- Asked by: Beatrice Wishart, MSP for Shetland Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Ivan McKee on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with (a) the UK Government and (b) mobile network operators about improving the resilience of mobile network mast infrastructure in Scotland in order to support the continuation of vital communication links during power outages and other major incidents.
Answer
The security and resilience of the UK’s telecommunications network is reserved to the UK Parliament.
The Scottish Government works closely with UK Government, industry, Ofcom and other Devolved Administrations through the Electronic Communications – Resilience and Response Group (EC-RRG), which helps to plan for and respond to disruptive events.
Scottish Government officials also regularly engage with individual telecoms operators around disruptive events, such as Storm Arwen and the recent subsea cable break impacting Shetland, to help coordinate response and debriefs.
Our £28.75 million investment via the Scottish 4G Infill Programme is delivering new mobile infrastructure in 55 locations, which is improving 4G coverage and strengthening resilience of networks serving rural and island communities.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what it has done to support the development of the pain management workforce.
Answer
We understand the importance of appropriate staffing to provide high quality care for people with chronic pain. As set out in our National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care published in March 2022, we are committed to supporting the delivery of new training pathways for pain management to enhance and expand our pain-skilled workforce.
In July 2022 we published our Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery – Implementation Plan which sets out the actions we are taking to improve care and support for people with chronic pain, including through developing the pain management workforce. In support of this we have established a new national multi-disciplinary Chronic Pain Education Group which is focused on developing and promoting resources to enhance the knowledge and skills of healthcare professionals across Scotland.
In addition, we are working with the Faculty for Pain Medicine to support the development of new credentials to increase the availability of pain management specialists across our NHS. We are also supporting work to develop a credential for Advanced Care Practitioners in pain management which will support GPs, paramedics, Allied Healthcare Professionals and other key roles gain the knowledge and skills to provide holistic, effective support for people with chronic pain in their communities.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many community pharmacists have become independent prescribers via the National Clinical Skills for Pharmacists Programme in each year since the programme was founded.
Answer
The National Clinical Skills for pharmacists programme supports registered pharmacists take on new and extended clinical roles, however it is the Independent Prescriber course which allows community pharmacists to qualify as Independent Prescribers. In 2020-2021 NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) commissioned a total of 115 Independent Prescriber (IP) places for Community Pharmacists to undertake an IP qualification during 2021.
In 2021-2022 NES commissioned a total of 222 IP places for Community Pharmacists to undertake an IP qualification during 2022.
The Pharmacist Independent Prescribing qualification takes on average 12 months to complete and courses run 4 times a year, therefore to date 111 community pharmacists from these cohorts have qualified as an Independent Prescriber.
- Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 16 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Ivan McKee on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether the IMAX Theatre at Glasgow Science Centre is within the scope of the £5.5 million roof repair works currently being undertaken to replace the defective external cladding system at the facility.
Answer
The Glasgow Science Centre (GSC) is owned by the GSC Charitable Trust, a wholly owned subsidiary of Scottish Enterprise (SE). The Scottish Government is providing £5.5 million to SE to cover refurbishment work to GSC’s main buildings. A further £800,000 has been allocated to the work from SE’s budget. The work includes replacement of the titanium roof covering, installation of a new building management system and partial renewal of external glazing. The work does not include the IMAX Theatre.
- Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 16 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made with implementing split payments for Universal Credit.
Answer
Scottish Government officials continue to work with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to ensure that policy proposals for Split Payments are deliverable within the technical constraints of the DWP’s Universal Credit system. We have also carried out work with other external organisations and people with lived experience of Universal Credit to ensure the policy proposal is robust and meets the policy intent, which is to provide everyone in Scotland with access to an independent income and create barriers to potential domestic abuse or financial coercion.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 12 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Matheson on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6T-00960 by Lorna Slater on 15 November 2022, whether the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity plans to correct the Official Report, before the 20 working day deadline for doing so passes on 13 December 2022, in relation to the statement that the claim that Scotland has 25% of Europe’s potential offshore wind resource “is now outdated”, in light of the UK Statistics Authority’s reported investigation and letter of 7 December 2022 stating that it was never accurate and that “it is good practice for elected representatives to correct their use of official statistics”.
