be processed.

Official Statistics covering the number of Scottish Child Payment applications received and processed are published as part of the regularly scheduled quarterly publication. The latest Scottish Child Payment statistical publication was released on 28 February 2023.

The next publication will be published on 30 May 2023 and will include information on the number of applications received and processed by the end of March 2023. Official Statistics for Scottish Child Payment can be found at: https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/about/statistics/social-security-scotland-statistics-publications