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: S6O-02095

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 March 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body when it will next meet with representatives from the GMB trade union MSP staff branch.

Question reference: S6W-15820

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on Digital Planning in each of the last five years.

The Digital Planning Transformation programme is a £35 million programme to transform the planning service and realise £200 million economic benefits to the sector. Work is progressing to deliver outputs from five missions as set out in the

Digital Strategy for Planning that underpins the programme.

Year	Amount
2018-2019	£1,926,423.08
2019-2020	£2,817,556.51
2020-2021	£2,614,403.39
2021-2022	£2,739,118.22
2022-2023	£3,518,010.54

Question reference: S6W-15964

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) analysis it undertakes and (b) data it (i) holds and (ii) publishes on (A) tracking and (B) monitoring the successful sustainment, or otherwise, of the "positive destinations" of school leavers.

Information on the initial destinations of school leavers three months after the end of the school year (i.e. in October) is published in the Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations publication released in February each year. Information on the destinations of the same cohort of school leavers nine months after the end of the school year (i.e. the following April) is then published in Summary Statistics for Follow-up Leaver Destination each June.

Chart 4 of the follow-up leaver destination publication provides information on the percentage of school leavers whose follow-up destination was the same as their initial destination whilst table L1.8 of the associated supplementary tables provide more details of the percentages of school leavers who had sustained their initial destination or moved into another destination by the time of the follow-up data cut - i.e. 9 months after leaving school.

The information used to produce these destination statistics is sourced from the 'Opportunities for All' shared dataset. This dataset contains information on the activities undertaken by young people in Scotland and is managed and hosted by Skills Development Scotland (SDS). SDS supply the Scottish Government with two snapshots from this dataset throughout the year - in April and October.

Question reference: S6W-15821

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have accessed its Digital Planning tools in each of the last five years.

The eDevelopment service currently has 52,000 registered users.

In the last 5 years the eDevelopment homepage has been accessed 3,294,533 times. The figures in the following table set out the number of times that users have accessed the homepage. The information is broken down into each of the 5 years.

As of January 2023, over 1.41m planning and building standards applications have been submitted online via eDevelopment since the service went live in 2016.

The service regularly receives over 5,500 submissions each week.

We estimate that in 2021-2022, up to 95% of all planning submissions and 90% of building warrant applications are submitted online through the service.

No.	Year	User Sessions
1	2018	603,021
2	2019	634,241
3	2020	655,648
4	2021	722,284
5	2022	679,339

Question reference: S6W-15963

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many "lead teachers" have been appointed in each local authority, in each year since 2020, and how much has been (a) budgeted for and (b) spent to fund any such appointments.

There were five full-time equivalent lead teachers that met the required inclusion criteria for the 2022 School Staff Census, these were all from Scottish Borders. The role of lead teacher was established in June 2021, therefore figures are not available for earlier years.

The School Staff Census predominantly reports on posts with a classroom teaching remit, some lead teachers may be employed in posts without a classroom teaching remit and therefore will not be included in the counts collected and reported as part of the annual census.

There is no information held centrally on the budget or funding for lead teacher appointments. The recruitment and employment of teachers in local authority schools are matters for individual councils, as they have the statutory duty for education expenditure and to deliver education. Councils have the statutory responsibility for providing a complement of teachers, including lead teachers, and all other necessary support staff which best meets the needs of each of their schools and its pupils within the resources available.

Question reference: S6W-15929

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-15344 by Lorna Slater on 10 March 2023, whether it will provide the information requested regarding (a) what communication it has had with drinks suppliers outside of Scotland to inform them of the Deposit Return Scheme, and (b) which companies it has informed of the scheme in each of the last 12 months, also broken down by country or region.

Question reference: S6W-15933

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding is currently allocated for goose management schemes, and how much has been spent in each of the last three years, broken down by scheme.

Management Agreement Costs

Schemes for Annex 1 goose species (barnacle geese, white-fronted geese) and pink-footed geese at Strathbeg

Financial Year	Islay	Kintyre	Slamannan	Solway	South Walls	Strathbeg	Uist, Coll & Tiree
2019-20	£937,000	£64,282	-	£234,668	£27,243	£13,460	£67,598
2020-21	£929,990	£68,259	-	£237,502	£27,495	£789	£67,806
2021-22	£911,498	£66,500	-	£230,568	£23,711	-	£64,966

Allocated 2022-23	£770,000	£58,014	-	£178,990	£15,562	-	£60,000

NatureScot and Scottish Government expenditure on Adaptive Management Pilot Projects for resident greylag geese in Scotland (inclusive of monitoring and development costs)

Adaptive Management Projects	Uist	Orkney	Tiree	Lewis
2019-20	£8,500	£14,245	-	£6,489
2020-21	£7,212	£12,319	£2,400	£6,489
2021-22	£6,000	£38,181	£6,000	£6,000

Allocated 2022-23	£7,500	£36,131	£6,000	£7,500

Question reference: S6W-15947

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when it plans to consult on removing the 50kW threshold above which permitted development rights do not apply for solar panels on commercial rooftops.

Question reference: S6W-15969

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has issued a letter of guidance to the Scottish Funding Council for 2023-24, and, if so, when the letter was issued.

Question reference: S6W-15967

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government for what purpose it awarded the £26 million of additional funding for colleges.