Answer
The Scottish Government accepts that this statistic needs revising and we have already committed to undertake further work to quantify Scotland’s offshore wind potential. In response to the issues raised in the UK Statistics Authority’s letter, dated 7 December 2022, the Scottish Government has engaged directly with the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) setting out the steps that have been taken to ensure the statistic is not used further, and provided an update on the analytical work that is underway to produce a replacement statistic.
- Asked by: Emma Roddick, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the publication, Neurological Conditions: estimating the prevalence in Scotland of selected conditions using General Practice and Hospital Admissions datasets, of those with a diagnosis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and in the GP practice dataset, how many were children whose age when the extract was taken was (a) under 5, (b) 5-11 and (c) 12-17.
Answer
This publication’s Supporting Documents include a spreadsheet file titled ‘General Practice recorded diagnoses’. Table 4 in this spreadsheet shows GP recorded diagnoses of neurological conditions, by sex and age. For each neurological condition shown, it gives the number of GP recorded diagnoses by sex in the following age bands: 0-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-19. This data is shown in the following table. In some cases small numbers have been suppressed to help maintain patient confidentiality. We do not have data apportioned to the exact age bands in the question.
Number of people diagnosed with ME/CFS by sex and age group
| | Age 0-4 | Age 5-9 | Age 10-14 | Age 15-19 |
Female | - | 7 | 16 | 115 |
Male | * | * | 27 | 77 |
(-) indicates a zero value
(*) indicates values that have been suppressed due to the potential risk of disclosure and to help maintain patient confidentiality
Please note that that these figures do not cover the whole of Scotland. The general practices whose data are included represented 72.7% of registered patients at the time of the data extract.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Patrick Harvie on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what support it will provide to help facilitate the development of a community-based heating scheme.
Answer
Reducing emissions from our homes and buildings is one of the most important things we can do to help end Scotland’s contribution to climate change, and communities have a key role to play within this.
The Scottish Government’s £300 million Heat Network Fund offers capital grant funding for the rollout of new zero emission heat networks and communal heating systems, as well as the expansion and decarbonisation of existing heat networks across Scotland.
At the start of December, our Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) launched the Community Heat Development Programme. This programme will work with eligible community organisations and groups of householders to help develop their ideas for locally-generated, low and zero carbon heat project ideas.
- Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many full-time equivalent staff, broken down by grade, have worked on tobacco policy within its Health Improvement Division in each year since 2017-18.
Answer
The following table details the number of full-time equivalent staff, broken down by grade, who have worked on tobacco policy within Health Improvement Division since 2017-18.
Please note the following:
- numbers do not equate to head count within Health Improvement Division.
- vacancies have not been included.
- numbers have been compiled using historic Scottish Government HR records
- during 2020/21 some staff would have focused on COVID pandemic response work
| | 31 March 2017 | 31 March 2018 | 31 March 2019 | 31 March 2020 | 31 March 2021 | 31 March 2022 | 10 January 2023 |
C2 | - | - | - | - | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.9 |
C1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.6 |
B3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | - |
B2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
B1 | - | 1 | 1 | 1 | | 1 | 1 |
A4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Total | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3.5 | 4.5 | 3.5 |
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Patrick Harvie on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions have taken place regarding potentially establishing a Rural Homes Just Transition Package.
Answer
Scottish Government officials had discussions with the Existing Homes Alliance during 2022 as part of the Alliance’s work to develop a Rural Homes Just Transition Package .
Our own National Just Transition Framework will ensure that those likely to face the greatest impacts as a result of the transition to net zero, including rural communities, are given a voice. Our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan, due to be published early next year, involved engagement with 1500 people (including businesses, workers, communities and young people).
We are producing Just Transition Plans for Transport, Land and Agriculture, Buildings and Construction that will publish in draft form in November 2023 alongside the new Climate Change Plan.
