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: S5W-16396

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 May 2018
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 15 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many times in each of the last 12 months ScotRail services between Edinburgh and Musselburgh have been (a) delayed, (b) cancelled and (c) terminated before reaching (i) Edinburgh or (ii) Musselburgh.

Our franchise agreement does not obligate the franchisee to provide the information in the format requested by the member.

ScotRail provides my officials at Transport Scotland with statistical information on the public performance measurement (PPM), which is used in the railway system in Great Britain to provide a consistent and comparable assessment of performance. The PPM measure counts all trains planned to run, which run and arrive within five minutes of their scheduled arrival time. Trains which are cancelled, either in full or in part, or which do not stop at stations at which they are meant to stop, are counted against this measure.

Performance information for ScotRail is available on-line, at the ORR Data Portal (Table 3.18). An on-line link to this table can be found here:

http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/displayreport/report/html/5b6fbf8a-7fab-469e-9855-6c6cb4ff67dc

It includes ScotRail’s PPM information by operating sector and overall, on both a by-period and a moving-annual-average basis.

Also, ScotRail publishes quite detailed information for each four week period on by-station and by-sector PPM. This information is published at stations, and is also available on-line, at this URL: https://www.scotrail.co.uk/performance-and-reliability

Question reference: S5O-02009

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 April 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Creative Scotland regarding the appointment of the head of the new Screen Unit.

Question reference: S5W-15475

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many people in each local authority area it estimates are eligible for Self-directed Support, and how this compares with the number of claimants.

The annual Social Care Survey collects information on people known to Local Authorities that are receiving social care services. This includes self-directed support where a person has been assessed, made a choice and received a service through that choice within the relevant year of the survey. The following table provides figures on the number of self-directed support clients from the 2017 Social Care Survey, along with the total number of social care clients for context. It should be noted that not all people in the survey will be able to exercise choice over their services or support, for example, those receiving reablement and/or crisis support. There is also variability in the set-up of services across Local Authorities.

Local Authority	Social Care Clients	Self-directed Support Clients
Aberdeen City	9,437	389
Aberdeenshire	11,924	4,473
Angus	4,183	1,051
Argyll & Bute	3,693	1,180
Clackmannanshire	2,600	1,656
Dumfries & Galloway	6,843	6,843
Dundee City	11,338	5,327
East Ayrshire	5,143	944
East Dunbartonshire	6,065	1,633
East Lothian	4,732	917
East Renfrewshire	6,423	727
Edinburgh, City of	18,668	4,676
Eilean Siar	1,419	626
Falkirk	7,569	2,758
Fife	12,711	3,350
Glasgow City	15,130	3,333
Highland	8,083	6,083
Inverclyde	4,117	4,117
Midlothian	3,499	2,290
Moray	2,912	1,315
North Ayrshire	6,512	6,512
North Lanarkshire	10,142	1,193
Orkney Islands	827	103
Perth & Kinross	5,784	4,790
Renfrewshire	4,669	830
Scottish Borders	3,946	1,757
Shetland Islands	1,423	48
South Ayrshire	4,849	3,257
South Lanarkshire	12,608	7,420
Stirling	3,379	1,597
West Dunbartonshire	3,330	116
West Lothian	8,260	2,457

Source: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/12/3849

Question reference: S5O-01937

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 March 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s revenue forecast for the increase in the top rate of tax.

Question reference: S5O-01921

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 21 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions have taken place regarding the recent publication of the Housing Statistics for Scotland Quarterly Update.

I and my officials have had, and will continue to have, constructive dialogue with stakeholders and the industry to maintain positive progress in the delivery of housing across all tenures. Working together, across Scotland, to provide quality homes in mixed communities that meet local needs.

We are confident that we will meet the 50,000 target, just as we not only met, but exceeded, our previous target. The statistics the member mentions, show that since 2007 we have now delivered nearly 72,500 affordable homes. That is a remarkable achievement and includes almost 50,000 homes for social rent including 9,217 council homes, over 5,000 for affordable rent, and almost 18,000 for affordable home ownership.

In April 2009, we introduced the Council House Build Programme – the first such central government support to councils in a generation and we’ve ended right to buy - protecting existing social rented homes and preventing sale of up to 15,500 houses over a 10 year period.

Question reference: S5O-01878

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is taking to ensure that disabled people are not disadvantaged by the ban on plastic straws.

Question reference: S5O-01841

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 28 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that a whistleblower has claimed that there has been "sizeable" misuse of public funds at the Scottish Police Authority.

Question reference: S5W-14131

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 26 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 9 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many businesses received disability and autism awareness training as a result of Scotland's Employer Recruitment Incentive (SERI).

Scotland's Employer Recruitment Incentive (SERI) provides a financial incentive to employers to recruit a young person with additional barriers to employment. It does not provide funding for awareness training.

The Scottish Government has provided separate funding to the Open Doors Consortium in 2016-17 and 2017-18 to provide a range of tailored in work support options to for employers to encourage the recruitment and increase the retention of young people with additional barriers to employment This includes disability and autism awareness training.

To date the Open Doors Consortium has delivered 226 disability and autism awareness training sessions to employers.

Question reference: S5W-14129

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 26 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 9 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many employment opportunities, including apprenticeships, have been made available to unemployed young people as a result of Scotland's Employer Recruitment Incentive (SERI), broken down by (a) disabled people or people with a long-term health condition, (b) care-experienced young people, (c) carers, (d) people with convictions, including community payback orders, (e) early leavers from the armed forces, veterans or ex-forces personnel, (f) people unemployed for six months or more who are not on the Work Programme or a Community Work Placement, (g) people who have failed their ESA Work Capability Assessment, (h) Work Programme completers who remain unemployed, (i) ethnic minority groups, (j) people from the Gypsy/Traveller community, (k) partners of current or ex-Armed Forces personnel, (l) people requiring support with language, literacy or numeracy, including those for whom English is an additional language, (m) lone parents, (n) people with lower than SCQF Level 5 qualifications, (o) young people who received additional support for learning in school, (p) refugees or other people granted leave to stay in the UK, (q) homeless people, including those in temporary or unstable accommodation and (r) people affected by substance misuse.

The information on the number of employment opportunities supported by Scotland’s Employer Recruitment Incentive, broken down by eligible groups in set out in the following table.

Eligibility	Employment Opportunities 2016-17
Disability or long term health condition	162
Care Experienced	21
Carer	20
Person with a conviction	26
Early leaver from forces & veterans	*
Partner of current or ex-armed forces	*
Long term unemployed (6 months +)	116
Failed ESA Work Capability Assessment	0
Work Programme completer - unemployed	*
Ethnic minority groups	15
Gypsy/Travelling community	0
Language, Literacy, Numeracy (Inc ESOL)	22
Lone Parent	8
Person with lower than SCQF Level 5	130
Received additional support - learning in school	15
Refugee or other granted leave to stay in the UK	0
Person affected by substance misuse	*
Homeless person	7

Those marked with a * are to protect anonymity as the numbers are less than 5.

** Eligibility for SERI changes in 2016-17. Figures in 2015-16 broadly reflect the same criteria.

Question reference: S5W-14128

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 26 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 9 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what level of funding it made available to Scotland's Employer Recruitment Incentive (SERI).